Search Term Type any of these words all of these words exact phrase. Results should display: full details author names only. More search tips. Answer In the book of Joshua, each of the twelve tribes receive an allotment of land once they enter into the Promised Land, or in the case of the Transjordan tribes, on the other side of the Jordan. However, one of the twelve tribes, the priestly tribe, the Levites, did not receive an allotment of land, per se.
And so, right away we see that this tribe of the Levites was categorically different than the other tribes, the other eleven tribes. As such, their interaction with the Promised Land and their value therein is going to be categorically different as well. These are the areas the Israelites received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel allotted to them.
Their inheritances were assigned by lot to the nine-and-a-half tribes, as the Lord had commanded through Moses. Moses had granted the two-and-a-half tribes their inheritance east of the Jordan but had not granted the Levites an inheritance among the rest Joshua Ok, so nine and a half tribes got land in Canaan, two and a half got their land east of the Jordan, and the Levites…got…nothing?
Now I am exaggerating the situation to make it sound like this was a last-minute surprise. Moses had previously told them in Numbers ,. It is the Levites who are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting and bear the responsibility for the offenses against it. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. They will receive no inheritance among the Israelites. So, along with added responsibility, the Levites were granted no land after they crossed the Jordan.
It sounds great to be a Levite, right? It originates from a curse that Jacob placed on his sons Simeon and Levi the father of the Levites after they had horribly murdered every man in a city. Simeon and Levi are brothers- Their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, Let me not join their assembly, For they have killed men in their anger And hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
Cursed be their anger, so fierce, And their fury so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob And disperse them in Israel Genesis Even before Moses was born, both Simeon and Levi were marked to God to not inherit their own lands.
Oh, God was at work there too. For we read,. The second lot came out for the tribe of Simeon, clan by clan. Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah. The ideology of the exclusion of Levites from land allotment is contained in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua and completely absent in the Moses story as contained in Exodus and Leviticus, which to a large extent deals with the appointment, anointing, and service of the priests.
In the book of Joshua, the exclusion of the Levites is thus presented as a fulfilment of what was stipulated during the era of Moses. Habel tends to regard the ideology of the exclusion of the Levites from land inheritance as a privileging of the Levites, the landless elite who have power over the landed tribes as the "divinely ordained heirs of Moses" who act as God's representatives in the land.
The African proverb Mapfene hu la mahulwane serves to highlight the negative results of power relationships. As Beetham notes with regard to power relations:. Power relations often involve negative features - of exclusion, restriction, compulsion, etc. Those in power, as Beetham observes regarding social construction, tend to have resources that they can deploy to produce their own legitimacy by influencing the beliefs and institutions.
In so doing, those in power intend to shape the expectations and interests of those who are governed. The capture of political power is often associated with access to opportunities for self-enrichment and the exclusion or oppression of the other. The exclusion of the Levites from land inheritance should also be viewed from the perspective of the power relationship among Israel's tribes when the so-called land promise was realized. There are elements within the text that serve to highlight the Levites' exclusion from land allotment as a result of the power relationship as exercised by the house of Joseph.
The house of Joseph in the Joshua story can be described as mapfene mahulwane "the big baboons" - that is, those in power. The following elements should be noted in the Joshua story regarding the big baboons, especially in chs. First, Ephraim and Manasseh are in a number of instances treated as a unit - they are the "sons of Joseph" Josh ; , 4; , 16; ; ; cf.
Gen ; Num , 37; ; ; 1 Chr or "house of Joseph"; Josh ; cf. Interestingly, the two also speak as a unit and are addressed as a unit emphasis mine :. The sons of Joseph spoke as follows to Joshua, "Why have you given me only one share only one portion, as heritage, when I am a numerous people, since Yahweh has so blessed me?
Joshua replied, "If your people are so many, go up to the wooded area and clear space for yourselves in the area belonging to the Perizzites and Rephaim, since the highlands of Ephraim are too small for you.
