The Living Bible (57 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
Then the heads of the subclan of Gilead (of the clan of Machir, of the tribe of Manasseh, one of the sons of Joseph) came to Moses and the leaders of Israel with a petition: “The Lord instructed you to divide the land by lot among the people of Israel,” they reminded Moses, “and to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.
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But if they marry into another tribe, their land will go with them to the tribe into which they marry. In this way the total area of our tribe will be reduced
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and will not be returned at the Year of Jubilee.”
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Then Moses replied publicly, giving them these instructions from the Lord: “The men of the tribe of Joseph have a proper complaint.
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This is what the Lord has further commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them be married to anyone they like, so long as it is within their own tribe.
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In this way none of the land of the tribe will shift to any other tribe, for the inheritance of every tribe is to remain permanently as it was first allotted.
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The girls throughout the tribes of Israel who are heiresses must marry within their own tribe, so that their land won’t leave the tribe.
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In this way no inheritance shall move from one tribe to another.’”
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The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses.
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These girls, Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, were married to men in their own tribe of Manasseh (son of Joseph); so their inheritance remained in their tribe.
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These are the commandments and ordinances that the Lord gave to the people of Israel through Moses, while they were camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
This book records Moses’ address to the people of Israel when they were camped in the valley of the Arabah in the wilderness of Moab, east of the Jordan River. (Cities in the area included Suph, Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.) The speech was given on February 15,
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forty years after the people of Israel left Mount Horeb—though it takes only eleven days to travel by foot from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-barnea,
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going by way of Mount Seir! At the time of this address, King Sihon of the Amorites had already been defeated at Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan had been defeated at Ashtaroth, near Edrei. Here, then, is Moses’ address to Israel, stating all the laws God had commanded him to pass on to them:
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“It was forty years ago, at Mount Horeb, that Jehovah our God told us, ‘You have stayed here long enough.
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Now go and occupy the hill country of the Amorites, the valley of the Arabah, and the Negeb, and all the land of Canaan and Lebanon—the entire area from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River.
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I am giving all of it to you! Go in and possess it, for it is the land the Lord promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all of their descendants.’
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“At that time I told the people, ‘I need help! You are a great burden for me to carry all by myself,
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for the Lord has multiplied you to become as many as the stars!
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And may he multiply you a thousand times more and bless you as he promised,
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but what can one man do to settle all your quarrels and problems?
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So choose some men from each tribe who are wise, experienced, and understanding, and I will appoint them as your leaders.’
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“They agreed to this;
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I took the men they selected, some from every tribe, and appointed them as administrative assistants in charge of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens to decide their quarrels and assist them in every way.
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I instructed them to be perfectly fair at all times, even to foreigners.
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‘When giving your decisions,’ I told them, ‘never favor a man because he is rich; be fair to great and small alike. Don’t fear their displeasure, for you are judging in the place of God. Bring me any cases too difficult for you, and I will handle them.’
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And I gave them other instructions at that time also.
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“Then we left Mount Horeb and traveled through the great and terrible desert, finally arriving among the Amorite hills to which the Lord our God had directed us. We were then at Kadesh-barnea on the border of the Promised Land
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and I said to the people, ‘The Lord God has given us this land. Go and possess it as he told us to. Don’t be afraid! Don’t even doubt!’
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“But they replied, ‘First let’s send out spies to discover the best route of entry, and to decide which cities we should capture first.’
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“This seemed like a good idea, so I chose twelve spies, one from each tribe.
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They crossed into the hills and came to the valley of Eshcol, and returned with samples of the local fruit. One look was enough to convince us that it was indeed a good land the Lord our God had given us.
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But the people refused to go in and rebelled against the Lord’s command.
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“They murmured and complained in their tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites.
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What are we getting into? Our brothers who spied out the land have frightened us with their report. They say that the people of the land are tall and powerful, and that the walls of their cities rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there—the descendants of the Anakim!’
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“But I said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid!
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The Lord God is your leader, and he will fight for you with his mighty miracles, just as you saw him do in Egypt.
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And you know how he has cared for you again and again here in the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child!’
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But nothing I said did any good.
“They refused to believe the Lord our God
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who had led them all the way, and had selected the best places for them to camp, and had guided them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.
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“Well, the Lord heard their complaining and was very angry. He vowed that not one person in that entire generation would live to see the good land he had promised their fathers,
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except Caleb (the son of Jephunneh), who, because he had wholly followed the Lord, would receive as his personal inheritance some of the land he had walked over.
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“And the Lord was even angry with me because of them and said to me, ‘You shall not enter the Promised Land!
