Joshua 16
After the great central allotment at Shiloh, the land is divided tribe by tribe, and Joshua 16 turns to the house of Joseph. The chapter opens not with an army but with the lot: And the lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho (v. 1). This is how the whole inheritance is handed out - not seized by the strongest, not awarded to the bravest, but cast by lot, which Israel understood as the decision of God Himself. Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, do not bargain for the rich middle of the land; it is measured out to them. The first thing the chapter teaches, before a single border is named, is that the inheritance is a gift.3
Then the text does what these allotment chapters always do: it walks the boundary line with patient care. From the Jordan at Jericho up through the wilderness, past Bethel to Luz, along by Archi and Ataroth, down westward to Beth-horon and Gezer, and out at last to the sea (vv. 1-3). The border of Ephraim is traced by its families - Ataroth-addar, Michmethah, Taanath-shiloh, Janohah, Naarath, the river Kanah (vv. 5-8). And a curious note is added: certain cities of Ephraim sit inside the inheritance of Manasseh (v. 9). The brothers' portions interlace. The geography is named so exactly because the geography is the covenant made visible - every ridge and town a part of the promise kept.
And then the chapter ends on a single sentence that lands like a stone dropped in still water: And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute (v. 10). The command had been to dispossess. Ephraim made terms instead - let the Canaanites stay, put them to forced labour, take the tribute. It reads almost as a footnote, but it is the first crack in a wall that the book of Judges will watch collapse. The inheritance was given full; the obedience was rendered partial; and the gap between the two is where the next four hundred years of Israel's trouble will grow.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Joshua 16:1-4The Lot of the Sons of Joseph
1And the lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho, unto the water of Jericho on the east, to the wilderness that goeth up from Jericho throughout mount Beth-el, 2And goeth out from Beth-el to Luz, and passeth along unto the borders of Archi to Ataroth, 3And goeth down westward to the coast of Japhleti, unto the coast of Beth-horon the nether, and to Gezer: and the goings out thereof are at the sea. 4So the children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance.
The chapter opens with the word that governs the whole allotment: And the lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho (v. 1). Everything that follows hangs on that one noun. The inheritance is not claimed, not conquered into private ownership, not awarded to the tribe with the strongest claim or the sharpest sword. It falls - it is determined by the casting of the lot, which Israel understood not as chance but as the quiet decision of God. The boundary the verse then begins to trace is rich and strategic ground: from the Jordan near Jericho, up through the wilderness, into the central hill country around Beth-el. But the point being pressed first is not the value of the land; it is the manner of its giving. Joseph's sons receive what they did not arrange for themselves. They walk into a portion measured out before they ever drew it on a map. Before a single tribe is told to fight, the text establishes that the land is a gift, and the hand behind the gift is the LORD's.3
The recipients are named with a deliberate echo of an old promise: the children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim (v. 4). Joseph himself receives no single tribal allotment under his own name; instead his two sons each become a tribe, so that the house of Joseph holds a double portion in the land. This is the working-out of a deathbed scene generations earlier, when the dying Jacob laid his hands on these two boys and claimed them as his own: thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine (Gen. 48:5). The brother once sold into Egypt - betrayed, imprisoned, given up for dead - is the one whose line now inherits the rich heart of the promised land. Notice too the order in verse 4: Manasseh the elder is named first here, but it was Ephraim, the younger, on whom Jacob deliberately laid his right hand of greater blessing. God's apportioning hand has never been bound by the ordinary rules of who comes first; it gives as it wills, and what it gives, it gives in full.
Joshua 16:5-9The Border of Ephraim
5And the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families was thus: even the border of their inheritance on the east side was Ataroth-addar, unto Beth-horon the upper; 6And the border went out toward the sea to Michmethah on the north side; and the border went about eastward unto Taanath-shiloh, and passed by it on the east to Janohah; 7And it went down from Janohah to Ataroth, and to Naarath, and came to Jericho, and went out at Jordan. 8The border went out from Tappuah westward unto the river Kanah; and the goings out thereof were at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Ephraim by their families. 9And the separate cities for the children of Ephraim were among the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages.
The text now walks the boundary of Ephraim with the same patient care it gives every tribe: according to their families (v. 5). The line runs from Ataroth-addar on the east up to Beth-horon the upper, out toward the sea by Michmethah, around eastward to Taanath-shiloh and Janohah, down by Ataroth and Naarath to Jericho and the Jordan, then west again from Tappuah along the river Kanah to the sea (vv. 5-8). To a modern reader it can feel like a surveyor's ledger. But these are not abstract coordinates; they are real ridges, springs, and walled towns where Ephraimite families would plant and build, raise children, and bury their dead for generations. The phrase according to their families repeats because the inheritance reaches all the way down to the household - not a vague national territory but a known portion for each clan. The God who measures out the land does not deal only in nations and centuries; He cares that this family knows precisely what is theirs. The very tedium of the border-list is a kind of faithfulness: a promise kept is a promise kept in detail.1
Joshua 16:10They Drave Not Out the Canaanites
10And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.
