The Division of the Land among the Tribes

The conquest took seven years and the allotment another seven, so that by 2503 from Creation the Land was divided. Boundaries were fixed in two ways at once, by lot and by prophecy, so that no tribe could claim it had been cheated. Portions were sized by population, and the whole distribution is recorded in the book of Joshua in the manner of a land register — towns, streams, slopes, borders. The tribe of Levi received no territory at all: its portion was service, and instead it was given forty-eight cities inside the others' inheritances, six of them cities of refuge for those who killed unintentionally. Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh took land east of the Jordan but pledged to fight alongside the rest first, and kept the pledge. Joshua took his own portion last, Timnat-Serach in the hills of Ephraim. The Tabernacle was set up at Shiloh, where it stood for three hundred and sixty-nine years. The era of the wilderness was over; the age of the judges begins.