For Teaching

Joshua 13: What the Passage Says

107 claims across 33 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Joshua 13 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Joshua, now old, that large areas of land are still unconquered, and lists them: Philistine and Geshurite territory, Canaanite land, and the region of Lebanon. God says he will drive out the people of the hill country, and tells Joshua to divide the land by lot among the nine and a half tribes west of the Jordan. The chapter then records the land Moses had already given east of the Jordan to Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, listing their boundaries and towns, and notes twice that the tribe of Levi received no land.

Claim by Claim

13:1
- Joshua was old and advanced in years.
- The LORD spoke to Joshua.
- The LORD told Joshua that he was old and advanced in years.
- The LORD said that a very great amount of land remained to be possessed.
13:2
- The LORD said this is the land that remains.
- The remaining land includes all the regions of the Philistines.
- The remaining land includes all the territory of the Geshurites.
13:3
- The remaining land extends from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, to the border of Ekron on the north.
- That territory is reckoned as Canaanite.
- There are five lords of the Philistines.
- The Philistine lords are those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.
- The remaining land also includes the Avvites.
13:4
- To the south lies all the land of the Canaanites.
- Mearah, which belongs to the Sidonians, extends to Aphek.
- The territory extends to the border of the Amorites.
13:5
- The remaining land includes the land of the Gebalites.
- The remaining land includes all Lebanon toward the sunrise.
- That territory runs from Baal-gad below Mount Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.
13:6
- The LORD said He would drive out all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim before the children of Israel.
- The LORD said He would drive out all the Sidonians before the children of Israel.
- The LORD commanded Joshua to divide the land by lot to Israel as an inheritance.
- The LORD said He had already commanded Joshua concerning this.
13:7
- The LORD commanded Joshua to divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes.
- The LORD commanded Joshua to include the half tribe of Manasseh in the division.
13:8
- The Reubenites and the Gadites had received their inheritance.
- Moses gave the Reubenites and Gadites their inheritance beyond the Jordan on the east.
- Moses is called the servant of the LORD.
13:9
- Their territory extended from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon valley.
- Their territory included the city that is in the middle of the valley.
- Their territory included all the plateau of Medeba as far as Dibon.
13:10
- Their territory included all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Sihon reigned in Heshbon.
- Their territory extended to the border of the children of Ammon.
13:11
- Their territory included Gilead.
- Their territory included the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites.
- Their territory included all Mount Hermon.
- Their territory included all Bashan as far as Salcah.
13:12
- Their territory included all the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
- Og reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei.
- Og remained of the remnant of the Rephaim.
- Moses struck them down.
- Moses dispossessed them.
13:13
- The children of Israel did not drive out the Geshurites.
- The children of Israel did not drive out the Maacathites.
- Geshur and Maacath dwell among Israel to this day.
13:14
- To the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance.
- The offerings made by fire to the LORD, the God of Israel, are Levi's inheritance.
- This was as He had spoken to Levi.
13:15
- Moses gave an inheritance to the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their families.
13:16
- Their territory was from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon valley.
- Their territory included the city that is in the middle of the valley.
- Their territory included all the plateau by Medeba.
13:17
- Their territory included Heshbon and all its cities on the plateau.
- Their territory included Dibon.
- Their territory included Bamoth-baal.
- Their territory included Beth-baal-meon.
13:18
- Their territory included Jahaz.
- Their territory included Kedemoth.
- Their territory included Mephaath.
13:19
- Their territory included Kiriathaim.
- Their territory included Sibmah.
- Their territory included Zereth-shahar on the hill of the valley.
13:20
- Their territory included Beth-peor.
- Their territory included the slopes of Pisgah.
- Their territory included Beth-jeshimoth.
13:21
- Their territory included all the cities of the plateau.
- Their territory included all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.
- Moses struck down Sihon.
- Moses struck down the chiefs of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba.
- These chiefs were princes of Sihon.
- These chiefs dwelt in the land.
13:22
- The children of Israel killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.
- Balaam was a diviner.
- Balaam was killed among the others slain by them.
13:23
- The border of the children of Reuben was the Jordan and its border.
- This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben according to their families.
- The inheritance included the cities and their villages.
13:24
- Moses gave an inheritance to the tribe of Gad, to the children of Gad according to their families.
13:25
- Their territory was Jazer.
- Their territory included all the cities of Gilead.
- Their territory included half the land of the children of Ammon.
- Their territory extended to Aroer, which is before Rabbah.
13:26
- Their territory extended from Heshbon to Ramath-mizpeh and Betonim.
- Their territory extended from Mahanaim to the border of Debir.
13:27
- Their territory included in the valley Beth-haram, Beth-nimrah, Succoth, and Zaphon.
- Their territory included the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon.
- Their territory included the Jordan and its border.
- Their territory extended to the edge of the Sea of Chinnereth.
- This territory was beyond the Jordan on the east.
13:28
- This was the inheritance of the children of Gad according to their families.
- The inheritance included the cities and their villages.
