The Theology of Real Estate: Judah's Inheritance Text: Joshua 15:1-12
Introduction: God Draws the Lines
We live in an age that despises boundaries. Our culture considers any line, any distinction, any border to be an act of oppressive bigotry. We are told that all definitions are confining, all categories are hateful, and all property lines are theft. The spirit of the age is a spirit of chaotic blending, a determined effort to turn God's variegated and beautiful world into a uniform, gray sludge. Whether it is blurring the lines between nations, between good and evil, or between male and female, the goal is the same: to erase the distinctions that God has made.
Into this confusion, the book of Joshua speaks with the sharp clarity of a surveyor's line. After the glorious conquest, we come to the section of the book dealing with the allocation of the land. And for chapter after chapter, the Holy Spirit sees fit to give us what amounts to a divine deed registry. We have long, detailed, and, to our modern sensibilities, tedious descriptions of borders. Kadesh-barnea, the ascent of Akrabbim, the stone of Bohan, the spring of the waters of Nephtoah. Why is this in our Bibles? Is this just filler material? Is God just a frustrated cartographer?
Not at all. We must understand that these chapters are brimming with profound theology. What we are reading is a detailed account of God fulfilling His specific, concrete promises to His people. This is not pie-in-the-sky spirituality. This is dirt-under-the-fingernails reality. God promised Abraham a particular piece of real estate, and here, centuries later, He is delivering it, right down to the last survey marker. God is a God of particulars. He is not a God of vague generalities and sentimental abstractions. He cares about places, names, and boundaries.
This detailed description of Judah's inheritance is a frontal assault on two related errors. First, it is an assault on a Gnostic spirituality that despises the material world. For the Gnostic, the body is a prison, the earth is a mistake, and salvation is an escape from the physical. The Bible will have none of it. God made the world, called it good, and is in the business of redeeming it, not escaping it. The land matters. Our bodies matter. Place matters. Second, it is an assault on the modern secular view that land is just a commodity, a resource to be exploited, bought, and sold by autonomous man. In Scripture, the land is a gift. It is an inheritance, which means it is tied to covenant, to family, and to God. It is sacramental. It is a sign and seal of God's faithfulness.
And it is no accident that the first lot is cast for Judah. From this tribe will come David, the king. And from this tribe, according to the flesh, will come the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The geography of Judah is the geography of redemption. Within these borders lies Bethlehem, the city of David's birth, and Jerusalem, the city of his death and resurrection. These are not just random lines on a map; they are the boundaries of the stage upon which God would perform the central act of human history.
The Text
Now the lot for the tribe of the sons of Judah according to their families reached the border of Edom, southward to the wilderness of Zin at the far end toward the south. And their south border was from the lower end of the Salt Sea, from the bay that turns to the south. Then it went out southward to the ascent of Akrabbim and passed on to Zin and went up by the south of Kadesh-barnea and continued to Hezron and went up to Addar and turned about to Karka. And it passed on to Azmon and went out to the brook of Egypt, and the border ended at the sea. This shall be your south border. And the east border was the Salt Sea, as far as the mouth of the Jordan. And the border of the north side was from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan. Then the border went up to Beth-hoglah and passed by on the north of Beth-arabah; and the border went up to the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben. Then the border went up to Debir from the valley of Achor and turned northward toward Gilgal which is opposite the ascent of Adummim, which is on the south of the valley; and the border continued to the waters of En-shemesh and it ended at En-rogel. Then the border went up the valley of Ben-hinnom to the slope of the Jebusite on the south (that is, Jerusalem); and the border went up to the top of the mountain which is before the valley of Hinnom to the west, which is at the end of the valley of Rephaim toward the north. From the top of the mountain the border curved to the spring of the waters of Nephtoah and proceeded to the cities of Mount Ephron; then the border curved to Baalah (that is, Kiriath-jearim). Then the border turned about from Baalah westward to Mount Seir and continued to the slope of Mount Jearim on the north (that is, Chesalon) and went down to Beth-shemesh and continued through Timnah. Then the border went out to the side of Ekron northward. Then the border curved to Shikkeron and passed on to Mount Baalah and went out to Jabneel, and the border ended at the sea. And the west border was at the Great Sea, even its coastline. This is the border around the sons of Judah according to their families.
(Joshua 15:1-12 LSB)
God's Meticulous Providence (vv. 1-4)
The account begins with the southern border, a line drawn with painstaking detail.
"Now the lot for the tribe of the sons of Judah according to their families reached the border of Edom, southward to the wilderness of Zin at the far end toward the south... This shall be your south border." (Joshua 15:1, 4b)
The first thing to notice is that the inheritance is determined by lot. "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Proverbs 16:33). This was not a game of chance. This was a divinely superintended process to prevent jealousy and strife among the tribes. God is the one distributing the land. He is the ultimate real estate agent. This removes all ground for boasting or complaining. Your lot in life, your inheritance, is assigned by God.
