Joshua 18:3

_AND JOSHUA SAID UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, HOW LONG ARE YE SLACK TO GO TO POSSESS THE LAND, WHICH THE LORD GOD OF YOUR FATHERS HATH GIVEN YOU?_ How long are ye slack to go to possess the land. This reproof conveys an impression that the seven tribes were dilatory to a criminal extent....

2-10 After a year or more, Joshua blamed their slackness, and told them how to proceed. God, by his grace, has given us a title to a good land, the heavenly Canaan, but we are slack to take possession of it; we enter not into that rest, as we might by faith, and hope, and holy joy. How long shall it be thus with us? How long shall we thus stand in our own light, and forsake our own mercies for lying vanities? Joshua stirs the Israelites up to take possession of their lots. He is ready to do his part, if they will do theirs....

Verse Joshua 18:3. _HOW LONG_ ARE _YE SLACK TO GO TO POSSESS THE LAND_] We find an unaccountable backwardness in this people to enter on the inheritance which God had given them! They had so long been supported by _miracle_, without any exertions of their own, that they found it difficult to shake themselves from their _inactivity_. When it was necessary that all the people should go out to battle, they went with a measure of confidence, expecting miraculous help from God, and confiding in their numbers, but when each tribe found it necessary to fight for itself, in order to its establishment and the extension of its borders, it was discouraged, and chose rather a life of inglorious ease than the possession of an inheritance which would cost it much labour to conquer....

This backwardness probably arose from the indisposition of the people to abandon the nomad life in which they had been born and bred, and to settle in fixed abodes, and perhaps also from a dislike of the exterminating warfare incidental to a complete dispossessing of the Canaanites....

EXPOSITION THE CONTINUED DIVISION OF THE LAND.— JOSHUA 18:1 CONGREGATION. The word signifies a body of persons gathered together at a spot before indicated. The LXX. renders by συναγωγή. The idea is evidently that of an assembly gathered together for some specific acts of worship. This passage teaches the duty of a national recognition of religion. Whatever evils there might be in Israel at that time, the absence of a general and formal acknowledgment of God was not one of them. When that public acknowledgment of Him ceased, the downfall of the nation was at hand. It was the absence of such acknowledgment that was the ruin of Israel, while the hypocritical and purely external recognition of God by Judah was equally o

AND JOSHUA SAID UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,.... To those of the seven tribes: HOW LONG [ARE] YOU SLACK TO GO TO POSSESS THE LAND WHICH THE LORD GOD OF YOUR FATHERS HATH GIVEN YOU? not that they might have taken possession of it of themselves, without having it assigned to them by lot; that they did not do this, is not what is complained of, and they stand reproved for; but that when two tribes and a half had received their inheritance, these seemed indifferent to it, showed no inclination and disposition towards it, and much less eagerness to have a settlement, and did not apply to the court for it; which dilatoriness might arise from the present affluence of all good things they enjoyed through the spoils of the enemy; and partly through slothfulness, being tired of the war, and perceiving that they must be involved in it again to dispossess the Canaanites of some of the cities that w...

6. THE PORTION OF THE REST OF THE TRIBES CHAPTER 18 _ 1. The tabernacle at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1)_ 2. The remaining seven tribes (Joshua 18:2) 3. The lot of Benjamin (Joshua 18:11) The tabernacle of the congregation is now set up at Shiloh. Shiloh means “peace,” “security.” The land was then subdued before them. Shiloh is now the center. From there the operations proceed. Seven times after this Shiloh is mentioned in the book of Joshua: Joshua 18:8; Joshua 19:51;...

THE LORD, GOD. Jehovah Elohhm App-4....

Joshua 18:1-10. Erection of the Tabernacle at Shiloh 1. _And the whole congregation of the children of Israel_ The descendants of Judah and of Joseph had now taken up their respective inheritances, the one in the south, the other in the north of the country. But "the murmuring," it has been remarked, "of the children of Joseph, and the spirit from which it proceeded, gave sad indications of danger in the near future. National disintegration, tribal jealousies, coupled with boastfulness and unwillingness to execute the work given them of God, were only too surely foreboded in the conduct of the children of Joseph. If such troubles were to be averted, it was high time to seek a revival of religion." Dr Edersheim's _Israel in Canaan under Joshua and the Judges_, p. 94. The camp at Gilgal, therefore, was broken up, and the people removed to Shiloh, which was situated within

DISCOURSE: 255 SLOTH AND LUKEWARMNESS REPROVED [Note: For New Year’s Day.] Joshua 18:3._ And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?_ CONSISTENCY in religion is by no means an easy attainment. Certain duties may be performed with zeal, whilst others of a more difficult and self-denying nature are shamefully neglected. We admire and applaud the conduct of “the whole congregation of Israel” in relation to the tabernacle, which with one consent they “set up for the Lord in Shiloh,” as soon as ever “the land was subdued before them.” This mark of respect and gratitude, of love and devotion, was due to God in the first place: but should we not have expected, that they would immediately go on to complete the work which God had assigned them, and which they had almost brought to a s