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Instead, your assistant, Joshua (the son of Nun), shall lead the people. Encourage him as he prepares to take over the leadership.
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I will give the land to the children they said would die in the wilderness.
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But as for you of the older generation, turn around now and go on back across the desert toward the Red Sea.’
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“Then they confessed, ‘We have sinned! We will go into the land and fight for it as the Lord our God has told us to.’ So they strapped on their weapons and thought it would be easy to conquer the whole area.
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“But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them not to do it, for I will not go with them; they will be struck down before their enemies.’
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“I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they rebelled again against the Lord’s commandment and went on up into the hill country to fight.
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But the Amorites who lived there came out against them and chased them like bees and killed them from Seir to Hormah.
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Then they returned and wept before the Lord, but he wouldn’t listen.
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So they stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.
“Then we turned back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, for so the Lord had instructed me. For many years we wandered around in the area of Mount Seir.
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Then at last the Lord said,
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‘You have stayed here long enough. Turn northward.
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Inform the people that they will be passing through the country belonging to their brothers the Edomites, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir; the Edomites will be nervous, so be careful.
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Don’t start a fight! For I have given them all the Mount Seir hill country as their permanent possession, and I will not give you even a tiny piece of their land.
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Pay them for whatever food or water you use.
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The Lord your God has watched over you and blessed you every step of the way for all these forty years as you have wandered around in this great wilderness; and you have lacked nothing in all that time.’
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“So we passed through Edom where our brothers lived, crossing the Arabah Road that goes south to Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveling northward toward the wilderness of Moab.
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“Then the Lord warned us, ‘Don’t attack the Moabites either, for I will not give you any of their land; I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’
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“(The Emim used to live in that area, a very large tribe, tall as the giants of Anakim;
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both the Emim and the Anakim are often referred to as the Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.
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In earlier days the Horites lived in Seir, but they were driven out and displaced by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, just as Israel would displace the peoples of Canaan, whose land had been assigned to Israel by the Lord.)
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“‘Now cross Zered Brook,’ the Lord said; and we did.
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“So it took us thirty-eight years to finally get across Zered Brook from Kadesh! For the Lord had decreed that this could not happen until all the men, who thirty-eight years earlier were old enough to bear arms, had died. Yes, the hand of the Lord was against them until finally all were dead.
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“Then at last the Lord said to me,
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‘Today Israel shall cross the borders of Moab at Ar,
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into the land of the Ammonites. But do not attack them, for I will not give you any of their land. I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’
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“(That area, too, used to be inhabited by the Rephaim, called ‘Zamzummim’ by the Ammonites.
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They were a large and powerful tribe, as tall as the Anakim; but Jehovah destroyed them as the Ammonites came in, and the Ammonites lived there in their place.
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The Lord had similarly helped the descendants of Esau at Mount Seir, for he destroyed the Horites who were living there before them.
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Another similar situation occurred when the people of Caphtor invaded and destroyed the tribe of Avvim living in villages scattered across the countryside as far away as Gaza.)
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“Then the Lord said, ‘Cross the Arnon River into the land of King Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon. War against him and begin to take possession of his land.
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Beginning today I will make people throughout the whole earth tremble with fear because of you, and dread your arrival.’
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“Then from the wilderness of Kedemoth I sent ambassadors to King Sihon of Heshbon with a proposal of peace.
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‘Let us pass through your land,’ we said. ‘We will stay on the main road and won’t turn off into the fields on either side.
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We will not steal food as we go, but will purchase every bite we eat and everything we drink; all we want is permission to pass through.
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The Edomites at Seir allowed us to go through their country, and so did the Moabites, whose capital is at Ar. We are on our way across the Jordan into the land the Lord our God has given us.’
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“But King Sihon refused because Jehovah your God made him obstinate, so that he could destroy Sihon by the hands of Israel, as has now been done.
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“Then the Lord said to me, ‘I have begun to give you the land of King Sihon; when you possess it, it shall belong to Israel forever.’
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“King Sihon then declared war on us and mobilized his forces at Jahaz.
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But the Lord our God crushed him, and we conquered all his cities and utterly destroyed everything, including the women and babies. We left nothing alive
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except the cattle, which we took as our reward, along with the booty gained from ransacking the cities we had taken. We conquered everything from Aroer to Gilead—from the edge of the Arnon River Valley, and including all the cities in the valley. Not one city was too strong for us, for the Lord our God gave all of them to us.
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However, we stayed away from the people of Ammon and from the Jabbok River and the hill country cities, the places Jehovah our God had forbidden us to enter.