Joshua 18:2

"And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their inheritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land, which Jehovah, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men of each tribe: and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the land, and describe it according to their inheritance; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions: Judah shall abide in his border to the south, and the house of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me; and I will cast lots for you here before Jehovah our God. For the Levites have no portion among you; for the priesthood of Jehovah is their inheritance: and Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of Jehovah gave them."

Joshua's rebuke of the people for not having gone in to possess the land was well deserved. It would have required a drastic change in the life style of the people for them to have done so, and the natural inertia of people prevented this from happening. Besides that, the people would no longer dwell in a single camp, as previously, but each tribe would have to work for its own supplies and protection. Too long, we might say, they had been letting God look after them, and now, that the time had come for them to take care of themselves, they were very slow and reluctant to do so.

Joshua 18:5, which mentions Judah on the south and the house of Joseph on the north shows the wisdom of God in placing these two powerful groups in such a way as to protect all of Canaan.

"Three men from each tribe ..." (Joshua 18:5). This is supposed to mean that the commission for surveying the land was composed of 21 men, with perhaps, as Clarke suggested, an armed escort for their protection.[7] Josephus, however, stated that the number of men were 10, and that Joshua sent with them some geometricians who could not easily fail of knowing the truth on account of their skill.[8] Instead of supposing that Josephus was in error here, it might be just as well to suppose that the 21 men (3 from each of seven tribes) included the geometricians, and that it was to them, in particular, that Josephus referred. Nevertheless, it is likely that Josephus was wrong. We have no grounds, however, for denying some other information that comes from Josephus:

"Joshua thought that the land should be divided on the basis of its goodness, rather than the largeness or measure of it; one acre of some sort of land was equivalent to a thousand other acres. The men traveled all about and made an estimation of the land, and in the seventh month came to Joshua in Shiloh where they had set up the tabernacle."[9]

We may not suppose, therefore, that the surveying of the land rested in incapable or incompetent hands. As Jamieson suggested, "Those doing the job possessed learning and intelligence which they or their instructors had brought with them out of Egypt."[10]

"I will cast lots for you here before Jehovah ..." (Joshua 18:7). Notice that the High Priest is not mentioned at all here, despite the certainty that he was present for the casting of lots. His presence is included in the expression "before the Lord."