22:1–6 The discharge of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh from accompanying the rest of Israel during the conquest of the land west of the Jordan has clear echoes back to the beginning of the book. In 1:12–15 these tribes were reminded of their obligation to honor the command of Moses given to this group on the granting of their inheritance east of the Jordan. When “rest” had come through God to Israel (1:15), they could then return to their “rest” (1:13). Joshua’s speech here overlaps significantly with that previous address to these tribes, now in recognition of their faithful service (22:2–3). After the formal discharge itself (v. 4) the roles that Joshua and the Transjordan tribes adopted in the prologue to the book are reversed. There, the accompanying tribes affirmed their willing obedience to the word of Moses, to Joshua, and to the Lord (1:16–18). Now, with the job done, it is Joshua’s turn to admonish them, speaking of obedience to the law out of love for their God in language strongly resonant with that of Deuteronomy. Yet with the piling up distinctive phrases, no one exemplar from Deuteronomy serves as an original. Probably Deuteronomy 10:12–13 contains the strongest concentration, but several other passages also align markedly with the phrases of Joshua 22:5.127 This is an emphatic call to wholehearted fidelity.

It remains only for Joshua to add his blessing and send them home, just as he did for his old comrade, Caleb, in 14:13. The same actions of blessing, sending, and going to “their tents” come together again only in 1 Kings 8:66 in the aftermath of the prayer of dedication of the temple, as Solomon sends the people home—and that is immediately followed in 1 Kings 9 by a word of warning to the king concerning the dangers of disobedience and serving other gods.

22:7–8 The narrator’s notice in Joshua 22:7 that Manasseh is the one tribe divided into two by the Jordan seems odd here. This very literary oddity, however, gives pause, and its observation perhaps hints at the tensions soon to arise. In any case, Joshua now instructs the warriors to “go back” (a form of the Hb. verb shub; v. 8) and share the spoil with those who remained in the Transjordan during the military campaign (“your wives, your little ones, and your livestock”; 1:14), following the principle laid down in Numbers 31:25–27. Having delivered these instructions, Joshua’s voice fades, and so does he from this narrative. He will be neither seen nor heard from again until chapter 23.

The verb for “go back” (shub) which can mean “turn” or “return” (or even “repent,” although it does not bear that nuance in this chapter), runs like a thread through this chapter. It is used in this form seven times (22:8, 9, 16, 18 [in the speech of the delegation], 23, 29 [in the speech of the Transjordan tribes], 32 [as the delegation returns “to the land of Canaan”]).

22:9–12 In a moment it all seems to be undone. The men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh leave Shiloh and return—the verb shub is the first word of verse 9 in Hebrew—to their land. En route (“in the land of Canaan”) they build “an altar of imposing size” (v. 10). The Hebrew here is “a large altar for seeing” (Hb. mizbeah gadol lemarʾeh), stressing not so much its size as its visibility—thus the rendering of a number of English versions as “conspicuous” (EHV, TLV). News comes back to the rest of Israel (v. 11), and a council of war convenes at Shiloh (v. 12).

With dizzying speed all the benefits of the toil, trial, and trauma that have preceded in the book to bring Israel to this point seem about to be undone. So swift and natural is the revulsion shared between Israel and later readers of Joshua toward this altar that seldom is the question asked of why it is built in the first place. Joshua himself had led a covenant ceremony at an altar built on Mount Ebal, the construction of which is narrated with some care (8:30–31; cf. comment on 8:30–32, 34–35a). Abraham (Gen. 12:7–8; 13:18; 22:9), Isaac (Gen. 26:25), and Jacob (33:20; 35:7) were all altar builders. After Joshua’s time, Gideon built an altar (Judg. 6:24), and Manoah’s “rock” (tsur) is called an “altar” (Judg. 13:19–20). Modern commentators are typically more interested in identifying the altar’s location (impossible) while neglecting to ask why it was a problem in the first place. Calvin at least addresses the question: his indignation at the audacity of the altar is palpable (“the work might be deemed vicious,” “detest its sacrilegious audacity,” etc.), but he offers Exodus 20:24 as the law’s “strict prohibition” against two altars, although this is not the original concern of that legislation.128 Keil comes closer in suggesting the same issue but from a different text: the regulations concerning centralization of worship in Deuteronomy 12:4—although the restriction to a single altar is not explicit here, either.129 The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi explained the reaction of Joshua 22:12 by asserting, “High places were prohibited once the tabernacle was established at Shiloh.” The new status of Shiloh (cf. comment on 18:1) provides the key. Deuteronomy 12 indeed informs the explanation, but more likely in verses 13–14, which warn, “Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings.” Rashi’s identification of Shiloh as initiating this restriction clarifies the logic.

