Joshua 15 Judah Gets What is Rightly His

Dr. Jack Terry discusses the uneventful yet significant Chapter 15 of Joshua, focusing on the land allotments of the tribe of Judah. He shares his love for languages, detailing his background in French, Latin, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew. He explains how his language studies led to teaching positions and reflects on the importance of understanding biblical nuances. Additionally, he delves into the significance of Judah receiving the first allotment despite not being the firstborn and touches on the fate of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh tribes staying on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Good morning. How are you all doing? Good. You look great sitting back there. Are you warm? Good. That'll make you happy, sweetheart. Barbara asked me before we left this morning, she said, do you think I need another wrap? I said, I don't think so. See, I was right, Barbara. Everybody doing okay? Have you read the chapter for today? Have you read the chapter for today? Sounds like my class is at Hardin-Simmons. Chapter 15 in the book of Joshua is an interestingly boring, very important chapter. Now, if you can put all three of those together, you're in good shape. Interestingly boring, important chapter. And the reason it is interestingly boring and important, it's interestingly boring because the majority part of the 63 verses are the locations of the landlines of the tribe of Judah. And it's so much fun reading where those boundaries are. You know, one boundary goes by the Salt Sea. The other boundary goes by Kadesh Barnea. I mean, that's really fun, isn't it? Well, quite frankly, it's not. And then, after you pass a couple of stories toward the end of the chapter, you run into another border situation that goes all the way to 62 and you don't get some real meat until you get to verse 62. So, in chapter 15, there are about four places, hello, there are about four places that have very interesting little tidbits and we're going to look at those four places today because that's basically what the chapter is about. Now, I'll help you understand a little bit about me. I love languages. I love studying languages. Barbara knows that and so does some other people. I grew up in southern Louisiana, southwest of New Orleans, in a little fishing village called Houma, Louisiana. All of my relatives were Cajun-French and they all spoke Cajun-French. So, when I was growing up as a child, I had French all around me. Then, as I grew a little older and was actively engaged in the faith that my parents borned me into, Catholicism, I started studying Latin. And, in parochial school, I studied Latin quite a bit and trying to get ready to serve the altar, which I did for seven years. And, Latin became another language that I became part of. When I got to high school, I took two years of Spanish. No, actually, it took me. I can now read it, but I can't speak it. And so, I took Spanish. And then, when I got to seminary, unlike some of the other MRE people that go to seminary, MRE stands for Master of Religious Education. You see, when Brother Jimmy went to seminary, he got what's called a Master of Divinity degree. He knows how to make candy. And, I'm sorry Brother John isn't here because Brother John Mann also got a Master of Divinity. I did not get a Master of Divinity because I didn't want to learn how to preach. I took a lot of speech courses in college and I didn't want to learn how to preach. And, the degree that didn't have preaching on it was a Master of Religious Education degree. So, I chose to take it because I wanted to be a minister of education. And, in the process of it all, I thought, you know, I really need to study some of these languages. So, in college, I took twelve hours of Greek when I was in college. When I got to seminary, I took an additional nine hours of Greek. And, toward the end of my problem, I took twelve hours of Hebrew. So, I have had French, I've had Latin, I've had Spanish, I've had Greek, and I've had Hebrew. And, of the five, Hebrew was the most difficult language to learn. It's a dead language and it's really difficult to learn because it has so many little innuendos that you have to understand if you're going to speak it or if you're going to read it. And, it's really kind of difficult. So, I like Hebrew. Now, on my degree, I didn't need to take those languages. My degree did not call for languages. Brother Jimmy's did. He had to take Greek and Hebrew. Brother John had to take Greek and Hebrew. I didn't have to take anything. But, I chose to take Greek and Hebrew because I felt like, well, basically, it's what actually got me a teaching position at Hardin Simmons University. When they began to look for a professor of religious education who could also teach Old Testament and Old and New Testament survey, they called me, talked with me, found out I had all of these hours of languages, and they said, you're the guy. And so, they brought me to Hardin Simmons and I taught Old and New Testament four times, two times every year. And then, I also taught other courses in Old Testament because of my Hebrew background. And then, I taught courses in religious education. And so, those kind of things were very helpful to me because it made me available and with the ability to teach what I needed to teach. Now, the reason I tell you all that is, in studying the Word of God, I tried to