1And Joshua was old, advanced in years. And the LORD said to him, “You are old, advanced in years, and very much of the land remains to take hold of. 2This is the land remaining: all the provinces of the Philistines and all of the Geshurites, 3from the Shihor, which faces Egypt, to the region of Ekron to the north, it is reckoned Canaanite. The five Philistine overlords, the Gazite, and the Ashdodite, the Ascolonite, the Gittite, and the Ekronite. And the Avvites 4on the south, all the Canaanite land from Arah of the Sidonians to Aphek, which is on the Amorite border, 5and the land of the Giblite, and all of Lebanon to the east, from Baal-Gad below Mount Hermon to the approach to Hamath. 6All the inhabitants of the high country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-Mayim, all the Sidonians, I Myself will dispossess them before the Israelites, only to make it fall in estate to Israel as I have charged you. 7And now, divide this land in estate among the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 8with whom the Reubenites and the Gadites took their estate that Moses gave them across the Jordan to the east, as Moses servant of the LORD gave them, 9from Aroer, which is on the banks of Wadi Arnon, and the town that is in the wadi, and the plain from Medeba to Dibon, 10and all the towns of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, to the border of the Ammonites, 11and Gilead and the territory of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and all of Mount Hermon and all Bashan to Saleah, 12and all the kingdoms of Og in Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei—he remained from the remnant of the Rephaim, and Moses struck them down and dispossessed them. 13But the Israelites did not dispossess the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and Geshur and Maacath have dwelled in the midst of Israel to this day. 14Only to the tribe of Levi he gave no estate. The fire offerings of the LORD God of Israel, they are its estate, as He had spoken to it. 15And Moses gave to the tribe of the Reubenites according to its clans, 16and it became their territory from Aroer, which is on the banks of Wadi Arnon, and the town that is in the wadi and the whole plain to Medeba. 17Heshbon and all its towns that are on the plain, Dibon and Bamoth-Baal and Beth-Baal-Meon, 18and Jaza and Kedemoth and Mephaath, 19and Kiriathaim and Sibma and Zereth-Shahar on the Mountain of the Valley, 20and Beth-Peor and the slopes of Pisgah and Beth-Jeshimoth, 21and all the towns of the plain and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses struck down—and the princes of Midian, Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba, princes of Sihon who dwelled in the land. 22And Balaam son of Beor, the soothsayer, the Israelites killed by the sword with the rest of their slain. 23And the border of the Reubenites was the Jordan. This was the estate of the Reubenites by their clans, the towns and their hamlets. 24And Moses had given it to the tribe of Gad and to the Gadites by their clans, 25and it became their territory: Jazer and all the towns of Gilead and half of the land of the Ammonites as far as Aroer, which is just before Rabbah, 26and from Heshbon as far as Ramoth-Mizpeh, and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the border of Lidber, 27and in the Valley, Beth-Haran and Beth-Nimrah and Succoth and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdoms of Sihon king of Heshbon, from the Jordan and its border to the edge of the Sea of Chinnereth across the Jordan to the east. 28This is the estate of the Gadites according to their clans, the towns and their hamlets. 29And Moses gave it to the half-tribe of Manasseh and it went to the half-tribe of the Manassites according to their clans, 30and their territory was from Mahanaim, all of Bashan, all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, and all of Havvoth-Jair, which is in Bashan, sixty towns, 31and half of Gilead and Ashtaroth and Edrei, the royal towns of Og in Bashan, to the sons of Machir son of Manasseh, to half of the sons of Machir according to their clans. 32These were what Moses apportioned in estate in the plains of Moab across the Jordan to the east of Jericho. 33But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no estate—the LORD God of Israel, He is their estate, as He had spoken to them.”
CHAPTER 13 NOTES
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1. very much of the land remains to take hold of. There is a tension between the section that begins here and the previous account of Joshua’s conquest. In the preceding chapters, one gets the impression of a grand sweep of victories in which the Israelite forces led by Joshua took town after town, virtually the whole land. But the audience of this narrative was well aware that there were substantial regions of the land that for long periods were not controlled by the Israelites, and this awareness is registered here.
2. all the provinces of the Philistines. In fact, the Philistines did not establish their pentapolis along the Mediterranean shore, having arrived perhaps from the Aegean, until a generation or more after the putative time of Joshua.
3. overlords. The Hebrew seren is in all likelihood a loanword from the Philistine language. Some scholars think it is cognate with the Greek tyrranos.
the Avvites. These are an indigenous Canaanite people bordering on Philistine territory who remained unconquered by the Philistines.
4. from Arah. The received text reads “and from Arah.” Arah is not a known place-name, and some emend it to Acco, which was a Sidonian town. Strenuous scholarly efforts have been made, and will not be recapitulated here, to identify all the towns and regions. Some names in the list nevertheless defy identification, and there are elements in the geographical indications that seem scrambled.
7. the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh. These are the tribes that settled west of the Jordan, the other two and a half tribes remaining on the east side of the Jordan.
8. with whom the Reubenites and the Gadites took their estate. That is, these two tribes plus the other half of the tribe of Manasseh. The more likely historical scenario is not that Israelites settled east of the Jordan in the original conquest but that they migrated there by stages later in search of land.
10. border. The Hebrew gevul sometimes means “border” and sometimes “territory” or “region,” the meaning shifting in this chapter.
12. he remained from the remnant of the Rephaim. See the comment on 12:4.
13. Maacath. This is either a variant, archaic form of Maachah or a scribal error.
dwelled in the midst of Israel. As elsewhere, this phrase does not mean that they were geographically integrated with Israel but that they had peaceful relations with the Israelites.
14. the fire offerings of the LORD God of Israel, they are its estate. A substantial part of these sacrifices was not burned and thus was available to the Levites as food. This verse, reiterated at the end of the chapter, probably reflects a Deuteronomistic background in which the cult has been centralized in Jerusalem.
22. Balaam son of Beor. The killing off of Balaam, who in Numbers 22–24 delivered, against his own intention, a grand prophecy of blessing about Israel, may reflect a nationalist nervousness over the prominence of this Aramean soothsayer. Lest one think he lived happily ever after once he had returned to his native land, here he is included among the victims of the conquest.