The narrator stresses the rapidly rising tension via an unusual reiteration of names through these verses. “The people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh” are explicitly identified fully three times in Joshua 22:9, 10, 11. Three times the “people of Israel” (Hb. bene yisraʾel) are named in verses 11, 12 (2x in this short verse). The protagonists are thus held firmly before the reader’s eyes.

Not only are the names of these potentially warring factions repeated but so too are the features of the landscape patiently, even insistently, detailed. In verse 9 the departing warriors go to the “land of Gilead, their own land.” Their altar-building activity takes place in the “region of the Jordan . . . by the Jordan” (v. 10), reported in verse 11 as the “region about the Jordan.” The river as boundary line thus becomes a liminal zone between the estranged tribes. The identity of Israel’s land as the “land of Canaan” is a striking designation used three times in verses 9, 10, and 11—like the names of the protagonists. The first occurrence of these uses appears as a gloss to the location of Shiloh (v. 9), the place from which, we now learn, the discharge of the Transjordan tribes has taken place. And as they left from Shiloh, so too in verse 12 the rest of Israel gathers to “make war against them” in Shiloh, bracketing these few verses.

This is the last time Shiloh is named in Joshua; the site where Israel meets for its final gathering is Shechem (24:1). The next time Shiloh (“where I made my name dwell at first”; Jer. 7:12) is encountered will be in a prelude to civil war (Judg. 18:31).

22:13–14 Rather than immediately dispatching an army, however, the council sends a delegation comprising ten tribal leaders—in other words, one from each of the “nine and one-half tribes” (Josh. 14:2), with the western half of Manasseh (22:7) included as one of the ten—headed by Phinehas, from the tribe of Levi. It might seem odd that neither Joshua nor Eleazar is involved, as these two together have provided leadership in Israel up to this point (14:1; 17:4; 19:51; 21:1). But Phinehas is an appropriate figure for a mission such as this. A son of Eleazar (and so grandson of Aaron; Ex. 6:25), he came to prominence in his swift, violent, and decisive action stemming from the plague of God’s judgment at Peor (Num. 25:1–13). This won for him and his descendants a “perpetual priesthood” (Num. 25:13). He previously acted in a leadership capacity in the campaign against Midian (Num. 31:6), and so he has proven not only his zeal for the Lord, vital in this moment of apparent communal infidelity, but also his capacity to provide a priestly focal point for the army of Israel.

22:15–20 The site of the delegation’s meeting with the Transjordan tribes is not reported, but the implication of the narrative is that it takes place wherever the disputed altar was built. No details are provided of the encounter apart from the speeches made by both parties. The delegation from Israel of the “land of Canaan” (Josh. 22:9) speaks first, making its accusation with warrants in verses 16–20. On behalf of the “whole congregation of the Lord” they level the blunt charge of apostasy (v. 16) rooted in rebellion against Yahweh, the Hebrew marad being used four times in these few verses (vv. 16, 18, 19 [2x]). Rather than threatening war, however, the appeal of verse 19 is for these tribes to relocate to “the Lord’s land where the Lord’s tabernacle stands,” west of the Jordan. This entreaty seems to be based on the assumption that the altar building is a perverted attempt by the Transjordan tribes to sanctify their land.