The southern border is described with a litany of place names: the wilderness of Zin, the ascent of Akrabbim, Kadesh-barnea. These names should ring a bell. This is the region where Israel wandered for forty years. Kadesh-barnea is the very place where the previous generation refused to enter the land because of unbelief. Now, the new generation is drawing a property line right through the geography of their fathers' failure. This is a powerful picture of God's grace. The place of your greatest failure and rebellion can become the site of God's promised inheritance. God redeems the past. He draws a line of grace right through the middle of our sinful history.
This border runs down to the border of Edom, the land of Esau's descendants. This reminds us that God's covenant has boundaries. Israel's inheritance is distinct from Edom's. God gives gifts to all nations, but He has a special, covenantal inheritance for His people. This precision demolishes any notion of a vague, universalist God. Our God makes distinctions. He draws lines. He has a chosen people and a promised place.
Fixed and Unchanging Boundaries (vv. 5, 12)
The east and west borders are defined by massive, immovable geographical features.
"And the east border was the Salt Sea, as far as the mouth of the Jordan... And the west border was at the Great Sea, even its coastline." (Joshua 15:5a, 12a)
The eastern border is the Dead Sea. The western border is the Mediterranean, the Great Sea. These are not lines that can be easily disputed or moved. They are fixed, massive, and divinely established. This provides a picture of the security of our inheritance in Christ. The boundaries of our salvation are not drawn with shifting sand; they are established by the unchanging character and promises of God. On one side, we have a sea of death, a reminder of the judgment from which we have been saved. On the other, we have a great sea, a picture of the vastness of God's grace and the scope of the Great Commission that will go out from this land.
The world wants you to believe that all boundaries are negotiable, that truth is relative, and that your identity is fluid. But God says, "No." My promises are fixed. My law is unchanging. Your salvation is secure. The lines have been drawn by an authority that cannot be challenged. This is a great comfort. We are not adrift on a sea of relativism; we are secure within the boundaries of God's covenant love.
The Winding Path to Jerusalem (vv. 6-11)
The northern border is the most complex and detailed, and for good reason. It snakes its way through the hill country, deliberately carving out the most important piece of land on the planet.
"Then the border went up the valley of Ben-hinnom to the slope of the Jebusite on the south (that is, Jerusalem)..." (Joshua 15:8a)
The description is a tangle of landmarks: Beth-hoglah, the stone of Bohan, the valley of Achor, En-rogel. This is not the straight line a human planner would draw. This is a divine gerrymandering. God is carefully, meticulously tracing a line that will place the city of Jerusalem squarely within the inheritance of Judah. At this point in history, Jerusalem was still held by the Jebusites. It was a pagan fortress. But God, by lot, assigns this unconquered city to the tribe of the future king.
Notice the mention of the valley of Achor. This was the place where Achan was judged for his sin, bringing trouble on all of Israel (Joshua 7). Now, this valley of "trouble" is part of the boundary of the royal tribe. The prophet Hosea would later say that God would make the Valley of Achor a "door of hope" (Hosea 2:15). Again, God incorporates the geography of sin and judgment into the map of redemption and hope.
And then there is the valley of Ben-hinnom, or Gehenna. This valley, which formed part of the border of Jerusalem, would later become a place of child sacrifice and idolatry, and eventually the city dump where fires burned continually. It became in the New Testament a metaphor for Hell itself. It is a staggering thought: the border of the holy city, the inheritance of the royal tribe, runs right along the edge of Hell. This is a picture of the Christian life. Our inheritance is glorious, but we walk every day along the border of temptation and judgment. The line between the City of God and Gehenna is a sharp one, and we are called to walk it carefully.
Our True Inheritance
So what does a Christian in the twenty-first century do with a detailed property description from ancient Palestine? We must see it for what it is: a type, a shadow, a tangible picture of a greater spiritual reality. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Joshua did not give Israel their ultimate rest. If he had, God would not have later spoken of another day of rest (Hebrews 4:8). That land, that inheritance, was a placeholder for the true inheritance.
The tribe of Judah received a specific, bounded, physical inheritance. But we who are in Christ, who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, have received a greater inheritance. Peter tells us we have "an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4). Our inheritance is not a piece of land, but Christ Himself. "He that hath the Son hath life" (1 John 5:12). Our borders are not the Salt Sea and the Great Sea, but the finished work of Jesus Christ. We are "in Him."
And just as Judah's inheritance included unconquered cities, so does ours. God has given us "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). He has seated us in the heavenly places with Christ. But we are still called to "fight the good fight of faith" and to take possession of what has already been granted to us. We must drive the remaining Jebusites of sin and unbelief out of the territory of our hearts. The land has been given, but it must also be possessed by faith and obedience.
The world wants to erase all the lines. It wants to tell you that you are undefined, that your identity is up for grabs, and that you belong to no one. But God has drawn the lines. If you are in Christ, you have been chosen. You have been set apart. You have a lot, an inheritance, assigned to you by the sovereign decree of God. Your borders are secure. You are a citizen of a heavenly country, and your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. This is the theology of real estate. You belong to God, and your inheritance is forever.