Just like that -- the majority of the Promised Land is conquered. Now it will be divided among the tribes. They do the assigning of the land by lots or by chance. Just roll the dice and put it in Gods hands. No discussion. No reason. Do we have the faith to let "chance" dictate where we go, how we live and what we do? We'd think it was frivolous to leave our inheritance to the role of a dice. Especially when God has given us brains to reason and plan with. We don't have faith that God works through games of chance. We believe in our own minds. Unless we're in trouble and need something outside the norm and reason.
Caleb -- the spy who, like Joshua, came back from the Promised Land with a good report -- he picks his own country and he picks the hill country.
...I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, "The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly." [Josh. 14:8a, 9]
I like Caleb's choice -- the hill country. I've always found God in the beauty of the hills whenever I've walked them. I see God powerfully alive in nature. And Caleb went to the hills. These are the very lands he'd traveled when he'd spied out the Promised Land. How different were they now 40 years later or were the eyes that first looked upon them very different now? What did he see? Imagine walking the same land now after 40 years. What did Caleb recognize and remember? What special feature of the land or the now vanquished town? What drew him to this place of all the places he walked? Was his memory filled with a powerful act of faith -- the deciding moment of his life? What would he think of each morning when he awoke and walked the land? I had no idea when I first time I met my wife, that first glimpse, the first game of spoons we played in the lobby of her college dorm, that years later God would give her to me. Now I look at her each morning and see our whole lives together that first day and our many, many, many days together. It is good to come back to a thing, to return to something familiar and know it has been given to you by God's hand.
We also see in this reading that Zelophehad's daughters get their inheritance -- the inheritance they'd asked for and that had been agreed upon under Moses. They weren't sons. Giving the land to the daughters was not part of the tradition of the day. But because they acted boldly and asked, they received. How odd this would have seemed in a male-dominated culture. But what a powerful testament to asking God boldly.
...the daughters of the tribe of Manasseh received an inheritance among the sons. [Josh. 17:6a]
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