Joshua 15 Bible study: Judah's lot

The first tribe's lot the book tells is Judah's: "The lot for the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families" (15:1) (tap lot). Joseph's comes next (16:1), and the other seven tribes draw theirs later at Shiloh (18:1-2, 18:10). Judah often comes first in the books before this one. Judah camped on the east "toward the sunrise" (Numbers 2:3) and was told, "They shall set out first" (Numbers 2:9), and "First, the standard of the camp of the children of Judah went forward" (Numbers 10:14). After Eleazar and Joshua, the first of the tribal princes named to divide the land is "Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh" (Numbers 34:17-19). After Joshua dies, Israel asks, "Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites", and the LORD answers, "Judah shall go up" (Judges 1:1-2). Joshua 15 doesn't say why Judah's lot comes first. Long before, Jacob had said, "Judah, your brothers will praise you" (Genesis 49:8) and "The scepter will not depart from Judah" (Genesis 49:10). Genesis 49's line on the Prophecy Map already carries Judah's lion to "the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah" (Revelation 5:5), so this chapter points back to it and draws no second line.

Joshua 15:19→leads toLuke 11:13

Achsah asks her father, "Give me a blessing… give me also springs of water", and "he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs" (15:19). Jesus taught about fathers whose children ask them for something: "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?" (Luke 11:11), and "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:13). Jesus doesn't cite Joshua 15, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on the same situation, a child asking a father, not on any shared word. Some see Caleb as one of the fathers Jesus describes, who gave a good gift to the child who asked, and hear in Luke 11:13 how much more the heavenly Father gives. Others read Luke 11:13 within its own teaching on prayer, which begins, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1), and Joshua 15:19 as the record of land and water given to Caleb's daughter, without looking from one to the other.

גּוֹרָלgoralsay go-RAL

Strong's: "properly, a pebble, i.e. a lot (small stones being used for that purpose)". Brown-Driver-Briggs: "lot", including "lot for dividing land". "The lot for the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families" (15:1). The land was shared out "by the lot of their inheritance, as the LORD commanded by Moses" (14:2), as Numbers had said: "the land shall be divided by lot" (Numbers 26:55). Joshua uses the word 26 times, and 15:1 is the first tribe's lot the book tells; Joseph's follows (16:1). A proverb says who decides: "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Proverbs 16:33).