help my young preachers in the Old Testament courses to understand that there are things that go on in a chapter that may appear to be, as this chapter is, exceptionally interesting but exceedingly boring. There are some things that are in there that you really need to know about, but you're not going to find them in the chapter. You're going to find an innuendo in the chapter that's going to take you somewhere else. And as it takes you somewhere else, you're going to find out what it's talking about. I'm going to give you a four instance. I'm going to read you the first one. This, then, was the lot of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families. Does that mean anything to any of you in here? You see, that's what we have to come to understand about the Word of God. I used to call these things, when I taught at Hardin-Simmons, when I teach the Word, I call these sideboards. And it's the sideboard of the Scripture that's going to give you some information. I'm going to tell you some information about verse 1 that you've never heard. Because Judah has the first allotment. Judah was not the firstborn. Jacob had 12 boys. Judah was the fourthborn. Why, in verse 15, the first one of chapter 15, why did Joshua give the allotment of the firstborn to a fourthborn? Well, there are some reasons why. And that's going to be another sideboard that we're going to look at. And you have to look at these things because you need to come to understand. God does things on firstbornism. Now, Judah, Jacob had three boys before he had Judah. He had a young man by the name of Reuben, who was his firstborn, and should have received the birthright. He had a second kid, second boy, whose name was Simeon, and then he had a third boy whose name was Levi. Simeon and Levi were born to Leah, David's other wife. Benjamin and Joseph were born to the beauty of his life, who was buried in Bethlehem, and so to his other wife, who was born Benjamin and Joseph. And so, Leah had these two boys, Simeon and Reuben. And then Simeon and Reuben had another brother, and his name was Levi. And so you have the first three children of the man Jacob. Now, it appears that when they got ready to allot the land, which is going to be the first 12 verses of the book of chapter 15 of the book of Joshua, by all rights, firstbornism, that land should have gone to Reuben. But it didn't. It went to the fourthborn. It skipped over three boys and got to the fourthborn. And there's a reason why it got to the fourthborn. Now, it's not because these men were not born into the family legally. It's not that these three men were not supposed to have received the blessing as they received it. But it is something that they did during the time that they were growing up in the house of Jacob, which eliminated them from all activity in the allotment of the western side of the Canaanite land called the land of promise. Now, I emphasize the western side because you remember when Moses and Joshua and Caleb led the children of Israel into the valley of Moab, getting ready to cross the Jordan River, getting ready to go into the promised land, God took Moses up on Mount Pisgah, which is in Moab, the mountain of Moab. He showed Moses the promised land. He said, now, Moses, this is what you could have entered, but because you disobeyed me when I told you to speak to the rock to get water from it and you got angry and you smoked the rock with your rod, because of that, Moses, you're not going to get to go in there. But I am going to let you see from the top of Mount Pisgah, which looks over into the promised land, I'm going to let you see what you're not going to get to look into personally. Then I'm going to bury you. And Moses died and was buried in Mount Nebo and to this day no one knows where he was buried. Joshua and Caleb came on, crossed the Jordan, came into the land of promise. Now, it's kind of interesting. There were three tribes that decided, two and a half tribes that decided to stay on the eastern side of Jordan, stay in the Moab Valley and to stay in the area of Moab and Ammon, of whom the Israelites defeated both of those kings and took the entire area. And there was a family by the name of Reuben. He was the firstborn. Reuben had a problem and he knew that God would never let him enter the western side of the promised land because of his sin. And so Reuben and Gad and one half of Manasseh chose to live on the eastern side of the Jordan River and Reuben, Gad and Manasseh established their tribes on the eastern side and the other nine and a half tribes crossed over and they occupied the western side. But Reuben's still over on the eastern side. And eventually all two and a half of those tribes that established themselves on the eastern side are going to be assimilated into that particular culture and within fifteen to thirty years those tribes will be extinct. And you won't hear of them anymore. Now Simeon, interesting guy, and Levi, very interesting. Because Levi becomes what? The high priest. Now this is such a beautiful passage that happens here is you can sin really bad and God can forgive you enough for your sin that he can make you the high priest. That's kind of interesting isn't it? And so Levi and Simeon are the next two. We've already talked about Reuben. He's going to become extinct. If you look on the map that I gave you a week ago and you look down in the middle of Judah you'll see a little circle about this big and in that