Joshua: Chapter 21

Give from what you were given

Priests and murderers scattered 

cities within your cities

wanderers within

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After the setting aside of the cities of refuge comes the final allotment: the giving of the cities to the Levites. These two sets of cities are intimately and mysteriously related. Both must be "given" (the leitwort t'n, repeated again and again in this chapter) as a gift from the tribes from within the inheritance that they were "given." Both are scattered throughout the entire country, buried within the tribes. Both are presented together: if in Numbers, the move from Levite cities to cities of slayers, here we move from the city of the slayer to the cities of the Levites. Finally, all the cities of refuge are actually Levite cities--a fact that is emphasized again and again by the refrain "city of refuge for the slayer.."

We need to know that these cities do not only offer refuge--they offer refuge specifically to "killers", who will be free to return home from their exile with the "death of the High Priest from the tribe of Levi.

Which returns us to the initial pronouncement that Levi would have no true inheritance: when Jacob, back in Genesis, curses Levi and Shimon's "swords," saying that they will be "scattered throughout Israel." Shechem, where Levi and Shimon used their swords here tellingly becomes a "city of refuge for the slayer." Levi's "Inheritance" is God, and so he remains unrooted, linked to the wandering Mishkan. But Levi is also a slayer, marked like the wandering Cain, offering refuge to other slayers that might still be redeemed. 

The cities of the Levites, with the cities of refuge scattered within them, doorways ready to admit fugitives who beg entrance, represent the continued desert encampment within the settled land--the spaces for the unsettled wanderers who must be given temporary place.] 

Joshua 20: In Writing

Trace a line from here to there
from where you started
to the doorway where you stop
beg entrance
within the walls
within the streets
within the home.
Grant me place.
Swallow me down your long long tongue
hold me safe in your gullet
digest me in your juices
till death on more death sets me free.

Joshua: Chapter 20

Trace the line to the gateway, and back

into the city, into the door of your own home

give place to the exile

the man out of place

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The growing focus on cities climaxes here, with the command to re-appoint the Cities of Refuge dedicated by Moses, adding now three additional cities on the western side of the Jordan. If the inheritance of the Land is "given" by God, these cities of refuge are "given" (20: 2) by the people, who "give" a place to the refugee involuntary murderer. These are human places within the expansive space of the Land--and they are specifically "cities" (the leitword of this chapter, defined by human boundaries, with a "gate" manned by elders and overseen by a court.

If the previous accounts of the cities of refuge (Numbers 35, focused on the question of the man-slaughterers relative guilt, this account focuses on the passage into and out of the city--continuing the Book of Joshua's focus on transitional spaces of entrance. The manslaughterer must approach the liminal gate, until he is "gathered into the city" and "given a place to sit (y'sh'v). His return (sh'v) from exile is also defined through the city, the wordplay of sh'v / sh'v highlighting the parallel: he is to return to "his own city, the city he left."

 The setting aside of the cities is a watershed. Back in Deuteronomy, Moses defined taking responsibility for cities of refuge as the moment when the land truly becomes "yours." It is the sign of a completed conquest. In dedicating these cities, Joshua is indicating that "God has expanded the boundaries" of Israel's territory. 

Joshua 19: In Writing

Walk, measure, name.
What do I see when I see you
turn, twist, hit, rise, drop,
leave and then return?
 Sarid, I call you, remnant of a dream.
Sheva, satiation. Water welling. Where I swear, trust me,
what is born, what will be born, what God will bear
Molada, be my moledet,  birthplace I fled, birthplace
that calls.
Be  body, be belly, a place I can sleep,
the navel I came from, to which I am linked.
House of bread, house of sun,
springs of red and white,
water sharp as steel, sweet as fruit.
Mishal, what I ask for. Amiad.
Broad of shoulder, full of breath,
An ever receding sky, afek, afek.
Yavne’el, God will build. El’Tolad.
Marala, Timnah, Idalah.Adama. I say, land, earth. Adam.
Over there, at the hight, Ramah.

Joshua: Chapter 19

Count the cities

and  what sourounds

to weave an inheritance 

your plot of land

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This chapter continues allotment, the "lot / destiny" (goral) "falling" in an order that moves from the children of Leah, to those of the maidservant, Bilhaa and Zilpa. 

There is a fundmanetal difference between the inheritence of Simeon, and the allotments that came before. No trancing of a border that rises, falls, goes out and come in like a living thing. Instead, Simeon is swallowed "in the midst of the inheritence of Judah," and his inheritence consists of a list of cities "and the fields around these cities. This is the inheritence of the tribe of the Children of Simeon." Simeon's inheritence seems closer to that of Levi--"who does not inherit within the land", but is rather granted cities and fields--than to that of the tribes whose allotment preceded his. The early history of the family of Israel in Genesis which so impacted the inheritence of Judah and Joseph continues to resonate in this  return to the land, as Jacob's final curse of Levi and Simeon is expressed in their scattered inheritence.

This focus on cities continued to play out in the rest of the allotments , which all close with an enumeration of cities and villige which make up "the inheritence of the tribe." Cities, and the uber-cities-- fortresses--are at the center. The "writing" of the landscape by the surveyers who set up to walk and divide the land  has transformed it to a human space, with a focus on its  acculteration, the shaping to human needs. 

