21:1-42
Having dealt with the cities of refuge, we now come to towns for the Levites. These were the priests, and we have repeatedly been told that they had no permanent place in the land allocation because their inheritance was in the Lord. However, the tribes had been commanded by Moses to make provision for the Levites. It seems that the Levites were concerned that Joshua had forgotten about this, so the Levite leaders approached Eleazar, Joshua and the tribal heads about the matter.
However, the matter had not been forgotten, and appropriate allocation was made, for which we get all the details. So the allocation of land was now complete.
21:43-45
It is the end of the chapter which has the most interesting part, and the part which promotes the most debate. These verses imply completion of the takeover of the land. However, we know, and the book has explicitly stated, that while there had been a lot of conquering, there were still some areas that had not been properly conquered, and some peoples who had not been entirely defeated (Josh 13:1). However, the emphasis of these verses is one what the Lord has done. He had given them all the land, when they faithfully went into battle and got on with the work, they won. But if they were less than diligent, problems still remained. It was not the Lord’s promises that failed, but Israel. The same applies to all of us in our Christian lives. Christ’s work of redemption is complete, but we have not yet “taken all the land”.
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