The sons of Joseph replied, "The highlands are not enough for us, and what is more, all the Canaanites living on the land of the plain have iron chariots, so do those in Beth-Shean and its dependent towns, and those in the plain of Jezreel. Joshua said to the House of Joseph, to Ephraim and to Manasseh, "You are a numerous people and your strength is great; you will not only have one share,. And you will dispossess the Canaanites, although they have iron chariots and although they are strong" Josh NJB.
In Josh , when the Josephites demand more than one allotment, they speak in the first person singular. The way the demand for more than one lot is crafted is telling. It is phrased in the form of a complaint. This complaint is crafted in the first person singular, which further highlights that the Josephites were regarded as a unit. The complaint is basically that they are given as inheritance "one lot and one territory".
Secondly, the house of Joseph is allotted a single portion iust like any other tribe. Joshua a states, "Then the lot of the sons of Joseph came out" This text clearly highlights that the sons of Joseph are treated as a unit and so receive a single lot for their tribe, iust like the other tribes.
The one lot of the Josephites was then divided among the clans of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. The Josephites do not present any historical memory for the demand.
Unlike Caleb, who appealed to the events in Kadesh-Barnea as the basis for a special allotment Josh , they offer no such basis for their complaint. This leads one to wonder, what is the basis of the Josephites' complaint? The complaint gives us hints.
The Josephites demanded more than one lot and one territory as their inheritance because they are numerous. Joshua's response to the Josephites also adds other dimensions: Firstly, he concurs with the Josephites' demand for more than one lot and one territory.
Secondly, Joshua's motivation is that they are numerous and they have great power. It is not surprising that Joshua would concur with the demand of the Josephites, as he himself belonged to the same house, and he also had essentially royal power. The demand for more than one lot and one territory was based on their privileged status.
The house of Joseph was an elite tribe, as it had the royal power through the person of Joshua, the supposedly legitimate successor of Moses. The demand for more than one land allotment and one territory can be seen as an act of the big baboons making a land grab.
This act from the Josephites from a position of power would have negative results for at least one tribe, who would as a consequence be without land allotment. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Levites had to beg for land when all the other tribes had received their share:. Then the heads of the families of the Levites came to the priest Eleazar and to Joshua son of Nun and to the heads of the families of the tribes of the Israelites; they said to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, "The LORD commanded through Moses that we be given towns to live in, along with their pasture lands for our livestock.
The process of dividing the land among the tribal confederation as noted in Josh "So they finished dividing the land" was regarded as complete -a process that entirely excluded the Levites.
The Levites were officially the landless other. It should be noted, however, that in Josh , 33, a cultic justification is provided for the exclusion of the Levites from land allotment: Levites have the Lord as their inheritance and so they receive no land inheritance. This cultic justification alludes to Pentateuchal texts such as Num and Deut ; , and in so doing, the exclusion of the Levites is thus presented as matter of fulfilling a pre-ordained arrangement.
Therefore, the statement in Josh , which is a clear reference to Num , seeks to legitimize the Levitical claim for towns to settle in "while contributing to the authors' portrayal of Joshua and his people as an obedient generation. It is, however, notable that in the Joshua story, the exclusion of the Levites from land is closely interlinked with the Josephites:.
This was what the Israelites received as their heritage in Canaan, which was given them as their heritage by the priest, Eleazar, and by Joshua son of Nun, with the heads of families of the tribes of Israel. They received their heritage by lot, as Yahweh had ordered through Moses, as regards the nine tribes and the half-tribe. For Moses himself had given the two-and-a-half tribes their heritage on the further side of the Jordan, although to the Levites he had given no heritage with them. Since the sons of Joseph formed two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, no share in the country was given to the Levites, apart from some towns to live in, with their pasture lands for their livestock and their possessions Josh NJB.
The redactional layer to the supposedly proto-Joshua story in Josh serves as an attempt to exonerate the Josephites from their demand for more than one lot by retrojecting the decision to the era of Moses. In vv. The motivation in v. In my view, the remark in Josh , which is not cultically oriented, provides a more realistic picture and likely belongs to the proto-Joshua story.
