Joshua 15

Bible Passage:  Joshua 15

Unless you are super keen on really old Biblical geography, the first half of the chapter will not mean much to you, other than to highlight how vast the land given to the tribe of Judah was. Ok… I did not really check on the Bible atlas but it sounds very large.

I cannot pretend or make it more exciting than my secondary Geography text book so I won’t try.

In today’s passage, we are reminded that Joshua had agreed to give Caleb a portion of Judah’s territory for his steadfastness to God’s commands.  Caleb was given the portion known as Hebron.  Caleb drove out three Anakites (some enemies of Israel) and then planned to attack those people living in Debir.

Caleb essentially auctioned off his daughter Acsah by having her marry whoever attacked and captured Debir.  Othniel succeeded at this task, so Caleb gave his daughter to him.

Side Fun Quiz

Never really read it clearly before but I am a little confused about what was Othniel’s relationship with Caleb.

In the english versions of the Bible, it reads to me that Othniel son of Kenaz, was Caleb’s brother.  In the chinese bible, it says that Othniel was the son of Kenaz, who was Caleb’s brother (Joshuan 15:17).

If the english versions are accurate, it would mean that Caleb gave his daughter to his brother in marriage.  And that’s a little weird to me (:

One day, Acsah told her husband/uncle to ask her father/brother-in-law for a field.  When she had received land, she then asked her father for springs of water, and he gave them to her.  The rest of the chapter lists all the clans of Judah and where their land allotments were.  The only land they did not take over was that occupied by the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem, so they lived among them.

Did you eyes just scanned through verse 20 to 63?  Shame on you! You would have lost a valuable lesson today!

Ok, ok… I must admit…. I actually did that and was about to write something totally different until I actually read Joshua 15:63…

As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.

I was reading a comment by a famous Bible scholar Adam Clarke who said…

“The whole history of Jerusalem, previously to the time of David, is encumbered with many difficulties. Sometimes it is attributed to Judah, sometimes to Benjamin, and it is probable that, being on the frontiers of both those tribes, each possessed a part of it.

If the Jebusites were ever driven out before the time of David, it is certain they recovered it again, or at least a part of it – what is called the citadel or strong hold of Zion, (see 2Sam 5:7), which he took from them; after which the city fell wholly into the hands of the Israelites.” – Adam Clarke

In Joshua 14, we read that Caleb said, “Give me this hill country” and after 45 years, finally he was get his reward.

That’s God’s time!

Very often we do things on our own timing and expect things to happen or be rewarded by God on our own timing too!

But here it shows clearly that God is always faithful in His promises… according to His time and not our time.  So we should not be too anxious when we do not get an immediate answer that we are looking for.  God’s time and our time can be very different.

But verse 63 actually tells me a bigger problem…. sometimes – maybe many a times – we do not finish the job that God gives us to do.

It has been clear in the last chapters that Israel is to drive every Canaanite out of the promised land.  This definitely includes the Jebusites.

But here we read that they did not get rid of the Jebusites but that they remained to this day!  And caused the Israelites a great deal of problems.

So a question for us today (after my long drawn attempt to get to the point) is this:

“Are there any things in our lives where God has given us something to do but we just simply have not finished the job?”

I must admit that if God were to arrange us in descending order of unfinished work for Him, I would pretty much be ahead in the queue.

It is a sobering thought to realize that if we do not finish off the jobs given to us by God, these unfinished work could in turn harm us in the future and cause us a great deal of distress… much like how the Jebusites did to the Israelites.

May we ask God to help us with the “Jebusites” in our lives that we need to drive out.