Joshua 15

• As he had promised, God brought Israel into the land. Joshua then focused on dividing the land among Israel's tribes.

• The tribal allowances made the covenant of the Israelites with God real. It showed the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since God owned the land, giving it to the tribes was a gift. God gave them the land to live in and guided its distribution.

• In these lists of tribal allowances, the author describes some borders in great detail, allowing them to be mapped. With others, they are less plainly defined.

• The allotment of land to the tribes on the west side of the Jordan describes what God intended for each tribe to possess.

• The one narrating the story begins this section with Caleb receiving land and ends with Joshua receiving land (14:6–15; 19:49–51). Only Caleb and Joshua had shown faith in God that Israel could conquer the land (Numbers 13:30; 14:6–9).

The description of Judah's allotment of tribes is more detailed than that of the other tribes. The failures of Judah's older brothers positioned him to lead (Genesis 34:25–31; 35:22). As a result, the tribe of Judah received a central location among the tribes, guaranteeing its leadership in the nation (Genesis 49:8–12; Deuteronomy 33:7).

Judah’s southern boundary extended well into the desert of the Negev, which had little if any settled population throughout the Old Testament period.

Although Judah’s northern boundary is described in great detail, some sections of this border cannot be determined with certainty.

• This Debir was a different town from the Debir that was also known as Kiriath-sepher in 15:15.

• This Gilgal was different from the Gilgal where the Israelites established their camp earlier (4:19).

The Valley of Ben-Hinnom marked Judah's northern border. Jerusalem was along a narrow hilltop going north from the valley's lower end, within Benjamin's territory. Neither tribe controlled Jerusalem, so when David captured it, it became the royal city of his family line of kings instead of just another city of a tribe.

The spring at the Waters of Nephtoah might refer to Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah from the late 1200s BC. An Egyptian papyrus scroll mentions the "wells of Merneptah" on the mountain ridges of Canaan.

These were Judah's boundaries when the settlement process started. Later, the tribes of Simeon and Dan received land from Judah's southern and western territories. Within a few decades, the Philistines arrived from the Greek islands and settled the entire southern coastal plain given to Judah (see study note on 13:2).

Compare 1 Samuel 17:25; 18:27.

Othniel, Caleb's nephew, became the first judge of Israel (Judges 3:9–11).

• What do you desire?: The town that Othniel conquered had no water source. Negev means "dry land."

• The upper and lower springs were close together, but too far from Debir to naturally belong to it. So, Acsah asked for the rights to the water.

We cannot identify all of these locations with certainty. Many are unknown except for their mention in this and other lists. Some are briefly mentioned in other texts.

• in the Negev (see study note on 1:4): The Hebrew word negeb can refer either to the general direction (“south”) or the desert region named “Negev.”

• The location of Eder is otherwise unknown. Some propose translating this word as “Arad” because Arad should be about here in the list and was too important to have been left out. This translation would simply reverse two Hebrew letters that are very similar in shape.

From the perspective of the highlanders of the Judean hill country, the lower hills between them and the coastal plain were the western foothills. These hills were separated geologically from the hill country by a series of north–south valleys. In this list, the western foothills are divided into four districts.

The fourth district of the western foothills included most of the territory soon to be occupied by the Philistines. The tribe of Judah held it only briefly.

The hill country was in the central highlands of Judah from Jerusalem in the north to just past Debir in the south (15:15). It was divided into five districts.

This Jezreel in Judah was not the northern Jezreel. This city was the hometown of Ahinoam, David’s wife and the mother of his eldest son, Amnon (2 Samuel 3:2).

After this verse, the Greek Old Testament lists another district with 11 cities. These cities are:

• Tekoa,

• Ephrathah (that is, Bethlehem),

• Phagor,

• Etam,

• Kulon,

• Tatam,

• Saris,

• Karem,

• Gallim,

• Bether, and

• Manoch.

Each city also had surrounding villages.

Including this district explains why Bethlehem appears in the list. Without this district, Bethlehem would be missing, which would be unexpected. It is possible that an early copyist of the Hebrew text accidentally left out this twelfth district.

The wilderness of Judea included the eastern slopes of the central mountain highlands and extended to the western shore of the Dead Sea; three of its six towns were on or near that shoreline.

• Joshua assigned Jerusalem to the tribe of Benjamin (18:28). But they did not conquer it during Joshua's time.

• to this day: The presence of the Jebusites later caused trouble for Judah (Judges 1:21).