Day 86: The Real Presence of God

Today's readings: Joshua 15-18 and Psalm 130.

I. Joshua 15 lays out all the territory for the tribe of Judah, the tribe from which King David and ultimately Jesus Christ would come. This includes Hebron, which was given to Caleb.

In the next chapter, all the territory for the tribe of Ephraim is described.

Joshua 17 describes first the territory for the tribe of Manasseh. The tribe of Joseph objects to how small their territory was, given how large their tribe was, which Joshua resolved by giving them the "hill country" as well.

The final chapter for today describes the territories for the remaining tribes, giving more detail for that which was for the tribe of Benjamin. 

To be honest, these chapters were somewhat tedious, given that the significance of the area names is mostly unknown to me. However, as the BIY Companion, Vol I, puts it, "these were real names with real people" (p. 184). Or, to put it another way, it was important to people who would help form the bulk of the Scriptures that mean so much to us today. At the very least, it could help us understand something about what else we see in Scripture.

II. Psalm 130 is, as the Ignatius Bible notes (verse numbers removed):

A psalm of lament, traditionally known as the De Profundis (Latin, "from the depths"). It is the prayer of one who cries out to the Lord, waits for his forgiveness, and trusts that he will redeem his people. The nature of the Psalmist's sin is not specified; he simply expresses anguish over the spiritual distance that sin has created between him and God. Psalm 130 is one of the seven penitential psalms enumerated by Christian tradition... (p. 944)

That's all for today!