Day 19, Joshua 10-19

Hi folks! Today's reading consists of more battles, culminating in the division of the land between the tribes. I am sorry to say that it is not entirely interesting -- much of the content is simply lists of places and names -- but we will forge onward diligently and look for the golden moments hidden within.

In yesterday's reading, the cities of central Palestine -- Jericho and Ai -- were conquered. Today, the Israelites take on the rest of the country and have remarkable success in their endeavors. Chapter 10 retells the conquest of southern Palestine, ending in the deaths of five powerful kings. They flee to a cave, where they are found by Joshua, who urges his troops to "come forward and put your feet on the necks of these kings" (Joshua 10:24). Well, that's kind of weird! After the Israelites use the kings' necks as ottomans, they are hung on gibbets and left out until the end of the day.

The battles continue in rather unremarkable fashion, the Israelites conducting themselves with the same merciless brutality we saw in yesterday's reading. They are really huge jerks! Based on a reference to Joshua's age a the beginning of chapter 13, we can determine that these conquests take about five years, during which almost all the previous inhabitants of Palestine are killed. Certain tribes or ethnic groups do survive, but are permitted to exist only as slaves to the tribes. Ughhhh. It's too cruel. They are like 16th century explorers or colonizers or something. As Rudyard Kipling might say, take up the white man's burden, Israel! History needs more self-entitled assholes!

Many of these conquests end with the allotment of certain territories to certain tribes, an occasion that is usually completely indecipherable to me since I don't actually know the geography of ancient Palestine and can't envision where these places are. For your benefit, I will provide a map. The first is an old one and is really cool looking but not particularly useful; the second was made on someone's computer and is therefore less cool but will give you a good idea of where everyone wound up living:

 

On the right you can see the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh; these are the groups that wanted to settle on the other bank of the Jordan River. You may also notice that Simeon's territory is rather small, and contained within Judah's. This is because the tribe of Simeon diminished substantially over the years, and was in fact not even mentioned in Moses's blessing at the end of Deuteronomy. 

Another point of interest is the fact that the Josephites (Manasseh and Ephraim) seem to have a huge amount of land! This doesn't have to do with them being a bigger tribe so much as it has to do with them being SELF-ENTITLED LITTLE BITCHES like their founder before them! After receiving their share of land they appeal to Joshua: "Why have you given us only one lot and one share as our holding? We are a numerous people; so far the Lord has blessed us" (Joshua 17:14). Joshua responds that if they want more land they should go into the hills and take it for themselves, but they persist with their bitching and whining, saying that "the hill country is not enough for us" (Joshua 17:16). Joshua agrees and permits them to expel the Canaanites from the hill country and surrounding area, giving credibility to the old adage: "If at first you don't succeed, complain."

Another noteworthy observation: the Israelites are mentioned, on a few occasions, to be unable to conquer an area! These failures are mentioned briefly, and seem insignificant, but if God is unequivocally on the side of the Jews, why the heck does this happen?

I will draw this entry to a close now, since these chapters were truly not very interesting and I think I've milked them for all they are worth. I spent the majority of the reading looking for funny names, some of which I will share right now: for funny cities, we had Ashdod, Dumah, Humtah, Sores, and Baalath-beer. For funny names we had Jobab. Also making an appearance was Mount Carmel, which serves as a boundary line for the Asherite territory and is significant because it was my age group at Jew camp! We were Carmel! The big kids were Galil, Halutzeem, and, uhhh... Haifa? I don't really remember. All I know is that because we were the youngest group they assumed we were also stupid, and our group chant was terrible. Everyone else got a neat song, but we just had to stand up in front of everyone and go, "Carmel's gonna get ya, gonna get ya!" over and over. It was terrible. I'm still mad about it.

In spite of evoking these memories, these chapters were not entirely useless. We got some important logistics out of the way, dividing the tribes into their land, so hopefully the fun can resume tomorrow. See you then!