I just read what is usually considered one of the most boring sections of Scripture, the long description of the land as it is allotted to each tribe as their inheritance (Joshua 13-21).
Here is what I discovered:
- God usually gives us less than we want, and more than we can handle. Consider Joseph in Joshua 17:14ff. They complain that they don't have enough land. But it turns out they really do have enough, it's just filled with forests and foes to fight back. It wasn't that they didn't have enough. It was just hard work. We would rather complain about what God has given us than do the work of harnesses the raw resources God has given us to manage.
- Jerusalem is a city given to the tribe of Benjamin, originally. No one could drive the Canaanites out of that city until David finally does it. He does a lot of things that Saul (from Benjamin) should have done as king - like fight and defeat Goliath. And then when David, the youth from Judah, becomes the unquestioned king, he makes Jerusalem, of Benjamin, his capital. One point he makes is that Israel is less tribe-oriented now that she has a true king. David doesn't have to stay in his tribe, he is king of ALL God's people.
- "not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass" (Josh 21:45). Every tribe, every family, received a place, a plot of land to work. Psalm 16:6 - "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance." No pushing or shoving in line was needed. God feeds and provides for ALL His people.
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