June 22, 2019: Day 56 – Joshua 22

The tribes are getting settled and being sent out to their lands by Joshua when an “event” happens.  Isn’t it interesting when events  happen in families?  Over the generations those events become much larger than they ever were.  We have two and a half of the tribes who were accused of building an altar, with the assumption that this altar was in order to worship and sacrifice to false gods.  The other tribes sent representatives because the last “event” which took place at Peor was a really bad memory for everyone involved.   If you want to remember that event yourself you can go to Numbers 25:3-5.   Yeah, not good memories.  People being impaled and the Lord not really happy.

Sooo…, in order to avoid all that impaling and the rest of the Israelites being punished for these few wayward tribes it would be best if we send representatives and try to convince them to turn from their ways.  They do, they send their representatives.  The response they get is fascinating.  So, the concern was that these few tribes were already beginning to worship false gods.  But their response, however, is that they built this altar as a witness or a reminder that they were people of the Lord.  If in the generations to come the other Israelite families might accuse them of not being true believers they could point to this altar and say, no, that is not correct.  Our ancestors built this altar as a memory of our faith in the one true God.

So basically this was built in order to stave off any future naysayers on the other side of the Jordan.  Nothing like starting off with just a touch of conspiracy theory.  All ends well.