Joel M Bradshaw

49When they had finished distributing the several territories of the land as inheritances, the people of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua the son of Nun. 50By command of the LORD they gave him the city that he asked, Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he rebuilt the city and settled in it.–Joshua 19

This is a nice moment. The whole land had been divided and Joshua was given a city in his tribal territory of his choice. From the list of Numbers 13, we learn that Joshua’s tribe was Ephraim, one of the Joseph tribes. It’s fitting to know that a great leader came from another great leader, Joseph.

Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. (Numbers 14:30)

I couldn’t find a record of God proclaiming a land for Joshua, but he did do so for Caleb.

When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.” (Deuteronomy 1:34-36)

I am without my Hebrew lexicon this morning, but from what I could find Timnath Selah translates to ‘portion of abundance’ or ‘extra portion’. In Judges 2:9, Joshua’s city is also called Timnath Heres which was called ‘portion of the sun’. Scholars link that to the famous sun standing still episode in Joshua’s history.

Joshua chose something extra. If Joshua was a selfish man, we might have expected him to demand Jericho, the city that made his name famous. But he was content with a city that was simply considered “extra”. The two faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb, each got to not only enter the Promised Land, but got to choose their cities to make home. Caleb showed leadership courage and chose the hardest to conquer. Joshua showed leadership humility and chose after everyone else.–JMB