Grace and Mercy

Joshua 19-  The Israelites still had not conquered all the land, so Joshua sent teams out to scout out the land, and to bring him their findings at the camp at Shiloh. The men journeyed through the land and mapped it and its cities out into seven regions on a scroll. Without maps, we would be spatially blind because they are an abstract image of locations. Thus the chapters in Joshua give us spatial relevance as to where the tribes were to claim land ownership as part of their inheritance.

Joshua parcels out their inheritance based on those maps. In this chapter, we find that Simeon was given land within the boundaries of Judah, thus fulfilling Jacob’s prediction that Simeon would experience dispersion because of his sin with Levi in the city of Shechem after their sister’s rape.  Which brings us to the lesson we need to learn: your sin will find you out. God remembers and looks for us to admit our sin, but if we do not, He allows for sin to come to fruition before punishing. Jacob reminded both that their knives were weapons of violence, and thus both sons would be scattered. The Levites were foolish slaughtering foreigners but were zealous in defending God’s honor at the Golden Calf incident. Simeon is the only tribe not blessed by Moses and is later is placed in “protective custody” in the land of his brother Judah. Levi was later exalted not because of who he was or what he had done but only by God’s grace. Simeon’s curse remained because he did not seek God’s mercy.

 God hates sin and its fruit. Let us learn from Simeon!