Commentary - Joshua 15:63

Bird's-eye view

Joshua 15 concludes the detailed accounting of the inheritance allotted to the great tribe of Judah. After listing scores of cities and boundaries, a triumphant catalog of God's faithfulness in providing for His people, the chapter ends with this jarring and discordant note. It is a verse that functions as a crucial hinge, looking back at the victories of the conquest under Joshua and looking forward to the repeated failures that will characterize the period of the Judges. This single sentence encapsulates the central problem that will plague Israel for the next four hundred years: incomplete obedience. The failure to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem was not a minor oversight; it was a foundational compromise in what was destined to be the nation's spiritual and political heart. This verse, therefore, is a stark reminder that God's promises are apprehended by faith, and that a failure of faith results in a failure of nerve, which in turn results in a compromised inheritance.

This is not a record of God's inability, but of Judah's. The text says they "could not," but the entire context of the book of Joshua screams that this was a moral and spiritual inability, not a military one. God had promised to give them the land, and where they went forward in faith, they were invincible. This failure was a choice, a decision to disobey the command for total consecration of the land to God. The result was a festering pocket of paganism left in the very center of their inheritance, a problem that would not be resolved until the time of King David. It stands as a permanent warning against the kind of half-hearted obedience that leaves strongholds of the enemy intact.

Outline

Context In Joshua

This verse is the final statement in the chapter detailing Judah's inheritance (Joshua 15). Judah was the royal tribe, the tribe of the scepter, from which the Messiah would come. They were given the first and largest allotment. The chapter is filled with geographical details, a glorious deed-of-title for the land God had given them. But after all the triumphant listing of towns and territories, this verse acts as a sober postscript. It qualifies everything that has come before it. Yes, God gave Judah a magnificent inheritance, but their grasp on it was flawed from the beginning. This verse anticipates the pattern we see in Judges 1, where tribe after tribe fails to drive out the inhabitants of the land. Judah's failure here is the first crack in the dam, a preview of the widespread disobedience to come. It sets the stage for the later conquest of Jerusalem by David in 2 Samuel 5, showing that the work begun by Joshua had to be completed by a future king, and pointing ultimately to the true King who alone secures the full inheritance for His people.

Key Issues

The Thorn in the Side

We should read this verse and feel a sense of profound disappointment. It is the sour note at the end of a symphony. After the glorious victories at Jericho and Ai, after the sun stood still at Gibeon, after the allotment of the promised inheritance to the premier tribe of Judah, we are left with this. A failure. A compromise. An enemy left entrenched in the city that was destined to be the City of God. This is not a mere historical footnote. It is a theological diagnosis. The entire subsequent history of Israel's troubles can be traced back to this sort of failure, writ large. When God's people decide that total obedience is too hard, too costly, or too much trouble, they are not opting for a peaceful coexistence with the world. They are planting a seed that will grow into a tree of idolatry, weakness, and eventual judgment. The Jebusites in Jerusalem were a thorn in Judah's side, a constant reminder of their failure of nerve, and a spiritual cancer that was allowed to remain next to the heart of the nation.

Verse by Verse Commentary

63 Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not dispossess them; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day.

The verse begins by identifying the specific point of failure. The target was the Jebusites, and their stronghold was Jerusalem. This was not some insignificant hill town. This was the strategic high ground, the fortress of Zion, the future capital of the kingdom and the site of God's temple. To fail here was to fail in the most important place. The central failure is then stated plainly: the sons of Judah could not dispossess them. We must be very careful how we interpret that word "could not." This was not a failure of God's power or a breach of His promise. God had repeatedly promised to drive out the inhabitants before them (Ex. 23:30-31). This "could not" was a failure of Judah's will, a paralysis of their faith. It was the same kind of "could not" that prevented the first generation from entering the land at Kadesh Barnea. Because they would not, they could not. Their disobedience created their inability.

The consequence of this failure was a long-term, unholy mixture: so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem. This was a direct violation of God's command. They were not to make treaties with the inhabitants or allow them to dwell in the land, lest they become a snare (Ex. 23:33). This compromise was not a savvy political arrangement; it was spiritual treason. It was an agreement to coexist with a cancerous paganism. And this was not a short-term problem. The phrase until this day indicates that at the time this portion of Joshua was written, the Jebusite stronghold was still there. This state of affairs persisted for centuries, a standing monument to Judah's initial failure of faith, a problem that would not be rectified until David, a man after God's own heart, finally had the faith and courage to do what his ancestors should have done long before (2 Sam. 5:6-10).

Application

This verse is a powerful searchlight for our own hearts and for the church today. We too have been given a glorious inheritance in Christ, and we too have been commanded to drive out the enemy. The Christian life is a conquest. We are commanded to mortify the sin that remains in our members, to tear down strongholds, and to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. But how often do we stop short? How often do we conclude that a particular sin is just too entrenched, too difficult to root out? We decide we "cannot" overcome a particular temptation, and so we make a truce with it. We allow a "Jebusite" of bitterness, or lust, or pride, or prayerlessness to continue dwelling in the capital city of our hearts.

This verse warns us of the folly of such a compromise. The sins we tolerate will become snares to us. The areas of disobedience we ignore will fester and spread. The excuse that we "cannot" is an affront to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and who is infinitely powerful. Our inability is a function of our unbelief and our unwillingness. The good news is that we have a better Joshua, and a greater David, in the Lord Jesus. He is the one who conquered the ultimate stronghold of sin and death. When we fail, the answer is not to resign ourselves to coexistence with our sin, but to turn again in repentance and faith to the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, and who has promised to complete the good work He began in us. The call is to rise up, take courage, and by the power of His Spirit, drive the Jebusites out.