Ancient Feminism And A Bunch Of Complainers
- Joshua divides land in Canaan for the Manasseh, the other half of the Josephites (1-2).
- The daughters of Zelophehad go before Joshua and Eleazar and say that God commanded that they receive an inheritance along with their male kin.
- Joshua, being an equal opportunist, divides ten portions to the Manassites besides the land of Gilead and Bashan.
- As was the case for the Emphraims, the Manassites are unable to occupy their land because the Canaanites are still living there. Worry not, though. Eventually the Israelites grew stronger and subjected the Canaanites to forced labor. Phew.
- To be clear, this whole forced-labor move seems a little backwards to us considering the fact that the Israelites left Egypt to escape forced labor, but alas, that is the way the cookie crumbles (7-13).
- The Josephites complain to Joshua that they don't have enough land. Joshua isn't hearing it, though, and tells them to man up and take some more land by invading the forest.
- The Josephites complain (seriously, you guys, get a grip already) that there are Canaanites on this land, to which Joshua basically responds by repeating his initial response of man up.
- This is called delegating.