I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Joshua 21-22.

Once all of the tribes except for the Levites had their allotment of land, the Levites came to Joshua, Eleazar, and the other leaders to request their towns.  According to the plan laid out by Moses they were to have towns and cities among the lands of the other tribes.  The Levites ended up distributed among the rest of the tribes.  At no point does it spell this out, but it seems to me that the Levites were to focus on passing down the stories which the Israelites had received from their ancestors and teach them, and God’s commands, to the rest of the Israelites.  They were to work with the priests as a kind of junior clergy.

Now that all of the tribes were settled (more or less, as we learn later), the warriors from the tribes east of the Jordan returned home. This is actually noteworthy as it had been at least five years since the tribes first crossed the Jordan. Before I get to my main point, it seems likely that the warriors from the tribes east of the Jordan only spent the fighting season west of the Jordan during this period, returning home for the off season. I am unsure which part pf the year they would have spent in battle. Various factors would have had an impact on that: weather, planting time, harvest time, etc.. My main point, however, is that when the eastern tribes returned home with no plans to return for battle the following year (or season), they built an altar on the western banks of the Jordan River. The rest of the tribes believed that they intended to make this a place of worship in conflict with the one at Shiloh. This was contrary to the clear instructions which Moses had given them regarding a central place of worship. So, they gathered to make war against the eastern tribes. But first they sent a delegation to the eastern tribes for an explanation of the altar. The leaders of the eastern tribes explained that it was intended as a monument, much like the one Joshua had built with river stones after the Israelites first crossed the Jordan. The important thing about this story is that the western tribes did not go to war based on their understanding of what the eastern tribes had done. They first sent a delegation for an explanation, and the eastern tribes did not take offense that the western tribes misunderstood their action. There is a lesson here for us, when we believe that others have done us wrong, we should first approach them and find out what they meant by their actions. And when others approach us because they misunderstood our motivation, we should not take offense. Rather we should explain our goals in doing what we did, acknowledging their right to be concerned if they thought we were doing wrong.