circle is the name Simeon. And Simeon was put in that part of Judah and Simeon's tribe was assimilated into the Judean tribe and they too became extinct. Now you've lost Reuben and you've lost Simeon. Now you've got one guy left. His name is Levi. At Mount Sinai after they got the tabernacle, after they received how to build the tabernacle and got all the Levitical laws and got everything ready to go, God chose Levi, the tribe of Levi, to be the tribe of the Levitical code and the tribe of the high priest. And Levi was quite a sinner. Levi did something with Simeon that should not have happened. And because these three boys, Reuben, Simeon and Levi were discounted, became extinct and were scattered all over Israel, would any of you like to tell me what part of Israel did Levi get? Answer it with this word. None. The tribe of Levi got some cities. The tribe of Levi got some property where they could put their livestock and grow a little bit of food. But unlike Judah and Benjamin and Dan and Issachar and Naphtali and Ephraim and Manasseh, they got nothing. They were scattered all over Israel, not in a group as a tribe, in cities because of their sin. Now, that's why Judah, fourthborn, gets first choice. So that answers the question of the first sidebar. When I was teaching at Hardin-Simmons, I'd help my young preachers come to understand, you really need to go to different places in the Scripture after you figure out that something's happening here to Reuben and Simeon and Judah. And you really need to go take a look at what's happening because there may be some things that are happening to these people that you need to know about. Now, let me tell you very quickly the second sidebar that's still attached to the first twelve verses. The first sidebar is the fact that three men and their tribes were totally extinct, scattered, zilch, gone. And that Judah, the fourthborn, gets to pick the most beautiful, the most fertile, the land that has the most water, the most agricultural situation. In fact, in Judah is the city of Bethlehem. You call it Bethlehem. The Hebrew name is Bethlehem. Lechem means bread. Beth means house. House of bread. That simply tells you that the area around Bethlehem, the house of bread, is an agricultural area that grows enough wheat, barley, oats, and corn to feed the world. Okay? Now, that's what Judah got. Reuben should have gotten it, but Reuben played the fool. Simeon and Levi had a shot, but they messed up really bad. Now, let me just help you understand. I want you to turn with me to the book of Genesis, the 49th chapter. And I want to show you what happened to Reuben, to Simeon, and to Levi because of what they did. Now, first of all, let me tell you what they did. These two guys had a sister by their mother Leah, and this sister's name was Dinah. And Dinah was the daughter of Jacob by Leah. Simeon and Levi were sons of Jacob by Leah. So, Dinah would have been the sister of Simeon and Levi. Got it? Keep it. Now, I want you to stay in 49. I'm going to go to 34 for a moment. I'm going to read you something. I want you to listen to it. Now, Dinah, the daughter of Leah, 34.1, whom she had had through Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her and defiled her. He loved her. She was a beauty. And he took her by force and defiled her. But in doing so, he was telling his father, and he wanted to tell Jacob that he wanted to marry Leah. He didn't just want to have sex with Leah. He wanted to marry her. He wanted her to be his wife. But he did it wrong. He did it with force. And because of that, there's going to be a problem. And after it happened, Hamor, his father of the Hivites, went to speak with Jacob. Now, you can read the rest of chapter 34, and it tells the story. This is the sidebar of what happened to Simeon and Levi. And it just so happens that the story goes this way, that Hamor went to Jacob, and he said, My son really loves your daughter Dinah, and I want them to be married, and we would love to become a part of your tribe. And these Hivites wanted to be engulfed in the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Levi, and the tribe of Simeon. And Jacob said, Okay. If you read the chapter, it says, Now, if you're going to do this, you have to do one thing. Your men in the tribe of the Hivites cannot marry the daughters of the tribe of Simeon and the tribe of Levi, the tribes of Jacob. You can't marry my daughters unless your men are circumcised. And towards the end of chapter 34, it talks about circumcising all of the Hivites of Hamor. Okay, that's pretty good. And after they get circumcised, then they can marry the daughters of the Israelites. But, while they're in this process of recovering from all of this problem that they had, and they're very ill, and they're very sick, Simeon and Levi and their men come upon the men of the Hivites of Hamor and Shechem, and they kill the entire population. Simeon and Levi destroyed Hamor, the king of the Hivites, and Shechem, his son, and all of their warriors, took their women and took all of their livestock and all of their property and took it to themselves. And Jacob found out about it. And Jacob came to Simeon and to Levi. And in chapter 49, where I want you to read with me in just a moment, chapter 49 of the book of Genesis, tells the story of what Jacob says to Simeon and to Levi. Now, hang on, we're talking about verse 1. And Judah, fourth born, gets first choice. What happened to 1, 