Note that the Tent of Meeting was now in Shiloh, along with the leaders of the nation. What a great place for God’s presence to rest!
Once the land was allotted, God instructed Joshua to designate the cities of refuge of which He had spoken earlier. Yeah, He really meant that. Justice is important enough to Him that He made sure this provision for promoting it was carried out. Let’s not forget this about God.
How can it be true that God gave them all the land He had promised them and fulfilled all His good promises to them, when our readings of the previous two days indicated that the Israelites were not able to dislodge some of the former inhabitants from the land? How can it be true that “no one of all their enemies stood before them?” Again, believing that Scripture is true and thus does not contradict itself, I look for a reasonable explanation for this inconsistency rather than doubt God’s word or look the other way. The reasonable explanation is that their enemies were defeated in battle – but came back. How did that happen? It happened because Israel was not faithful to do all that God commanded by destroying “all who breathed.” The survivors wasted no time in retaking their homes. So it’s not God’s faithfulness that failed; it was their own. The result illustrates the truth that we disobey God’s commands at our own peril.
They apparently didn’t even try to confront some of the cities and areas because they couldn’t inhabit them anyway. In Exodus 23:28 – 31 God told Moses that He wouldn’t give them the entire Promised Land at once because they weren’t numerous enough to possess it. Some of the land would be taken gradually as they grew more numerous and thus able to possess it. Thus, some of the cities and areas intentionally remained the temporary possession of the previous inhabitants according to God’s promise. The book of Judges tells of Israel starting to take more of those lands at a future date.
If you compare the accounts of what the Israelites were unable to wrest from the previous inhabitants with the description of the cities given to the Levites, you will notice that the leaders gave to the Levites cities which were not fully in their possession! Does that look as ugly to you as it does to me? The victories they enjoyed and the praise they gave to God for them might fool us into thinking that they were the lovely ideal God intended them to be, but this action on top of their unfaithfulness and resulting failure to take the land in truth, indicates otherwise.
Recalling that Israel teaches us lessons about the character of fallen human nature – my own fallen human nature -, I have to ask myself, does that reveal anything about my own character? Do I give the impression that I am faithful to God while demonstrating unfaithfulness? Am I stingy in my giving by giving the worst of what I have to give, or worse yet, what isn’t even mine to give? As we are confronted with the disappointing and even repulsive example of God’s Old Testament people, it is a good time to ask God to search our own hearts and lives and reveal to us what like this is in us, and then ask Him to refine us of any that might be there. Won’t you ask Him today?