Joshua - Just one thing: Chapter 19

I remember Andre Senecal. He was an only child and my brother's best friend in elementary school, and he got so many presents from his parents at Christmas that they were still sitting around unopened a few weeks into January.

Today's chapter in Joshua is a Polaroid of all the presents God left under the tree for Israel but that never got opened for one reason or another. We will take Asher as an example. You may read in verses 24 to 31 what God intended her to conquer and to rule over. You may read in Judges what actually happened:

"Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out" (Judges 1:31-32).

Again the author refrains from overt criticism, but his style is dripping with accusation---note the staccato litany of names, the way he draws out the agony by referring to unconquered cities one by one.

Bereft of television and iPods, the Israelites had only one book to read, after all, and it was the Bible. So it's not as if they weren't aware of what Moses had written:

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them…for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. . . ." (Deuteronomy 7:1-4).

The lot Asher drew happened to be a nice spot that stretched north-south from beyond Sidon to Mount Carmel, and east-west from the hills of Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea. She saw her parcel, sank her tent peg into the ground, noticed how rich the soil was, started growing the best olives in Israel, and said it was good enough for her. We'll be farmers, she evidently thought to herself. She never got around to driving out the Phoenicians from the seaports of Tyre, Sidon, and Acco.

Asher "settled":

"Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies" (Genesis 49:20).

You pays your money and you takes your chances, like they say. Rich food and royal delicacies is a pretty tempting deal. Esau thought so anyway: a birthright is nice and all, but when you're hungry nothing beats a bowl of lentil stew. Demas on Paul's missionary team, and Cyper in The Matrix also decided to forgo the adventure and just grab a little earthly pleasure.

The New Testament says that everything in the Old Testament is for our instruction. This story of Asher "settling" makes me wonder what gifts and blessings God wants me to have that are still sitting under the tree unopened. Some people just can't handle Christmas.

Read the next part in this series.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.