Pro-Joseph elements are liberally distributed throughout all the books in the Pentateuch, except Leviticus. Joseph's bones, like those of the other three patriarchs, had to be buried in the Promised Land, and so the Exodus generation travels with the bones of Joseph Exod ; cf.
Gen Joshua, an Ephraimite, is set to be the successor of Moses, and the sons of Joseph form part of the twelve tribes at the exclusion of Levi Numbers. The pro-Joseph elements in the Hexateuch are regarded as part of the non-Priestly source. The Joseph story found within the toledot of Jacob , inasmuch as it functions as a pivot between the patriarchal cycles narrative and the Exodus story, also functions to predict and legitimize later events synchronically in the context of the Hexateuch or the Ennateuch , and in particular their rise to royalty and their demand for a dual allotment.
Historically, they regard it as originating within Israel's later political context, which it reflects. Those who detect wisdom features in the Joseph story tend to date its origin during the Solomonic period, 19 whereas others tend to date it to the exilic or post-exilic period. Those in power, past or present, as Beetham argues, "have a psychological need of self-justification, and all those socially advantaged need to see their advantage as deserved or legitimate, and not arbitrary.
For example, the power struggle between Saul and David in the book of Samuel serves to legitimize David within the overall scheme of things. The Joseph story presents Joseph, and thus by default the house of Joseph, as the favorite house of Jacob. Joseph is presented as the favored son of Jacob: "Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he had made him a long robe with sleeves" Gen , NRSV.
Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf Gen , NRSV. In both instances, the brothers as well as Jacob realize what is at stake. The brothers' words are pointed in this regard: "So you want to be king over us, you want to lord it over us," Gen In the Joseph story as a self-contained story, what the brothers were afraid of seeing happen, and what they tried to stop from happening, does indeed happen when Joseph ascends to royal power within the Egyptian state.
Just as Jacob dressed Joseph with a decorated tunic, so the Pharaoh enthrones Joseph and decorates him with a signet ring, a robe of fine linen, and a gold chain Gen When the brothers go to Egypt in search of food during the famine, the dream becomes partially fulfilled as the brothers "bowed down to him with their faces to the ground," Gen , cf. The right to lord it over his brothers in the case of Joseph may be viewed as being in line with the motif in Genesis and elsewhere in the OT of the younger being favored over the older, contrary to the custom of the eldest son assuming the role of head of the family or receiving the greater blessing - Abel over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau.
In the case of Leah and Rachel, the trickster himself was tricked into marrying the older sister first, rather than the younger one first. In this instance, the trickster reverses the trick by showing favor to the first-born of the second wife, the younger wife.
The father-favor is again highlighted by Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons. In Gen 48, Joseph takes his sons to receive blessings from his father Jacob; however, in that process Jacob adopts Joseph's sons as his own and puts them in the place of his two eldest sons - Reuben and Simeon:.
Therefore your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are now mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are. As for the offspring born to you after them, they shall be yours.
They shall be recorded under the names of their brothers with regard to their inheritance Gen NRSV. Thus, Ephraim and Manasseh are placed in the position of Reuben and Simeon. The order is also significant - Ephraim takes the position of Reuben and Manasseh takes that of Simeon.
The books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth were all very enticing books to read this week. Huge amounts of battle and land division is taking place along reading these books. One of the most important instances that occurs in the book of Joshua is the dividing of the land among the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh.
God appeared to Joshua in his later years and ordered him to give out the remaining land on the other side of the Jordan. Joshua did as he was instructed and assigned the land to the tribes according to their clans.
Was this some type of punishment from God or Joshua? Even though the Levite tribe and its clans did not receive any land after crossing over the Jordan, they were perceived as a tribe that accompanied the Divine Presence and served in the Temple. The people of this particular tribe assisted in returning the spiritual well-being of others. So why were these people so severely punished at the beginning of entering the new Promised Land they had sought after for so many years?
It reads on to suggest that the Levites were quite possibly responsible for Deuteronomistic history, and this theory is supported by the specialization of their authorized cities.
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