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 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh ² and said to them, “You have done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and you have obeyed me in everything I commanded. ³ For a long time now—to this very day—you have not deserted your fellow Israelites but have carried out the mission the Lord your God gave you. ⁴ Now that the Lord your God has given them rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan. ⁵ But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

⁶ Then Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their homes. ⁷ (To the half-tribe of Manasseh Moses had given land in Bashan, and to the other half of the tribe Joshua gave land on the west side of the Jordan along with their fellow Israelites.) When Joshua sent them home, he blessed them, ⁸ saying, “Return to your homes with your great wealth—with large herds of livestock, with silver, gold, bronze and iron, and a great quantity of clothing—and divide the plunder from your enemies with your fellow Israelites.”

⁹ So the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the Israelites at Shiloh in Canaan to return to Gilead, their own land, which they had acquired in accordance with the command of the Lord through Moses.

The Reubenites, Gadites and half-tribe of Manasseh had been granted land on the eastern side of the Jordan. But first, they were told, assist your brothers – your fellow Israelites – to take their land. They had a duty to perform, and having performed it they were released to go home, with Joshua’s blessing. Matthew 6:33 comes to mind:

”But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

First do your duty!

Our first priority should always be to get on with what God has put into our hands to do. If we make Him and His Kingdom our supreme value, then we can trust Him to take care of all our needs.

The rest of the Kohathite clans of the Levites were allotted towns from the tribe of Ephraim:

²¹ In the hill country of Ephraim they were given Shechem (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Gezer, ²² Kibzaim and Beth Horon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

²³ Also from the tribe of Dan they received Eltekeh, Gibbethon, ²⁴ Aijalon and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands—four towns.

²⁵ From half the tribe of Manasseh they received Taanach and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands—two towns.

²⁶ All these ten towns and their pasturelands were given to the rest of the Kohathite clans.

²⁷ The Levite clans of the Gershonites were given:

from the half-tribe of Manasseh,

Golan in Bashan (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Be Eshterah, together with their pasturelands—two towns;

²⁸ from the tribe of Issachar,

Kishion, Daberath, ²⁹ Jarmuth and En Gannim, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

³⁰ from the tribe of Asher,

Mishal, Abdon, ³¹ Helkath and Rehob, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

³² from the tribe of Naphtali,

Kedesh in Galilee (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Hammoth Dor and Kartan, together with their pasturelands—three towns.

³³ The total number of towns of the Gershonite clans came to thirteen, together with their pasturelands.

³⁴ The Merarite clans (the rest of the Levites) were given:

from the tribe of Zebulun,

Jokneam, Kartah, ³⁵ Dimnah and Nahalal, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

³⁶ from the tribe of Reuben,

Bezer, Jahaz, ³⁷ Kedemoth and Mephaath, together with their pasturelands—four towns;

³⁸ from the tribe of Gad,

Ramoth in Gilead (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Mahanaim, ³⁹ Heshbon and Jazer, together with their pasturelands—four towns in all.

⁴⁰ The total number of towns allotted to the Merarite clans, who were the rest of the Levites, came to twelve.

⁴¹ The towns of the Levites in the territory held by the Israelites were forty-eight in all, together with their pasturelands. ⁴² Each of these towns had pasturelands surrounding it; this was true for all these towns.

⁴³ So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. ⁴⁴ The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands. ⁴⁵ Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled. (NIV)

The summary statement with which chapter 21 concludes points to the Lord’s complete faithfulness. He did as He said. He always will. This is no less true for us today. In fact, we have even more reason to be confident. We have so much more revelation than was available when these words were written – so much more Bible. Furthermore, Jesus has now come and, as Paul writes:

”For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” (2 Cor.1:20)

“There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says.” (Hudson Taylor)

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A maskil of David. When the Ziphites had gone to Saul and said, “Is not David hiding among us?”

¹ Save me, O God, by your name;
    vindicate me by your might.
² Hear my prayer, O God;
    listen to the words of my mouth.

³ Arrogant foes are attacking me;
    ruthless people are trying to kill me—
    people without regard for God.

⁴ Surely God is my help;
    the Lord is the one who sustains me.

⁵ Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
    in your faithfulness destroy them.

⁶ I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
    I will praise your name, Lord, for it is good.
⁷ You have delivered me from all my troubles,
    and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes. (NIV)

At the heart of this brief, and beautiful, psalm there is a confident expression of belief in God’s ”help” (4). As the title to this psalm shows, it was written at a time of very real danger, but David had proved God as his very real helper in the past, and he was utterly confident that He would come to his aid again (6,7).

Someone wrote that, ‘Whereas all of Scripture speaks to us, the psalms speak for us.’ Like David, we often find ourselves in tight corners. We regularly feel out of our depth, and overwhelmed by life’s many challenges. But also, along with him, have we not also found God to be our ”help”?

”God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble” (Ps.46:1);

”I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth” (Ps.121:1,2);

”So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Is.41:10);

”¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebs.4:14-16)

” Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”

⁶ So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?” (Hebs.13:5,6)

PRAYER: Lord, you know what I’m facing, and how weak and small I am. I seek to entrust myself and my needs to you, and I ask for your help.