After nine verses of careful inheritance, the chapter ends with one sentence that breaks the rhythm and casts a long shadow: And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute (v. 10). The command had been clear - the inhabitants of the land were to be dispossessed, not bargained with. Ephraim chose another way. They left Gezer standing, put its Canaanites to forced labour, and took the tribute. Read on the surface it can look almost prudent: why spend lives on a fortified city when you can absorb it and profit from it? But the verse is not commending the arrangement; it is reporting a falling-short. The phrase unto this day - the narrator's mark for a state of affairs still true when the book was written - quietly concedes that the situation was never resolved. Gezer remained a Canaanite city in the heart of Ephraim's gift, paying its tribute, keeping its gods. What looked like a clean financial deal was in fact an unfinished obedience left to harden into permanence.3
The danger is not visible yet in Joshua 16, which is exactly what makes it dangerous. But the book of Judges picks up this verse almost word for word and shows where it leads: Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them (Judg. 1:29). It is one of a whole catalogue of tribes who drave not out the peoples of the land - and the consequence is then named without flinching by the angel of the LORD: they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you (Judg. 2:3). That is the cost the tribute-arrangement concealed. The Canaanites left in the land did not stay quietly in their corner paying their dues; their worship seeped into Israel, and the next four hundred years of the book of Judges become the long, grinding record of a people repeatedly snared by the gods of the very neighbours they had decided to tolerate. The compromise that looked manageable in Joshua 16 became the open door for the catastrophe of Judges 2.
Further study
- The Hebrew of Joshua 16 with Rashi, Radak, and the classical commentators side by side - useful for goral (v. 1, the “lot” by which the inheritance is apportioned) and for yarash (v. 10, the verb of dispossessing that Ephraim failed to carry through at Gezer).
- Joshua 16 ↔ Judges 1 · Psalm 16 · 1 Peter 1 · Ephesians 5Intertextual BibleTraces the chapter's threads through Scripture - the inheritance by lot (v. 1) read beside the goodly heritage of Psalm 16:5-6 and the incorruptible inheritance of 1 Peter 1:4, and the unconquered Canaanites of Gezer (v. 10) read beside Judges 1:29 and the snare-and-thorns warning of Judges 2:1-3.
- Joshua 16 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's footnotes on Joshua 16 - the casting of the lot in verse 1, the line of border-towns from Bethel to the sea (vv. 2-8), the Ephraimite cities lying within Manasseh (v. 9), and the much-discussed closing note that the Canaanites of Gezer were put to forced labour rather than driven out (v. 10).
Where this echoes in Scripture
The Lot of the Sons of Joseph
- Genesis 48:1-22And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh... are mine.Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons and blesses the younger above the elder - the double inheritance Joshua 16 plants in the land.
- Proverbs 16:33The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.Why Israel trusted the lot of verse 1 - the casting looked like chance, but the outcome was God’s.
- Psalm 16:5-6The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance... the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.The inheritance-by-lot of verse 1 turned into worship - a portion received as gift from God’s hand.
- 1 Peter 1:3-4an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven.The gift of verse 4 lifted to its highest key - an inheritance kept for those kept by God.
- Romans 8:16-17heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.Joseph’s sons made heirs by a father’s blessing - the shadow of those adopted and made heirs in Christ.
The Border of Ephraim
- Numbers 26:28-37The sons of Joseph after their families were Manasseh and Ephraim.The Mosaic census that set the size of the half-tribes Joshua 16 now plants, family by family, in the land.
- Joshua 17:14-18Why hast thou given me but one lot and one portion to inherit, seeing I am a great people?The sons of Joseph press for more immediately after - the tension between the gift received and the effort still required.
- John 14:2-3I go to prepare a place for you... that where I am, there ye may be also.The particular, prepared portion of verses 5-8 lifted to its fullest meaning - a place made ready and kept.
- Romans 12:4-5we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.The interlacing portions of verse 9 - a people whose shares are held together, not walled apart.
They Drave Not Out the Canaanites
- Judges 1:29Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.Judges picks up Joshua 16:10 almost word-for-word, listing it among the tribes that left the land half-cleared.
- Judges 2:1-3they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.The angel of the LORD names exactly what the tolerated pocket of verse 10 would cost - thorns and a snare.
- 1 Corinthians 5:6-7A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump... For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.The diagnosis and the remedy for the “one small Gezer” - the old leaven, and the Christ who purges it.
- Ephesians 5:25-27that he might present it to himself a glorious church... holy and without blemish.The complete clearing Ephraim could not accomplish - the people at last presented without spot by Christ.