Joshua17chapter 17

Joshua 17:1-2

Manasseh is called the firstborn of Joseph here and still receives his lot after Ephraim, which is Genesis 48:14-20 working itself out on a map, where Jacob crossed his hands and set the younger before the elder. Machir already held Gilead and Bashan, granted by Moses at Numbers 32:39-40 and Deuteronomy 3:15 for taking them, so half of this tribe was settled before anyone crossed the Jordan. The six families of verse 2 are the same six counted at Numbers 26:30-32, and Gideon comes out of the first of them, Abiezer, at Judges 6:11.

Joshua 17:3-6

Numbers 27:1-11 heard this case in the wilderness and Numbers 36 refined the ruling, requiring the daughters to marry inside their father's tribe so the land stayed where it fell. Verse 4 is the discharge of it, and the five names are given again in full, Mahlah and Noah and Hoglah and Milcah and Tirzah, so a case argued before Moses is settled by name a generation later. They come near before Eleazar, Joshua and the princes, which is the court of Numbers 27:2 with Moses gone, and Eleazar is the one man standing in both scenes. How the ten portions of verse 5 are counted is disputed, Barnes reckoning five families from Gilead's male line and five for the daughters of Zelophehad, and other readers dividing them otherwise.

Joshua 17:7-11

The line between the two sons of Joseph is drawn so that each tribe holds towns inside the other, Ephraim keeping cities within Manasseh at 16:9 and Manasseh keeping six towns inside Issachar and Asher here. All six of verse 11 have later history in the text: Taanach and Megiddo are where the kings of Canaan fight Deborah and Barak at Judges 5:19, Endor is where Saul finds the woman with a familiar spirit at 1 Samuel 28:7, and the Philistines fasten Saul's body to the wall of Bethshean at 1 Samuel 31:10. The words rendered three countries at the close of verse 11 are read by some as a district of high ground and by others as a third part of that region, and the Hebrew leaves the question open.

Joshua 17:12-13

Judges 1:27-28 tells this again with the same six towns and the same outcome, that Manasseh did not drive them out and put them to tribute once Israel grew strong. Two statements of this book stand beside each other and neither is softened, since 21:45 says there failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken, and verse 12 says the Canaanites would dwell in that land. Tribute is payment taken from people left where they are, so verse 13 records a settlement with the inhabitants rather than a removal of them, and Judges 2:1-3 is where that arrangement is answered.

Joshua 17:14-18

Joshua is himself an Ephraimite, named of that tribe among the spies at Numbers 13:8, and his answer to his own kinsmen sends them up to clear the wood country in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, the Rephaim of Genesis 14:5 and Deuteronomy 3:11. Their reply names the obstacle exactly, chariots of iron in the valley and at Jezreel, and that same phrase becomes the reason Judah could not take the valley at Judges 1:19 and the strength of Sisera's nine hundred at Judges 4:3. Barnes reads the claim of verse 14 against the census of Numbers 26, where Ephraim and Manasseh together are not much larger than Judah alone, and sets its tone beside the complaints the same house makes at Judges 8:1 and 12:1. Joshua grants the greatness and gives no second lot, telling them in verse 18 to take the mountain, cut down the wood, and drive out the Canaanites though they have iron chariots.