The focus on cities and kings, that has accompanied this book since its opening, here seeps into the until-now nomadic Children of Israel. In thedenumoix, the Children of Israel grant Joshua his inheritence: a single city of his very own]. 

Joshua 18: In Writing

Feel the earth:
crumble of soil between your toes
jab of rock against your heel
grit rubbing against your skin.

Watch the trail that stretches away behind you
Shadowy hillocks,
five toed valleys
marking you passgae
from here to there
from where you came to where you go
gaze beyond the horizon

Looking out
the land is filmed
over with the letters of your name.
textured with your skin's veins. 

Joshua: Chapter 18

Held in place on both sides

write yourslef into the land

with your feet

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"How long will you be slack in going to possess the land that God, the Lord of your fathers, has given you?" Joshua demands, when the nation finally "assembles" to recreate a national center. Ostensobly, this is a criticsm that reflects back on Joshua himslef--why has he been slack in completing the allotment that he began?

He continues, "Appoint for yourself three men for each tribe, and I will send them, and they shall rise, and walk through the land, and write it according to their lot, and come to me." Inheritence, it seems, is not passive. Like Abraham, the father to whom the land was promised, the tribes must "rise and walk" (hithalkh--a reflexive form of the verb, iimplying a self-reinforced walking, becoming walkers). And--as in Michel de Certeau "Walking in the City"--this walking becomes a kind of  language, the appointed men "writing" the land. The inherited land is not nuetral territory, but a textual landscape.

Judah's inheritence begins with Caleb's personal connection to Hebron, and the gifting of his daughter to the one who could conquer Kiryat Sefer (lit. "The City of the Book"); Joseph's inheritence holds within it all the painful history of favoritism and usurpation, as well as Jacob's choice of Ephraim. Now the other tribes must find their own viceral connection to the personal tract of land that "God, the Lord of your fathers, has given to you." Only then can the land be their own lot.]

Joshua 17: In Writing

shadow with no name

hidden from the sun

crevice between mountains

silence between names

embedded within.

The memory after the storm

when debris is sifted

snapped branches, fallen beams

the dead, the blood

Where do  the forgotten go?

When will you learn

to speak my name

to step out, stand in place

to say: I am born

Joshua: Chapter 17

Two or one

One or two

Who gets counted

Why does not

Who is seen

Who disappear? 

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This chapter continues the allotment of the tribe of "Joseph" begun in the previous one, this time detailing the inheritence of the children of Menasseh, "the first-born of Joseph". The themes of the previous chapter continue to resonate, becoming more explicit and extreme. The strange doublness of Joseph--both a single tribe given a single inhertence, and a double tribe receiving a dual inheritence, here comes out into the open. The inheritence of Josph is framed by this question of singlness and duality: the previous chapter begins by defining "the lot for the children of Joseph" before breaking off to define the detailed inheritence of Ephraim; this chapter follows the details of the inheritece of Mennasseh with the "sons of Joseph" coming to complain "Why have you given me one lot and one plot for an inheritence?" The schitsophrenic split between individuality and group identity is reflected in the syntax: even as the tribe of Josph demands a dual inheritence, they speak of themselves in the singlular--"Why did you give me". The utter intertwining of these two tribes is emphasized in the details of Menasseh's inheritence, which is punvtuated by cities that belong to Ephraim. We cannot detail his allotment, without detailing his brother's as well.

On the other hand, the dulaity of Josph's inheritence is here further exsaserbated by the fact that Menasshe is split in two, effectivly inheriting two different sections--one on the west side and one on the east side of the Jordan. The eastern section goes to "Menasseh's first-born", drawing attention to that strange insistence in teh opening verse: "Menasseh, the first-born of Joseph." Indeed, biblically, the first-born is meant to inherit an extra portion. Jacob, in his love to Joseph, gave that double portion to him.  We return to early history of the tribes in Genesis, which has been resonating in teh background since "tribe of Judah" first "approached Joshua-of-Joseph. When Joseph brought his two children to be blessed by Jacob, Jacob gave preference to Ephraim over Menasseh, and Joseph protests, insisting on Menasseh's promigeniture. Both elements continue to resonate here, in the allotment of these tribes. Ephraim is indeed given presedence to Mennaseh, but then the text return to insist that Menasseh is the first born. This contested promigeniture is central to the tribe's identity: this is the only place where the "first born" of a tribe gets a serperate inheritence, neighboring Reuben, another displaced eldest.

Yet in addition to the continued agon with Ephraim, Menasseh's inheritence introduces a completly new element: the question of female inheritence. For the first time, when counting the "children" of Menasseh, the chapter goes out of its way to explicate that they are "male." This is because for the first time, females are also inheriting. The daughters of Tzolphad rise from th ebackground, and break the default story of exclusivly male inheritence. 

In doing so, they also allow for the recollection of the one child of Jacob who receives no mention in this story of inheritence: Dina, daughter of Jacob, who was raped in Shechem and then disappeared from the story of the family.  Menasseh's inheritence begins in "Shechem" (17: 7) and one of his sons is named for that city (and for Dina's rapist), "Shechem" (17 :2).   In the acknowlegment of daughters, her story begins to rise as well],   

Joshua 16: In Writing

Where am I
in the ties that bind us
can there be a line
between me and you
a place where one hand
moves without the other
breathe, and you breathe inside me
I am scattered within you
spliced in your nucleus
colonies bubbling round the invasion
and within me
empty spaces
where others bubble and grow