The story has a happy ending. When this sort of thing happens in the church today, it doesn’t always have a happy ending, as we know. But it did in this situation. The tribes that had gone down to the Jordan explained what it was that they had done, and that the western tribes had simply misunderstood. First of all, those on the east were greatly shocked that what they had done could be interpreted that way. You have to pick that up from the language. When this great challenge to them was made, they responded by saying that God knows what their intentions were in building the altar, and they now want all Israel to know it too.
The story has a happy ending. When this sort of thing happens in the church today, it doesn’t always have a happy ending, as we know. But it did in this situation. The tribes that had gone down to the Jordan explained what it was that they had done, and that the western tribes had simply misunderstood. First of all, those on the east were greatly shocked that what they had done could be interpreted that way. You have to pick that up from the language. When this great challenge to them was made, they responded by saying that God knows what their intentions were in building the altar, and they now want all Israel to know it too.
But there’s something else. The war that looked like it was on the verge of starting did not begin at once. Rash people might have simply rushed to the Jordan and attacked the other people; but these Israelites didn’t do that. They were willing to fight for the Lord’s honor, but they were also willing to talk about the situation. So instead of just rushing off to the battle, they elected Phinehas, the son of Eliezer the priest, and ten of the chief men of Israel (one from each tribe) as a delegation. They dispatched this delegation to go down and meet with the others to see if it might not be possible to work to get some kind of peaceful resolution to this terrible error, as they assumed it to be.
Yesterday we saw the first two things Joshua tells the eastern tribes before going to their inheritance across the Jordan. There is a third item, as he says in chapter 22, verse 5, “But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to you to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to obey His commands, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul.”
In this chapter, Joshua gives specific commands and a challenge to the 2½ eastern tribes who were going to dwell on the far side of the Jordan River. And the chapter contains an emotional parting and also an incident that grows out of that which is one of the most instructive incidents in the entire book.
You see how important this is? When we talk about God’s judgment on sin, as we must if we’re faithful to the teaching of the Word of God, we stress that God cannot tolerate sin. And God will not tolerate sin in His people. Sometimes we can preach or talk about judgment as if God is almost anxious to pour it out when sins are committed. But it’s not the case. God is a gracious God. Even when God judges His people, as He will do if you persist in sin, none of us has ever received in full what we deserve. And God is always ready, if we draw close to Him, to transmute that judgment into blessing.
At the end of Genesis, in chapter 49, Jacob gives a great prophecy that concerns the future of each of his sons and the people who should come from them. And when he gets to Simeon and Levi, it is this incident from Genesis 34 that he remembers. Here are his words: “Simeon and Levi are brothers—their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger and hamstrung oxen as they pleased. Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel” (vv. 5-7a). You see, even all those many years after that event, the horror of it still stuck in Jacob’s mind. And then he pronounced this prophecy: “I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel” (v. 7b).
Now in chapter 21, we find out more about these Levitical cities. Six of the 48 cities were for refuge; but there were still the other 42 cities that were scattered all throughout the land. Joshua 21 spells it out in great detail city by city, telling us exactly where these cities of the Levites were. This involves a very interesting story. To understand why the cities of the Levites were so important and why they were such a blessing, not only to the people but to the Levites themselves, you have to go back to Genesis 34.
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