Days 70&71: Joshua 15-22

To be perfectly honest...I skimmed a lot of today's section of scripture. Joshua is following up on God's challenge to finish the job of taking the land that was promised. Much of the material in these chapters deals with the boundaries of the land, how the land was divided up among the tribes, etc. There are a lot of place names and descriptions of territory that seem to run together in my mind.

However, there are a few verses that sort of stood out as if they were highlighted and in bold print:

They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim but are required to do forced labor. (16:10)

Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region. However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely. (17:12-13)

I'm thinking that these verses describe a job that was not completely finished. I don't know if they thought this was good enough...or maybe they just got tired...or maybe they became impatient...(this sort of sounds like me). And it's not as if it couldn't be done - God had promised them that He would be there to help them. In fact, their experience even proved that it was so:

Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hands. (21:44)

Something tells me that their unwillingness or inability to finish the job will come back to haunt them.