Joshua 22:16-19

22:16 “The entire community of the Lord says, ‘Why have you disobeyed the God of Israel by turning back today from following the Lord? You built an altar for yourselves and have rebelled today against the Lord. 1  22:17 The sin we committed at Peor was bad enough. To this very day we have not purified ourselves; it even brought a plague on the community of the Lord. 2  22:18 Now today you dare to turn back 3  from following the Lord! You are rebelling today against the Lord; tomorrow he may break out in anger against 4  the entire community of Israel. 22:19 But if your own land 5  is impure, 6  cross over to the Lord’s own land, 7  where the Lord himself lives, 8  and settle down among us. 9  But don’t rebel against the Lord or us 10  by building for yourselves an altar aside from the altar of the Lord our God.

1 tn Heb “What is this unfaithfulness with which you have been unfaithful against the God of Israel, turning today from after the Lord, when you built for yourselves an altar, rebelling today against the Lord?”

2 tn Heb “Was the sin of Peor too insignificant for us, from which we have not made purification to this day? And there was a plague in the assembly of the Lord.”

3 tn Heb “you are turning back.”

4 tn Or “he will be angry with.”

5 tn Heb “the land of your possession.”

6 sn The western tribes here imagine a possible motive for the action of the eastern tribes. T. C. Butler explains the significance of the land’s “impurity”: “East Jordan is impure because it is not Yahweh’s possession. Rather it is simply ‘your possession.’ That means it is land where Yahweh does not live, land which his presence has not sanctified and purified” (Joshua [WBC], 247).

7 tn Heb “the land of the possession of the Lord.”

8 tn Heb “where the dwelling place of the Lord resides.”

sn The phrase where the Lord himself lives refers to the tabernacle.

9 tn Heb “and take for yourselves in our midst.”

10 tc Heb “and us to you rebel.” The reading of the MT, the accusative sign with suffix (וְאֹתָנוּ, vÿ’otanu), is problematic with the verb “rebel” (מָרַד, marad). Many Hebrew mss correctly read the negative particle אַל (’al) for the preposition אֶל (’el, “to”).