God already won the battle, now go claim your land.
In Joshua Chapter 18 the children of israel are claiming the land of Israel as their own for the first time. God has told them it is their and where the outmost bounds should be, but he has not told the children of israel any particulars about which tribes go where. He left that up to the children of Israel to decide. By this point 5 of the 12 tribes had claimed their promise land and started to settle in. The other 7 tribes were simply not claiming their promises. Joshua realizes that these tribes are not fulfilling their mission and this is the scripture.1And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them.
2And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet received their inheritance.
3And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which theLord God of your fathers hath given you?
Joshua looks at the Children of Israel and in laymen's terms he says. "What is wrong with you? Whyare you being lazy? God gave you this land and you have not claimed it. The one who gave it to you is the LORD GOD of your fathers and he GAVE YOU THIS LAND. What't wrong with you people?"
In verse one we read that God had already subdued the land. Now what does SUBDUED THE LAND mean?
One definition for the word subdued is this. to overpower by superior force; overcome. This means another way we could read this scripture is this, The land was overpowered by a superior force. God had already claimed the land as his own. He had mastered the land and then he gave it to the children of israel.
For years the the people of Israel had been traveling in the wilderness. A place where there were few to no towns and these towns could in no way hold the the more then 1million men that were with the children of Israel. There was definitely no place to hold more then a million sheep, or a million oxen. The people needed their own land and God had provided it for them.
I used to think that they were given the land and ran the the farmers that lived on the land before they were given the land by God, but this is not the case. God gave the children of Israel. Towns with crops, and buildings, and homes, and stores. There were lumberyards, places for schools and markets. All these places were already built. God tell us later in scripture that they were given crops that they did not plant. God had prepared everything.
The first five tribes had already claimed their lands. The others had seen the beautiful things that the first five tribes had been given and that the Lord had blessed them, but for some reason instead of waling over to their land and saying hey God gave me this, they stopped and decided to wait.
Joshua had to wake them up. HEY IT IS TIME TO CLAIM YOUR VICTORY, GOD ALREADY WON THE BATTLE.
more to come.