2, and 3? Well, if you go back in the book of Genesis, you'll find out that Reuben defiled one of Jacob's concubines. And he was eliminated. And that's how Reuben was extinct. And now we're talking about Simeon and Levi, and they're getting ready to do something. And what they're getting ready to do, having killed all of the men of the Hivites under Hamor and Shechem, they are now under the hand of God for murder. Read with me in chapter 49 of the book of Genesis. Reuben, you are my firstborn. My might and beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power, unstable as water. Wow. Wouldn't you hate for your daddy to tell you that you are unstable as water? What an insult. Reuben, you're unstable as water. You shall not excel. Because you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. Simeon, extinct. Firstborn. Verse 5. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are their inhabitation. Let not my soul enter the council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly. For in their anger they slew a man, and their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be the anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. Watch. I will divide them in Jacob, and I will scatter them in Israel. Simeon, little circle in Judah, going away. Verse 8. Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down and lies down as a lion. And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The Lion of Judah. Got it? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet. Until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people. Would you like to tell me who Shiloh is? I'll give you his name. Jesus Christ. Jesus came out of Judah. He was born in Bethlehem. He was born in the City of Bread. The Bread of Life was born in the City of Bread. But two men who should have had this property by the name of Simeon and Levi were made to be nothing. Now, that's the first and second bar of this story. And it tells us immediately how then Reuben, Judah, became the first person's tribe to be allocated with property. Now, fast forward. We're going to the third bar. You see, if you don't understand that there are innuendos that go on all sides of the scripture as you read it, you have to be able to go into other parts of the scripture to find out what's going on. And in the 13th verse of chapter 15, after we look at all of the boundaries of Judah, which are huge boundaries. Judah had probably the largest piece of property and the most productive piece of property. And I'll tell you in a few minutes why it was so productive. So now we're going to talk about what's happening. And now we start talking about Caleb. So in verse 13, it says, And now Caleb, son of Jehunah, he gave a portion among the children of Judah. Pause. When Jacob took his twelve boys, now eleven, because Joseph, he thought, was dead, and went to Egypt, on the way down to Egypt, he and his clan passed by a little place called Edom. And there was a group of people in Edom who were called the Kinzizites. And the Kinzizites were the tribe of Caleb and his father, Jehunah. And as the people of Jacob moved toward Egypt, because there was a great famine in the land of Israel, and they moved toward Egypt because they heard that Egypt had a lot of grain, that their prime minister had set up a thing that they had all kinds of grain to eat, and they were going down to Egypt to get food, not knowing that their brother Joseph was the prime minister. Isn't God marvelous? I mean, say amen. God already set Joseph up down here. God's always ahead of us, folks. God's never late. He's always on time. And so all the way down, this tribe of the Kinzizites decided they would join up with Judah, with Jacob and his boys, and they went down to Egypt with Jacob and his boys, and Caleb becomes one of the men out of the tribe of the Kinzizites. And he also becomes a member of the tribe of Judah because his father joined Judah on the way to Egypt. Now you pick it up here. Now Caleb, son of Jehunah, he gave a portion among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the Lord Joshua, namely, named Kerasah Arba, which is Hebron. Hebron, one of the largest cities in the area of Judah, the best fortified city in the area of Judah, which was purported to have giants. Now, whether they were giants or not, it appears that all of the men of Hebron were very, very tall, much taller than the little Israelites. And when they went up from Kadesh Barnea and they sought out all of this area, which included Hebron, they came back and they reported to Moses, yes, the land does flow with milk and honey. Yes, it is a beautiful place. Yes, there are wonderful vegetation and all kinds of fruit and vegetables growing, and the cattle have everywhere to graze. Yes, it's a wonderful place, but it has giants. They were talking about Hebron. Hebron had that king, Arnak. He was a giant in the eyes of the other little Israelites. And he had three sons who were very tall as well, and they were identified as giants. And so it goes on to say here that Joshua, namely, Kerasah Arba, which is Hebron, Arba was the father of Anak. Do you relate to the word Anakites? In all of Hebrew history, the Anakites always referred to giants. And Arnak, Anak, was the father of the Anakites. And he had three sons, Shishaiah, Haman, and Talmiah. And they lived in the city of Hebron, which was one of the best fortified cities in all of Judah. And the Anakites, under Anak, could