“Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Ps 62:8).
At last were distributed “the inheritances which Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel divided as an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting” (Jos 19:51). Caleb rightfully had first choice. His courageous faith led the way. As an adopted member of the leader tribe of Judah, it did not take him long to rise in the ranks, and he set out to correct the failure of unbelief that kept them from the land forty years before. But now Joshua, a fitting picture of our Lord, leaves himself to the last. “When they had made an end of dividing the land as an inheritance according to their borders, the children of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua” (v 49). But there was still more to be done. Joshua 20 describes the establishment of the cities of refuge, discussed when studying Numbers 35. “They appointed Kedesh in Galilee, in the mountains of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba (which is Hebron) in the mountains of Judah. And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on the plain, from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh” (Jos 20:7-8). How often these cities were used, we do not know. The tragic death of Abner in the shadow of Hebron’s gate, one step from safety, every gospel preacher knows well. Abner was no fool, but, asked grieving David, didn’t he die like one? “Your hands were not bound nor your feet put into fetters” (2 Sam 3:34). Are you saved? What’s holding you back? Fanny Crosby wrote: “Only a step to Jesus! Believe, and you shall live; Lovingly now He’s waiting, And ready to forgive.”