Joshua 22:25

25 God made the Jordan a boundary between us and you. You Reubenites and Gadites have no part in God.' And then your children might cause our children to quit worshiping God.

Joshua 22:25 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 22:25

For the Lord hath made Jordan a border between us and you,
&c.] And by it separated them from them, as if they were a distinct people; not that this was really the case, but so they feared it would be represented in time to come; for though Jordan was the border of the land of Canaan, strictly so called, eastward, ( Numbers 34:12 ) ; yet it did not exclude the land of the two tribes and a half from being part of the land of promise; for the Amorites, which before inhabited it, and were driven out of it, were Canaanites, and were one part of the people, whose land the Lord promised to Abraham, ( Genesis 15:18-21 ) ;

ye children of Reuben, and children of Gad, have no part in the Lord;
in his covenant and promises, in his worship, word, and ordinances; these are things you have nothing to do with, being separated from us his peculiar people; or "have no part in the Word of the Lord", as the Targum, the promised Messiah, being without, or separated from him, as the Gentiles are said to be, ( Ephesians 2:12 ) ;

so shall your children make our children cease from fearing the Lord;
from worshipping the Lord, the fear of the Lord being often put for the whole worship of God, external and internal, ( Ecclesiastes 12:13 ) ; by behaving in the above manner towards them, they would be the cause and occasion of their apostasy from the true God, and it would be in effect to say to them, "go, serve other gods", ( 1 Samuel 26:19 ) .

Joshua 22:25 In-Context

23 If we built ourselves an altar in rebellion against God, if we did it to present on it Whole-Burnt-Offerings or Grain-Offerings or to enact there sacrificial Peace-Offerings, let God decide.
24 "But that's not it. We did it because we cared. We were anxious lest someday your children should say to our children, 'You're not connected with God, the God of Israel!
25 God made the Jordan a boundary between us and you. You Reubenites and Gadites have no part in God.' And then your children might cause our children to quit worshiping God.
26 "So we said to ourselves, 'Let's do something. Let's build an altar - but not for Whole-Burnt-Offerings, not for sacrifices.'
27 "We built this altar as a witness between us and you and our children coming after us, a witness to the Altar where we worship God in his Sacred Dwelling with our Whole-Burnt-Offerings and our sacrifices and our Peace-Offerings. "This way, your children won't be able to say to our children in the future, 'You have no part in God.'
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.