THOUGHT: Looking to God for help doesn’t mean passivity. We do what we need to do; what we have to do. We accept our responsibilities, but we ask God for His help to do it all.

 During the time he was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him. But Jesus didn’t entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were. He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them. (The Message)

Perhaps we can be too quick to declare that someone has come to Christ? It’s understandable, of course, that we are excited and ebullient when we witness new found faith. But there is a caution in today’s short passage: not everyone who appears to be converted actually is. We have our disappointments, do we not? But Jesus is never taken by surprise. He knows people through and through.

‘He’s a truly converted man’, I heard someone declare about a friend of mine who professed faith some years ago. I could only agree. It had seemed to be a miraculous and ‘whirlwind romance’ with Jesus. But in very little time he was no longer among us, and I don’t know where he is today. The plant had shot up, and for a time appeared impressive, but he had all too soon withered. The initial euphoria we felt was quickly replaced with a frustrating sense of loss and sadness.

By all means, let us rejoice over every sign that God is at work in a person’s life. But also, may we walk wisely and carefully and patiently among men. It can take time for genuine ‘fruit’ to appear. We have so much to learn from Jesus.

When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.

^15-17 Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” That’s when his disciples remembered the Scripture, “Zeal for your house consumes me.”

^18-19 But the Jews were upset. They asked, “What credentials can you present to justify this?” Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple and in three days I’ll put it back together.”

^20-22 They were indignant: “It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days?” But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said. (The Message)

The Jews recognised, perhaps, an implied claim in Jesus’ action on this day. Had not the Lord said through the prophet Malachi?:

” “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

⁵ “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.” ( (Mal.4:1-6)

Jesus had come to the Temple in that ‘spirit’.

In ‘presenting His credentials’, Jesus said something very significant – something that His disciples were to remember (and some of His enemies were going to use against Him). Jesus was not referring to the physical Temple, which had indeed been under construction for a long time, but rather to His own death and resurrection. (Indeed, there is deep meaning in the mention of ”the Passover Feast”, v.13, because Jesus had come into the world as the ultimate fulfilment of this great Festival: ”For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” 1 Cor.5:7)

The death and resurrection of Christ are at the heart of the Christian faith. If Jesus has not been raised we have no basis for hope (see 1 Cor.15).

I read that Professor Joad, a famous broadcaster and philosopher, was once asked, ‘Which figure of history would you most like to meet, and what question would you put to him or her? He replied, ”Jesus of Nazareth, and I would ask Him, ‘Did you or did you not rise from the dead?’ ”

 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

⁸ Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹ and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

¹¹ What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. (NIV)

Two further thoughts on this beautiful passage:

• Tell Jesus the problem. You don’t need to tell Him how to fix it. Trust Him with it. He knows best how to work it out. But stay tuned! Be ready to ”Do whatever he tells you.” ‘…to pray is to open the door to Jesus, and that requires no strength; it is only a question of our wills…To pray is nothing more than to lift the eye of prayer unto the Saviour who stands and knocks, yea knocks through our very need, in order to gain access to our distress, sup with us, and glorify His name’ (from ‘Prayer’ by Ole Hallesby). Similarly, Bruce Milne writes: ‘We all have a tendency to use prayer to dictate to God. Our part is to lay the need before him, and then trust him to respond as he wills. We also note that Mary’s prayer was followed by implicit obedience (5). Prayer without a willingness to obey is little better than faith without a willingness to work.’
• The ”best wine” offered by Jesus has to be ”tasted” to be fully experienced. It is only in the tasting that we fully recognise that what He offers is truly the ”best”. ”Taste and see that the Lord is good…” (Ps.34:8)

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (NIV)

John’s gospel is carefully built around 7 ”signs” performed by Jesus. These point to the Lord’s identity. Furthermore, the evangelist is clear in stating his purpose:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe  that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (20:30,31).

Years ago, for a season, I did quite a lot of research into this gospel, and I remember one commentator arguing that this first ”sign” speaks of Jesus’ power to transform. Sidlow Baxter says that all 7 signs are, in one way or another, about transformation.

Last year, I read a short biography of William Wilberforce. I found it fascinating as well as inspiring. One detail I didn’t know concerned the influence of John Newton’s friendship and encouragement upon Wilberforce. Newton, who had been a slave trader, was wonderfully converted, experiencing ‘amazing grace’. By the time Wilberforce knew him, Newton was a church minister and a faithful Christian. There is no doubt that Jesus changes lives.

 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

⁴ Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

⁵ She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”

^6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.

⁸ “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,” Jesus said, and they did.

^9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, “Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!”

¹¹ This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum along with his mother, brothers, and disciples, and stayed several days. (The Message)

I love the story of the former drunkard who declared, ‘I have no problem believing that Jesus turned water into wine, because He turned beer into furniture in my house!’

Verse 4 may sound a bit rude to us. But Mary clearly did not understand it as a refusal, and she uttered the most simple, but powerful, word of counsel in the wake of it:

”Whatever he tells you, do it.”

That was the key to this miracle. The servants did exactly what Jesus told them to do, and the transformation happened. It remains the key to every miracle.

” My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27)

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, above the clamour and noise of this world, help me to hear your voice and do your will.

THOUGHT: “The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent.'” Alfred Brendel