Joshua 15


Joshua 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible or in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to Joshua, with additions by the high priests Eleazar and Phinehas, but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the allotment of land for the tribe of Judah, a part of a section comprising Joshua 13:1–21:45 about the Israelites allotting the land of Canaan.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 63 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

The narrative of Israelites allotting the land of Canaan comprising verses 13:1 to 21:45 of the Book of Joshua and has the following outline:
There are three key elements in the report of the allotments for the nine and a haf tribes in the land of Canaan as follows:

Judah's boundaries (15:1–12)

The allotment for the tribe of Judah is recorded first and the longest among other Cisjordan tribes, consistings of a definition of its boundaries, and a list of its cities, with an additional insertion about the inheritance of Caleb. The boundary description proceeds in the order south, east, north, west. The southern boundary runs from the southern tip of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, including Kadesh-barnea and extending to the 'Wadi of Egypt'. The eastern boundary is the Dead Sea. The northern boundary is drawn carefully round the southern extremities of the city of Jerusalem, which is still in the possession of the Jebusites. The western boundary is the Mediterranean Sea.

Verse 8

  • "Jerusalem": here is not included into Judah's territory, and Joshua 15:63 notes that Judah could not take it, whereas Joshua 18:28 assigned it to Benjamin, whose southern boundary corresponds closely to the northern boundary of Judah as outlined here. However, Judges 1:8 records that Judah took Jerusalem and set it on fire, while Judges 1:21 notes that the Benjaminites could not drive out the Jebusites, who still possessed Jerusalem as also noted in Judges 19:11–12, where the city is called "Jebus", with the remark, “which is Jerusalem”, and the Levite did not want to go in there, because it is a “city of the Jebusites,” “the city of a stranger.” At the end David succeeded to defeat the Jebusites, conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital over all Israel.

    Achsah's blessing (15:13–19)

Having been granted the city of Hebron by Joshua, Caleb has to fight to conquer it along with surrounding areas. In turn, Caleb becomes a 'distributor' to grant a land to his son-in-law Othniel, because of his role in the conquest, and his daughter Achsah, Othniel's wife, whose request for water reflects the condition in the drier areas of Negeb, Judah's southern desert.

Cities of Judah (15:20–63)

The long list of cities shows the extensive land of Judah, incorporating both the rich plain and the dry wilderness, especially the viticulture in the terraced slopes of the hill country and lowlands according to the blessing of Jacob to Judah. There are four distinct geographical areas of the land:
  1. the Negeb
  2. the lowlands
  3. the hill country
  4. the wilderness, east of the central ridge towards the Dead Sea.
The lands close to the drier area were more suitable for sheep-rearing than agriculture, such as Carmel and Maon which are mentioned in the story of Nabal, a sheep-farmer who insulted David.
Prominent cities mentioned in the list include such places as Adullam, Socoh, Jarmuth, Zanoah and Zorah. Keilah, Maresha, Maon, Halhul, and Timnah are also named there. The list of cities can be divided into twelve groups or districts, which was apparently still used in administering and collecting ancient taxes during the reign of King Manasseh, based on the archaeological discoveries of the city names in the fiscal bullae for tax collection in that period
Some scholars, such as Martin Noth, Frank Cross and Józef Milik, have identified Ir-melah, or the City of Salt, with the present-day archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Although other locations have also been proposed.
The final verse, along with other similar ones, note Israel's partial failure to take the land, despite the initial sweeping victory in Joshua 1–12, especially chapters 11–12.