Joshua 19:49-50

‘ So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by their borders, and the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun among them. According to the commandment of YHWH they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, and he built the city and dwelt in it.'

The land having been distributed by lot for the Israelite tribes to proceed with settling it, Joshua then received his own portion in Ephraim. ‘The commandment of YHWH' may suggest that this too was by lot or by Urim and Thummim (but see Joshua 14:6; Joshua 14:9).

For Timnath-serah see also Joshua 24:30, but Judges 2:9 has Timnath-heres. It may be that the consonants were switched around in Joshua to avoid the reference to Heres (sun) because the writer did not want Joshua's name connected with sun worship. It is possibly Khirbet Tibneh, twenty seven kilometres (seventeen miles) south west of Shechem, which lies on the south side of a deep ravine (see Joshua 24:30). ‘Built the city' probably means that he fortified it. No one was more aware than he of the difficulties that lay ahead.

The painstaking work of dividing up the land had now been accomplished, with the different tribes each allotted the portion which it was their responsibility to conquer, and settle, and from which they were to drive out the inhabitants. It was not a task that would be accomplished easily. The hill country had been made safe but the valleys and plains would take longer. They were infested with Canaanite cities, and the arrival of the Philistines in force would make it even more difficult. It would slowly proceed by taking and settling in weaker cities, settling in cleared forest land, and gradually expanding and taking advantage of every opportunity as it arose. But they were intended to ever keep before their eyes their responsibility to drive out the Canaanites, although it would not be accomplished all at once (Exodus 23:28. See also Exodus 33:2; Exodus 33:5; Exodus 34:11; Numbers 33:52). Joshua had done the work of ‘softening up' but possession would take longer. They were no longer one great, victorious army, but a people seeking to permanently establish themselves in the land in smaller groups. Without that they could not possess the whole land. But what they had not to do was fraternise with the people of the land, for Canaanite society and religion was debased.

To begin with they went about the task faithfully (Judges 2:6), but it would not be long before they began to compromise, neglect their unity in the covenant with YHWH, settle among the Canaanites, fraternise with them, and forget their main responsibility, the clearing from the land of those very Canaanites.