Joshua 13:1

Land still unconquered

1 Now Joshua had reached old age. The LORD said to him, “You have reached old age, but much of the land remains to be taken over.

Joshua 13:1 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 13:1

Now Joshua was old, [and] stricken in years
How old he was cannot be said precisely, but it is very probable he was now about an hundred years of age, for he lived to be an hundred ten; and the land of Canaan was seven years in dividing, as the Jews generally say, and it seems as if he did not live long after that:

and the Lord said unto him:
either spoke to him out of the tabernacle, or appeared to him in a dream or vision:

thou art old, [and] stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very
much land to be possessed:
that is, very much of the land of Canaan, which God had promised to Abraham, yet remained unconquered by Joshua, and unpossessed by the children of Israel; and the old age of Joshua is observed, to intimate to him that through it, and the infirmities of it, he was unable to go out to war, and to finish this work, which must be left to be done by others hereafter; and that he should with all expedition set about another work he was capable of doing, before he died, which was the division of the land among the tribes of Israel.

Joshua 13:1 In-Context

1 Now Joshua had reached old age. The LORD said to him, “You have reached old age, but much of the land remains to be taken over.

2 This is the land that remains: All the districts of the Philistines and all those of the Geshurites.

3 (The land stretching from the Shihor near Egypt northward as far as the Ekron territory is considered to be Canaanite. There are five rulers of the Philistines, for Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.) The land of the Avvites

4 in the south. The whole land of the Canaanites, along with Mearah, which belongs to the Sidonians, as far as Aphek and as far as the Amorite border.

5 The land of the Gebalites and the whole Lebanon eastward, stretching from Baal-gad at the foot of Mount Hermon to Lebo-hamath.