Joshua 16:1-10--The Allotment for Ephraim and Manasseh

Joshua 16
English Standard Version

The Allotment for Ephraim and Manasseh
16 The allotment of the people of Joseph went from the Jordan by Jericho, east of the waters of Jericho, into the wilderness, going up from Jericho into the hill country to Bethel. 2 Then going from Bethel to Luz, it passes along to Ataroth, the territory of the Archites. 3 Then it goes down westward to the territory of the Japhletites, as far as the territory of Lower Beth-horon, then to Gezer, and it ends at the sea.

4 The people of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, received their inheritance.

​5 The territory of the people of Ephraim by their clans was as follows: the boundary of their inheritance on the east was Ataroth-addar as far as Upper Beth-horon, 6 and the boundary goes from there to the sea. On the north is Michmethath. Then on the east the boundary turns around toward Taanath-shiloh and passes along beyond it on the east to Janoah, 7 then it goes down from Janoah to Ataroth and to Naarah, and touches Jericho, ending at the Jordan. 8 From Tappuah the boundary goes westward to the brook Kanah and ends at the sea. Such is the inheritance of the tribe of the people of Ephraim by their clans, 9 together with the towns that were set apart for the people of Ephraim within the inheritance of the Manassites, all those towns with their villages. 10 However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor.

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The LORD now gives the inheritance to the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were adopted in the place of Joseph so that Joseph might receive a double-blessing through them.  Though there were only twelve sons of Israel, there would be twelve allotments plus the tribe of Levi that got no allotment on the earth other than their portion of the LORD's offerings, for the LORD was their portion.

The sons of Joseph, including the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, received the land as described in verses 1 through 3.  I'll post the map I've been posting again later, though it seems that some of the land given to Joseph's family ends up being part of the land settled by the tribe of Benjamin later on that map.

Verses 5 through 8 tell which part of this large allotment of land was set apart for Ephraim and the rest was then left for the half-tribe of Manasseh, as the other half has received their inheritance on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

The people of Ephraim refused to drive out the Canaanites that still lived among them, and instead tried to force them into slavery (doesn't that sound familiar?).  This was in direct opposition to what the LORD commanded them to do, and Ephraim would be one of the leaders of the rebellion of the northern ten tribes later.  While Ephraim indeed would be a leader among the tribes of Israel, they would end up leading them away from the LORD many times, and that turning away started here by settling for enslaving the Canaanites instead of destroying them as the LORD had commanded.  We've already seen that they would not be the only tribe that would leave Canaanites behind though.  Every tribe we've read about so far left some Canaanites behind in the territory that they have been allotted.

Next time we'll talk specifically about the allotment made for West Manasseh and how the people of Joseph seemed discontented with the amount of land they were given (remember they had already received some land in the Trans-Jordan), so they would be told to clear more land for themselves by cutting down parts of the forest to make more room for their people to live.

As promised, here is the map we've been looking at every day.  So that you can look and see the boundaries of Ephraim (which is basically what we talked about today) and the boundaries of West Manasseh (which will mostly be what we talk about next time).