fight hand-to-hand better than any other army in the entire nation of Cana. And Joshua said, Caleb, are you sure you want Hebron? Well, he took it. You remember he said, although I am 85 years of age, I am as strong today as I was when I came out of Kadesh Barnea. I am still viral, and I can take the city. And he took the city of Hebron. He killed the three sons of Anak, their father. He took the city of Hebron, and then he moved on to take the city of Debir, which was another city down, which was called Shiraz, or the city of Sephir. Now we've got the third sideboard, and I want you to understand. During this particular time, all of these monarchs used their daughters as dowry for husbands. Now, if you go to the book of 2 Samuel, and I'm going to turn to the book of 2 Samuel, I'm sorry, 1 Samuel. In the book of 1 Samuel, you get the first indication of this sidebar. This sidebar is going to be the following. If you can do something magnanimous for me as the monarch, I will give you something very, very precious for your work. In 1 Samuel, the 18th chapter, the 17th verse. Listen. Then King Saul said to David, Here is my older daughter, Muran. I will give her to you as a wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight the Lord's battles. For Saul thought, Let my hand not be against him. Let the hand of the Philistines be against him, and let the Philistines kill him. I'll give you my daughter, if you come fight for me. And David refused. And Merman was married to another. And of course, you know the story of King Saul and David. Now, that's the sidebar. Now, on another occasion, in the book of Chronicles, David is going to do a like thing, but it's not exact, to this sidebar. He's going to offer something to somebody which is very, very important and very pricely. In the 10th chapter of the book of 1 Chronicles, and in the 10th verse, it talks about David putting siege to the city of Jerusalem, Jebus, which it was called under the Jebusites. And verse 10 of chapter 10 says, Then they put his armor in the temple of their gods, and fastened the head of the temple of Dagon. And then, when all of Jebus, Gilead, and the Philistines had heard it, a valiant men arose, and they went to Jebus. Now, if you look in chapter 11, you see in verse 5, Then the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, You shall not come into our city. Pause. When the Israelites were going in the southern conquests and the northern conquests, when they came to the city of Jerusalem, they could not conquer it. And they left Jebus and the Jebusites on Mount Moriah in the city of Jerusalem, and they left them alone, and they didn't bother them, and the Jebusites and Jebus lived on the Mount of Moriah until King David came. Several years, by the way. And in verse 5 of chapter 11, 1 Chronicles, it says, Then the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, You shall not come in here. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. Now, David said, Watch this. Caleb said, Take my daughter. Saul said, Take my daughter. David's getting ready to say, Watch. Now, David said, Whoever attacks the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. Whoever goes over the wall of the Jebus, whoever kills the first Jebusite, whoever shows me that we can conquer Jerusalem, whoever goes in with me, I am going to make you my chief commander. I am going to make you the commander of my armies. And it says, And Joab, the son of Zuriah, Zuriah is David's half-sister. This is David's nephew, Joab. And Joab, the son of Zuriah, went up first, and he killed the first Jebusite, and he became the chief commander of the armies of David. Now, Caleb's getting ready to do the same thing. Back in Joshua 15, in verse 16, it says, And Caleb said, Whoever attacks Tirgoth Shepher, the city of Shepher, and takes it, to him I will give Achish, my daughter, as his wife. Okay. Does that sound familiar? Saul did it. David did it. Caleb does it. It appears to be something that was done on a regular basis in the Old Testament with these people. And he chose Hosniel, son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, and he took the city, and Caleb gave him Achish as his wife. What does that mean? Well, Caleb has Hebron, and Caleb has all the property around Hebron, and the property around Hebron is the best property for livestock, and the best property to grow livestock, and the best property to grow products in the earth, vis-a-vis all kinds of oats and wheat and barley, yada, yada, yada. It is a very verdant area. But they need something In order to grow in a very dry area of the Negev, as Brother Jimmy told you, the south part, as John told you, the south part, or the southern part of Israel, down near the desert, in order to grow something out there, what commodity must you have? Water. And so sidebar number three is, Caleb gives Hosniel his daughter, and Hosniel and Asher become the proprietors of a great piece of land that belongs to Caleb. Now watch Asher. She's a typical daddy's girl. I love Asher. I have watched Tricia work me. Barbara will confirm, Tricia could work me like a clock. Right, Bob? And she could get anything she wanted. In fact, she called me one day from TCU while I was Dean of the School of Education. She said, Daddy, I am so happy today, I need to tell you what I did. I said, tell me what you did, sweetheart. She said, I made four A's and one B. I said, that's wonderful. She said, good, can