At the door of the meeting tent at Shiloh, the division of the promised land among the families of the tribes of the Israelites continues. My father has always been a movie fan--Westerns especially. I seem to remember growing up that Shiloh was a commonly used name in those movies. And now I know its origin. Seems fitting, I guess, as the concept of the US as a kind of promised land, the notion of Manifest Destiny that underlay one view of Westward Expansion, has some commonality with the story of the Israelites and Canaan. And certainly there was political benefit to be had by tying the two things together in peoples' minds.
In this passage, once the division of the promised land is completed, the narrative pauses for a reminder of how all of the Lord's promises to the people, through Moses and Joshua, had been fulfilled:
Not a single promise that the Lord made to the house of Israel was broken; every one was fulfilled.
Our God is a God who keeps His promises. He has promised everlasting life. He has promised that if we call on Him, He will be here for us. He is faithful.
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