Old Testament

Joshua 16

Ephraim's Allotment and Incomplete Obedience

3 passages

Overview

Joshua records the territorial allotment of the sons of Joseph — Ephraim and Manasseh — stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with Ephraim's boundaries carefully delineated and certain Ephraimite cities set within Manasseh's land, before closing with a sobering failure: Ephraim does not drive out the Canaanites of Gezer but instead reduces them to forced labor, a compromise that plants the seeds of future unfaithfulness.

Passages

1–4The Land Flows to Joseph's Sons 5–9The Inheritance of Ephraim: Boundaries, Promise, and the Peopled Land 10The Unfinished Conquest: Compromise and Its Consequences

Study Resources

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Joshua 16

¹The lot came out for the children of Joseph from the Jordan at Jericho, at the waters of Jericho on the east, even the wilderness, going up from Jericho through the hill country to Bethel. ²It went out from Bethel to Luz, and passed along to the border of the Archites to Ataroth; ³and it went down westward to the border of the Japhletites, to the border of Beth Horon the lower, and on to Gezer; and ended at the sea.

⁴The children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance. ⁵This was the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families. The border of their inheritance eastward was Ataroth Addar, to Beth Horon the upper. ⁶The border went out westward at Michmethath on the north. The border turned about eastward to Taanath Shiloh, and passed along it on the east of Janoah. ⁷It went down from Janoah to Ataroth, to Naarah, reached to Jericho, and went out at the Jordan. ⁸From Tappuah the border went along westward to the brook of Kanah; and ended at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Ephraim according to their families; ⁹together with the cities which were set apart for the children of Ephraim in the middle of the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages. ¹⁰They didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell in the territory of Ephraim to this day, and have become servants to do forced labor.

Joshua 15 Joshua 17