Joshua 14:1

INTRODUCTION TO THE WEST JORDANIC ALLOTMENTS, Joshua 14:1-5.

1. These are the countries Passing from the eastern side of the Jordan, our historian now traces the boundaries of the tribes on its western side, constituting the main area of the Holy Land. The directions of Moses (Numbers 26:53-56) were obeyed in the allotment. Yet God so overruled the lots as to fulfil the predictions of the prophecies of the dying Jacob. Genesis 49:0.

Eleazar the priest The term High Priest had not yet been invented. Eleazar was the third son of Aaron, and came into the high-priesthood by the death of his two sacrilegious brothers, Nadab and Abihu. See notes on Exodus 6:23; Leviticus 10:1: Numbers 3:4; Numbers 20:28. He aided Moses in the census of the people, (Numbers 26:3,) assisted at the inauguration of Joshua, and now is the proper person to superintend the sacred lots by which the conquered lands were divided. The original document describing the division we might naturally suppose to be prepared under his superintendence and preserved in the archives of the tabernacle. In the form in which the records here stand in the sacred volume they form a part of the law, and they were, we might suppose, preserved with the sacred records in the ark of the covenant. The persons who were to divide western Palestine among the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh were designated by Jehovah before the death of Moses, and their names are given in Numbers 34:17-28.