13:29
- Moses gave an inheritance to the half tribe of Manasseh.
- The allotment was for the half tribe of the children of Manasseh according to their families.
13:30
- Their territory was from Mahanaim.
- Their territory included all Bashan.
- Their territory included all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan.
- Their territory included all the towns of Jair in Bashan.
- The towns of Jair numbered sixty cities.
13:31
- Their territory included half of Gilead.
- Their territory included Ashtaroth and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
- These belonged to the children of Machir son of Manasseh.
- These belonged to half of the children of Machir according to their families.
13:32
- These are the inheritances Moses distributed in the plains of Moab.
- That place was beyond the Jordan by Jericho, on the east.
13:33
- Moses gave no inheritance to the tribe of Levi.
- The LORD, the God of Israel, was their inheritance.
- This was as He had spoken to them.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1: "Stricken in years" is old English for advanced in age; it has nothing to do with illness or being struck down.
13:2: The Philistines were a people settled in five cities on the southern coastal plain, culturally distinct from the Canaanites and Israel's chief rivals for generations. The Geshurites named here are a small group in the far south; they are not the same as the Geshur east of the Sea of Galilee mentioned in verse 11.
13:3: The Shihor was a watercourse at Egypt's frontier, probably an eastern branch of the Nile or the desert wadi that marked the border. The KJV's "lords" translates a Hebrew title, *seren*, used only of Philistine rulers: five men, one for each city, who acted together as a council rather than under a single king. The Avvites were an earlier population living in the same area before the Philistines arrived.
13:4: Sidon was a Phoenician port city on the coast of what is now Lebanon. "Sidonians" is often used loosely for the Phoenicians in general.
13:5: The Gebalites were the people of Gebal, the Phoenician port the Greeks later called Byblos. Lebo-hamath, the KJV's "entering into Hamath," was the pass leading toward the city of Hamath on the Orontes River; it served as the standard marker of Israel's ideal far-northern limit.
13:6: Casting lots meant drawing marked stones or sticks; it was a way of settling a decision that took the choice out of human hands. "Inheritance" here translates a word meaning a permanent family holding, land that stays in the family line generation after generation, rather than a one-time gift that could be traded away.
13:7: The count works out because Levi receives no land at all and Joseph is counted as two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh had already taken land east of the Jordan, which leaves nine and a half tribes to be settled west of the river.
13:8: "Beyond Jordan" in the KJV means the far side of the river as seen by someone standing west of it: that is, the eastern side.
13:9: The Arnon is a deep gorge running west into the Dead Sea; it was the traditional dividing line between Moab to the south and the territory to the north. The "plain" of the KJV is a flat tableland of high open country, not low ground.
13:10: Sihon was the Amorite king who refused Israel passage through his land and was defeated on the way north; the story is told in Numbers 21.
13:11: Gilead is the hilly, wooded region east of the Jordan; Bashan is the high, fertile plateau farther north, east of the Sea of Galilee.
13:12: Og of Bashan was the second king defeated east of the Jordan. The KJV's "giants" renders *Rephaim*, the name of an earlier population remembered in Israel's traditions for unusual size; it is a people's name, not a general word for giants.
13:13: "Until this day" means as of the time this account was written down, which was long after the events described.
13:14: The tribe of Levi supplied the priests and the staff of the sanctuary. Instead of farmland they were supported by set portions of the animals and grain that worshipers brought to be burned on the altar, along with tithes and other dues.
13:15: "Families" here means groups of relatives, like cousins and aunts and uncles all together. Each group got its own piece of the land.
13:16: "Coast" in the KJV means a border or the territory inside it; it has nothing to do with the sea.
13:17: Many town names start with "Beth." In their language, Beth means "house." So Beth-baal-meon means "house of Baal-meon."
13:19: "In the mount of the valley" means the town sat on a hill that rose inside the valley floor.
13:20: Pisgah is the ridge in the highlands east of the Dead Sea from which Moses looked out over the land. Beth-peor lay nearby, close to Israel's last camp before crossing the Jordan.
13:21: The KJV's "dukes" and "princes" mean tribal chiefs and subordinate rulers, not European-style nobility. Midian was a nomadic or semi-nomadic people of the desert regions to the south and east.
13:22: Balaam was the seer hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel, who ended up blessing them instead; the story runs through Numbers 22–24. A "soothsayer" was a professional diviner, someone paid to read omens and deliver oracles.
13:23: "Jordan, and the border thereof" means the river itself and its bank formed the western edge; Reuben's land stopped at the water.
13:25: The land described as Ammonite was territory Ammon had earlier lost to Sihon, which is why Israel could take it without attacking Ammon directly. Rabbah was the Ammonite capital, on the site of present-day Amman.
13:27: The Sea of Chinnereth is the freshwater lake later known as the Sea of Galilee.
13:30: These are the "tent-villages of Jair," a cluster of small unwalled settlements named after a descendant of Manasseh who took them. "Threescore" in the KJV means sixty.
13:31: Machir was Manasseh's firstborn son; his descendants made up the tribe's dominant clan, which is why the half tribe's allotment is described as going to them.
13:32: The plains of Moab are the flat stretch of land east of the Jordan, opposite Jericho, where Israel camped before crossing the river.
13:33: The word translated "inheritance" normally means an allotted piece of land. Saying the LORD is Levi's inheritance uses that legal term deliberately: what the other tribes held in fields, Levi held in service at the sanctuary and the income that came with it.

Read Joshua 13