Travels With Israel
- Time for another tiny flashback. Now that the Israelites are at the end of the journey and ready to take the Promised Land, God asks Moses to take a little trip down memory lane to record all the places they've been up until now.
- Basically, this is just a super long forty-year travel itinerary. It starts with the Israelites fleeing Egypt (the Egyptians are too busy burying their dead firstborn sons to notice right away). And it ends with them camping on the plains of Moab on the west side of the Jordan River.
- Take a peek at a map for some details.
- Now that that's all written down for posterity, God has another job for Moses.
- He wants Moses to tell the Israelites that once they venture into the Promised Land in Canaan, they're to kick out all of the current residents. See, God has given it to them, so it's absolutely a-okay for them to drive everyone out and destroy their cities and homes through force.
- Besides, if you let the Canaanites stay around in the Promised Land, they're just gonna give you trouble. Right?
- And once they take control of the land? Well, then God tells them to divide it up between the twelve tribes according to size. Big tribes will get lots of land. Small tribes, not as much. Sounds fair.