I go buy something? She was working me. These daughters can work you, Jim. She was working me. She bought something, didn't she, babe? I think she went down to what is now Macy's, which was then, what was the store before? Foley's. I think she bought $300 worth of clothes. I'm sorry? Yeah, she was treating herself. I mean, she worked me like a clock. Okay? Now, this is Asher. Asher's getting ready to work Caleb in order to help Othnio. Now, the thing you don't know is, in a few minutes, we're going to find out who Othnio is. We know that he is the son of Caleb's brother, which means that he's marrying his cousin. Okay? Asher is his second cousin. So, he's marrying his cousin, which was fine back in those days. We don't do it nowadays, but it was fine back in those days. He married his cousin. And they're going to live down on the property that's down in this beautiful area that has all the place for the cattle and the verdant fields. But it also has something else. Watch what else it has. Verse 18. So, Othnio, the son of Kenoz... Verse 17. Othnio, the son of Kenoz, the brother of Caleb, took it, and he gave him Asher, his daughter, his wife. Now, it was so, when she came to Caleb, that she persuaded him to ask her father... No, when she came to Othnio, she persuaded Othnio that she would go and be able to ask her father for some more. She got this huge piece of property that you could raise cattle and grow all kinds of food on. And she wants more. She's getting ready to work daddy. Hang on. So, she said, she persuaded Othnio that she's going to go down and talk to dad. So, she goes down, so she dismounts from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you wish my sweet darling? What would you like to have? She answered, Give me a blessing. Since you have given me land in the south, give me also springs of water. Whoever controls the water controls the land. Watch what she's doing for Othnio. And in the last of this study, I'm going to show you what it does for Othnio. So, he gave her the upper springs, and he gave her the lower springs. He gave it all to her. Just like I gave it all to Tricia, and she treated herself. This lady got everything necessary for that valley, and this was the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families. Now, fast forward into the book of Judges, and I want you to look at chapter 3, and we conclude with chapter 3 in the book of Judges. We have come now to a period of time when the whole of Canaan has been conquested, and the children of Israel are living in the land of promise, but they are being attacked on every side by every nation that surrounds them. In this particular situation, they are going to be attacked by the king of Mesopotamia, and in verse 7 it says, so the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, they forgot the Lord their God, and they served idols, Baals and Asherahs. Now, the interesting thing about the book of Judges, it's a circle. It starts off here with goodness and confession, then it hits sin, and then it hits control, then it hits conquest, and then it's back to forgiveness. It's just a sin of these people. Sinning against God, being blessed of God, being cursed by God, and being blessed again by God, and it does it 12 times in the book of Judges. There are 12 judges, and every time there's a judge, Israel has sinned, and there's a monarch that's trying to kill him, and God's going to raise up a person. You know them. You remember Gideon. You remember Teber and Barak. You remember all these judges. There were 12 of them. Othniel is number one. He's the first judge. Othniel and Asher live in Judah. They got a palatial place. They own all the cisterns and all of the lakes. They have it made. Okay? Now, you fast forward about 40 years, and watch what happens. Therefore, the anger of the Lord in verse 8 was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushon Rishetham, king of Mesopotamia, and the children of Israel served Cushon Rishetham eight years. When the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel who delivered them. Othniel, the son of Canaz, Caleb's younger brother, was the judge. Well, yeah. Most likely. Probably the most prominent person in the land of promise. He owned all the water. Why not? If anybody could bring us back, surely the guy that owns all the water can bring us back. And so God chooses Othniel. I'll tell you something at the end of this. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cushon Rishetham, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, and his hand prevailed over that king of Mesopotamia. And so, the land had rest for forty years under the leadership of this judge by the name of Othniel, who was the husband of Asha, who was the daughter of Caleb. He was the first judge. And he did it well. And because of his ability as a judge, and because of his being delivered into the hand of eternal God, as it says, and God came upon him, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, Othniel was a prominent, wonderful leader, monarch, for forty years. Oh, conclusion. Do you remember in the book of Joshua, on several occasions it says, even to this day, you remember I've called your attention to that on several occasions, that the scripture says, well, it's happening that way even to this day. Even to this day goes to Othniel. For you see, Othniel wrote the book of Joshua. And every time in the book of Joshua, it says, it is as it