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Joshua 16 Bible study: Ephraim's border, and Gezer

Joseph's one lot became two tribes' land, and Ephraim's border is drawn first; Jacob had once "set Ephraim before Manasseh" (Genesis 48:20). At the Jordan the living God "among you" would drive out the Canaanite (3:10); at Gezer the Canaanites stayed "in the territory of Ephraim" (16:10), the same Hebrew word, and the book says they didn't drive them out, not that they couldn't.

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“The children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance.”
Joshua 16:4 · World English Bible

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“Joshua 15:63 says the children of Judah couldn't drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem.”

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What's really going on

One lot, two tribes

In the text

"The lot came out for the children of Joseph" (16:1) (tap lot). One lot, for one name, and then: "The children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance" (16:4). The book has already said why Joseph counts twice: "For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim" (14:4). That goes back to Jacob, who told Joseph of his two sons, "Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, will be mine" (Genesis 48:5), and who "set Ephraim before Manasseh" (Genesis 48:20). Genesis 48 tells that story; here it becomes land. 16:4 names Manasseh first, and the next chapter calls him "the firstborn of Joseph" (17:1). But the first border drawn is Ephraim's: "This was the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families" (16:5) (tap Ephraim).

Honest questions

Questions people ask about Joshua 16

That was a taste

The rest of Joshua 16 is waiting in Favor

  • A line you could walk
  • The Canaanite in the midst
  • Gezer, from Joshua to Solomon
  • Joshua's own tribe
  • Beth Horon, the road of the hailstones
  • What this shows of God, and of Jesus
  • 7 questions as you read
  • 7 more Hebrew words
  • A short check at the end
  • Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it

מַסmassay MAS

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "body of forced labourers, task-workers, labour-band or gang". Strong's: "a tax in the form of forced labor". The Canaanites of Gezer "have become servants to do forced labor" (16:10). In Hebrew that is three words, vayhi lemas oved, and they are the same three words Jacob said of Issachar: he "becomes a servant doing forced labor" (Genesis 49:15). The word comes 23 times in the Hebrew Bible and twice in Joshua, here and in the next chapter (17:13). Deuteronomy used it for a city that made peace, one of "the cities which are very far off from you" (Deuteronomy 20:15): its people "shall become forced laborers to you" (Deuteronomy 20:11). Judges uses it four times, all in its first chapter, beginning with "they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out" (Judges 1:28). And Solomon: "of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day" (1 Kings 9:21).

For your group

Joshua 16 Bible study questions

  1. 1"They didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer" (16:10), where of Jerusalem the book says "the children of Judah couldn’t drive them out" (15:63). What difference do you hear between "didn't" and "couldn't"?
  2. 2The Law said, "They shall not dwell in your land" (Exodus 23:33); Judges says the LORD left nations "that by them I may test Israel" (Judges 2:22). How do those verses shape how you read Gezer, where the Canaanites stayed "to this day" (16:10)?
  3. 3Manasseh was "the firstborn of Joseph" (17:1), yet Ephraim's border is drawn first (16:5), and Jacob had once "set Ephraim before Manasseh" (Genesis 48:20). When have you seen the one you least expected put first?

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Questions

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home