This imploring invitation from the delegation for the altar builders to reconsider their actions and their inheritance, under threat of divine judgment on disobedience, is bracketed by two precedents: (1) the incident of apostasy involving Baal of Peor and its destructive outcome, with which Phinehas is so deeply associated (vv. 17–18; cf. Num. 25:1–18), and (2) the more recent disobedience of Achan, for which in God’s “wrath” (qetsef) “he did not perish alone [ʾish ʾehad]” (v. 20). For the latter case it has been observed that the wording here suggests an association with Numbers 16:22.130 That verse records the response of Moses and Aaron to God’s threat to consume the whole “congregation” in the rebellion of Korah: “And they fell on their faces and said, ‘O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man [ʾish ʾehad] sin, and will you be angry [tiqtsof] with all the congregation?’” These are the only places in the Hebrew Bible in which the anger of God and the seemingly innocuous phrase “one man” come together. The intertextual association further deepens the gravity of the situation as perceived by the delegation: the very survival of the nation is at stake.

22:21–29 The Transjordan tribes immediately repudiate the charge of rebellious behavior (Hb. marad, Josh. 22:22, 29; cf. comment on 22:15–20). They begin with a threefold confession of the God of Israel, emphatically declared twice (v. 22). They vehemently deny any intent to use the altar for sacrifice of any kind (v. 23) but claim that its construction arose out of fear of rejection by the descendants of those living across the Jordan, since they have been divided from the rest of the nation by divine will (vv. 24–25). With that premise, verses 26–27 spell out their intentions for this altar: it will not provide a place of sacrifice but rather will stand as witness that their offerings are devoted to the Lord. Verse 28 explains once more that this altar will prevent estrangement between their descendants; the speech concludes in verse 29 with a reiteration of their repudiation of rebellion and an affirmation that the Lord’s one altar is located at the tabernacle.

The insistent, repetitive rhetoric of this reply bespeaks the urgency with which it is delivered. Like the speech of the delegation, it too contains intertextual elements undergirding its argument; unlike such elements in the previous speech, these are not explicitly signaled. The combination of the three divine names confessed as they begin (v. 22) is found again only at Psalm 50:1, which invokes this God as he who “summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting” (thus from east to west). He then calls his covenant people together, informing them that he has no need of their sacrifice (Ps. 50:5–15). This resonates strongly with the concerns here of the Transjordan tribes. As they go on (Josh. 22:22), a second phrase evokes another psalm, this time Psalm 44. “He knows” in this grammatical form used of divine knowledge is found only here and at Psalm 44:21, part of a protest of innocence that asserts God knows the “secrets of the heart.”131 At least for attentive readers, these intertextual echoes reinforce the Transjordan tribes’ claim of innocence.

An unusual feature emerges in the hypothetical speech of the future Israelites in Joshua 22:25: Reuben and Gad are named; Manasseh is missing. This pattern continues in verses 32, 33, and 34, while the expected trio of names returns in verses 30–31, the response of the delegation. Here again the divided existence of Manasseh first signaled in verse 7 seems to play a role.

22:30–31 The delegation under Phinehas hears this speech with approval. Even its brief reply of verse 31 has allusive overtones, but suggestive of very different claims. “The Lord is in our midst” is an assertion of God’s holy presence, its closest comparison being found in Exodus 29:45–46, the culmination of the ordination of the priests and the meeting of God and people through sacrifice. There is only one other place that the phrasing Phinehas uses here is found: Numbers 16:3, in the context of the rebellion of Korah already alluded to in this passage (Josh. 22:20). But in Numbers this phrasing is used by the rebel party, a combination of representatives from the tribes of Levi and Reuben, in asserting their parity with Moses and Aaron. This, then, is a more ambiguous datum. Here at any rate it spells an end to divine judgment, not its inception.

22:32–34 The delegation returns “to the land of Canaan, to the people of Israel,” satisfied that God’s honor is intact and Israel’s fidelity is sound. The altar’s purpose as explained by the Transjordan tribes in verse 27 (“to be a witness between us and you”) becomes the name by which it is known.