The Lot and the Land

“Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD, and there Joshua divided the land” (Josh. 18:10a).

The “lot” has bad connotations for many Christians today, for the only well-known “lot” is the “lottery.” A man walks into a local convenience store, counts out 12 $100 bills, and blows them all on lottery tickets. You try to mind your own business while you pay for a loaf of bread. But you can’t help thinking: Where did he get all that money? Could not his family or some charity or the church make better use of it?

Yet, the Lord of the covenant once ordered His people to seek His will by way of the lot. As the seven-year period of the conquest of Canaan came to its conclusion, God instructed His people to divide the land by the casting of the lot.

Why would God order that His people divide the land in this way? Could not the land be apportioned by a more sensible method? Could not good reasoning better determine which portion of the land best suited the peculiarities of each tribe of Israel?

In response, consider two aspects of the relation between the lot and the land:

First, division of the land by the casting of the lot emphasizes the fact that God graciously gives the land to His people. It’s true that Joshua and his armies had to fight for the land. Some of their soldiers were wounded and others lost their lives. But from the time when Joshua took over the armies of Israel, God made it plain that He was giving the land to them. Immediately after the death of Moses, God commanded Joshua to prepare the people for crossing the Jordan River “to the land which I am giving to them” (Josh. 1:2). The conquest of Jericho underscored the fact. At God’s command, the walls simply collapsed and the Israelites took over the defenseless city.

This is a principle Christians should never forget. Their struggles to advance God’s kingdom, as difficult as they might be, always will be less than what their accomplishments should require. This is God’s gracious reversal of the original curse of mankind. At Adam’s first sin, God cursed the ground. Fallen man would eat bread, but he would have to perform excessive labor for the fruit his work would produce (Gen. 3:17). But in the graciousness of His redemptive activity, God constantly gives His people far beyond what they might rightly expect. Even the hard-working, self-sacrificing apostle Paul had to say that the sufferings he endured could not compare with the glory that was yet to be revealed in the sons of God (Rom. 8:18).

So the division of the land by the casting of the lot emphasizes the graciousness of the gift of the land. God’s redeemed people should never forget that their labors never could merit the final product that comes from their efforts.

Second, the division of the land by lot underscores the fact that a person’s “lot in life” is the sovereign assignment of the Lord (cf. Ps. 16:5). God’s people often find themselves asking, “Why am I here—in this place, with this job, in association with these people?” Rare (or non-existent) is the person who can always say, “This is exactly the way I would have planned my life!” People very often feel that they could have planned their lives so much better. They think they certainly could have arranged their marriage (or lack of marriage), their job (or lack of job), and their friendships (or lack of friendships) in a better way, if only they had been given the opportunity. But the lesson of the lot says otherwise, for the lot that divided the land was cast “in Shiloh in the presence of the LORD” (Josh. 18:10, NIV). Considering the role of the lot in the division of the land will lead a person to accept the fact that his current circumstances, whether good or bad in his own estimation, are all ordered by the sovereign hand of God.

The place of Shiloh has importance, but only a temporary importance. The town was located in the territory of Ephraim, the tribe of Joshua. Shiloh was the first place in Canaan where the ark of the covenant, symbolizing the presence of God in the midst of His people, was situated. Later, however, God rejected Shiloh and indicated that Mount Zion in Jerusalem was to be the place of His dwelling (Ps. 78:60, 67–72). There He displayed His power over all His enemies and there at His footstool His people sought to know His will. Yet even this favored locale ultimately was replaced by the heavenly Mount Zion, the place from which the LORD will reign forever over all the nations of the world and over all the destinies of His people (Heb. 12:22). There at the “throne of grace,” every believer is able to seek and find the perfection of God’s will for his life (Heb. 4:16).

The graciousness and the sovereignty of the LORD of the covenant are seen in the casting of the lot. If anyone has concerns regarding his own lot in life, let him take heart by noting well the outcome of this division of the land by lot:

“So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Josh. 21:43–45).