Joshua 13

The land left to be conquered (vs. 1-7)--The Lord had told Israel in Deuteronomy 7:22, "And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you." And so by the time of Joshua's death, there remained quite a bit of territory to be subjugated and occupied. That land is defined in the first seven verses of Joshua 13. Yet, since the Lord did intend to "drive out them from before the children of Israel" (v. 6), He commanded Joshua to go ahead and "divide it by lot to Israel as an inheritance" (v. 6). So each tribe would know the extension of their territory and then move in and conquer it. But the Lord would be with them, if they remained faithful to Him. Which they did not.

The land given to Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh (vs. 8-14)--It has already been noted several times through the course of the first few books of the Bible that these three tribes received their land on the eastern side of the Jordan. Just for the record's sake, their land is once again noted in this section. Verse 14 mentions that the tribe of Levi would get no land inheritance, because "the sacrifices of the LORD God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as He said to them." Levi had the greatest privilege of all--to officiate at the worship of the Lord. Jehovah wanted them to concentrate on that, and not be distracted by any kind of agrarian or commercial pursuits.

The territory of Reuben (vs. 15-23)--The previous section was general; now the writer gets specific and explains exactly the boundaries of Reuben's territory. There were many cities and kingdoms that fell into the Reubenites hands. Some of them are listed here. It would be a good idea for the reader to look at a map just to get a general idea of where the various land allotments lay.

Gad's allotment (vs. 24-28)--Now the land given to the tribe of Gad is noted.

The territory of half the tribe of Manasseh (vs. 29-33)--And the chapter ends by describing the territory given to half the tribe of Manasseh. The other half of the tribe would receive its territory west of the Jordan River, of course. Verse 33 concludes the chapter by basically repeating verse 14 about the Levites.