Get a Lay of the Land!

Joshua 12

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, January 25.

Do you like maps? I do and, still, I get overwhelmed by all the locations in the Bible. Keeping it straight is like trying to remember the location of the 92 counties in Indiana, and I still get lost in Henry County!

Joshua 12 gives you a lay of the Promised Land. While verses 1-6 reviewed the land that Moses conquered to the east of the Jordan River, verses 7-24 cataloged the conquest of the western side of the Promised Land:

Now these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the sons of Israel defeated beyond the Jordan toward the west, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even as far as Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir; and Joshua gave it to the tribes of Israel as a possession according to their divisions (7).

Now, pull out a biblical map because verses 9-24 list the 31 cities and their kings that were defeated: 16 in the southern portion and 15 in the northern portion.[1] Surprisingly, to us today, these kings were more like a group of disjointed mayors who reigned over city-states with only local authority. In all, these 31 kings ruled over a land approximately 150 miles for north to south and 50 miles from east to west, which averages about 252 square miles per king. By comparison, Indiana has a maximum dimension of 250 miles north to south and 145 miles east to west with 92 counties in it with Henry County being 392 square miles.

Imagine how much harder it would have been on Israel had these 31 kings forged an alliance and worked together, instead of only protecting their own local self-interest.

God bless you!

YOUTUBE:

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reference the map adjacent to this blog (“Extent of the Conquest,” Biblical Places Map. Logos Bible Software, 2009).