is until today, Othniel was talking about the fact that what had happened to the nation of Israel in the land of promise is like it was even to this day. Now ladies and gentlemen, chapter 15 can be extremely interesting, unusually boring, terrible unnecessary, and sometimes don't want to read it because after we get through with this thing over here about Asher marrying Othniel, he goes back in in verse 20 and he goes for 42 verses talking about boundaries. You see, the chapter 15 is not a great chapter, except it has four side bars that are very interesting to the kingdom of God and the nature of the land of God and the forwardness of God in Othniel, the first judge of Israel. It's all God's hand. Moving, moving. Verse 63, chapter 15 As for the Jebusites, back with that crowd again, you remember Jebus? Israel passed them by, they would not attack them, they were too strong. They were ugly. And they passed them by. As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah, could not drive them out, but the Jebusites dwelt with the children of Judah in Jerusalem to this what? Day. There it is again. Othniel telling you and the Jebusites are dwelling with the children of Israel in Jebus on Mount Moriah in what's going to become Jerusalem in what's going to become the capital of Israel in what's going to be David's great hoard when he sends Joab to take it unto this day. They're still there. Isn't God's word wonderful? And isn't God's word intricate? Now, had you seen what I've just showed you in chapter 15? No. Because it's not there. But, why did Judah get number one? What happened to Reuben, Simeon, and Levi? Why did Caleb give Asher to Othniel? What did Othniel become as a major proprietor of the land of Judah? Four sidebars that attach to this chapter which make this chapter very, very interesting. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I close with this. I gave you a sidebar in the New Testament the other day. When I do this, these are sidebars. I used to do my classes at Hardin-Simmons as well. My preacher boys would come up and say, Doc Jack, could you just go sit down and talk with us for about a half hour? We need to let you tell us about some more sidebars. I gave you a sidebar the other day in the book of Acts. You didn't recognize it. I said in the book of Acts there were two men by the name of Matthias and Justin. And the disciples were in the upper room and God told them to choose a twelfth apostle. And they used something that was used for the last time in the entire Word of God. Here's the sidebar. They used a lot. And I chose to go out beyond that and get into the sidebar and tell you where the lots were. Remember? Now ladies and gentlemen, when you study the Word of God, when you run into something like this that kind of peaks your mind, don't just run over and go see what it said. Go look in your Bible and find out if you can say something else about it. I gave you a sidebar in the book of Acts. And the sidebar was about the lot. And then I told you about the lots. Because we went over here and looked at the lots that were in the breastplate of the high priest. The Ullman and the Thurman. Because there was a sidebar in the book of Acts. Isn't that fun? That's why I love to study the Word of God. And all of these languages that I've had to have, all of the Hebrew that I've had to have, helps me to understand what these people are doing. May God help us to come to one understanding from this chapter. Here's what you take home. God is always 10 miles ahead of you. And He is setting up everything you and I are going to need within the next 10 days. And life. Look what He did. With Judah, with Reuben, Simeon, Levi, with Caleb, making the beer, getting his daughter married, and with Othniel, who became the first judge of the children of Israel. Look what God was doing ahead of them. And when they got there, He was already there. Amen? And that's the Word of the Lord. Pray. Heavenly Father, we are so stupid. We don't really believe You're ahead of us. We don't really believe that You're out there already planning, working, participating with us, seeing to it that we are cared for back here, as You plan for us out there. Working with us as we walk daily in Your wonderful Kingdom. Giving us Your beautiful Word, helping us understand how we can manipulate and work in it. Helping us understand that when we get to where we need to go in the next day or two, You're already going to be there going another day ahead of us. Help us, Father, understand that You are much alive and that You work every day. And You're working in our lives, and You're working in the way that You want us to go. God, we remember it says, most not Thyself is tomorrow. Because You don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. And God, the best part about that is You already have tomorrow in Your bucket. And You're ready to give it to us just as soon as we wake up tomorrow morning. You've got a new day. For this is the day the Lord hath made. We shall rejoice and be glad in it. As you walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, may the glory shine all around. Trust and obey. For we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our redeeming King, and God the Father, the leader of all of our lives, as we praise You through the power of the Holy Spirit, and we glorify our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen. Brother Jimmy will be teaching next week.