Joshua 22 · a question people ask
Was it right for the eastern tribes to build the altar?
Here is what the text says. The law said, "Be careful that you don’t offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which the LORD chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings" (Deuteronomy 12:13-14). The builders said their altar was "not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice" (22:26), but "the pattern of the LORD’s altar" and "a witness between us and you" (22:28). When Phinehas and the princes heard them, "it pleased them well" (22:30); Phinehas said, "you have not committed this trespass against the LORD" (22:31); and "the children of Israel blessed God, and spoke no more of going up against them to war" (22:33). The chapter doesn't record a word from the LORD about the altar. Christians read it in two main ways. Both agree that the builders said it was not for offerings, and that the rest of Israel accepted their answer (22:30-33).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A faithful witness
Those who hold this view take Phinehas' words as the chapter's verdict: "Today we know that the LORD is among us, because you have not committed this trespass against the LORD" (22:31). They note that the altar kept Deuteronomy 12's rule: it was a copy, "not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice" (22:28), built so that their children would not "cease from fearing the LORD" (22:25), and so that they could "perform the service of the LORD before him" (22:27) at "the LORD our God’s altar that is before his tabernacle" (22:29).
Joshua 22:25 · Joshua 22:27-29 · Joshua 22:31 · Deuteronomy 12:13-14
Right in purpose, unwise in the doing
Those who hold this view note that the chapter doesn't say the builders asked Joshua, the priest or the other tribes before building "a great altar to look at" (22:10), and that it looked enough like what Deuteronomy 12:13-14 forbids to bring the whole congregation out "to go up against them to war" (22:12). They note that the verdict in 22:30-33 is Phinehas', the princes' and Israel's, and that the LORD doesn't speak in the chapter. They take the builders' purpose as sincere (22:31) and their way of carrying it out as nearly costly.
Joshua 22:10-12 · Deuteronomy 12:13-14 · Joshua 22:30-33
The verses
“Be careful that you don’t offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which the LORD chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.”