Joshua 22 Summary and Study Guide

A huge altar goes up on the bank of the Jordan, high enough to be seen from a long way off, and within days an entire nation is putting on armour to march against the men who built it. This Joshua 22 summary and study guide walks the chapter where Israel almost fought itself over a structure nobody had used yet.

Setting the Stage

Long before Israel crossed into Canaan, two tribes looked at the grazing country east of the Jordan River and asked Moses to let them settle there. Reuben and Gad had enormous herds, and the land suited them. Moses agreed on one condition: their fighting men had to cross the river ahead of everyone else and stay in the war until every other tribe had received its land (Numbers 32:16-22).

They gave that promise again to Joshua when the campaign began (Joshua 1:12-16). Joshua 22 is the chapter where the promise finally comes due. It also opens the last section of the book, where the question stops being whether Israel can take the land and becomes whether Israel will stay one people in it.

Comprehensive Joshua 22 Summary

Joshua calls the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh together and tells them they have kept every word of the agreement. He singles out their endurance: through years of campaigning, none of them went home early. Because God has now given the other tribes rest, exactly as he promised, these men are free to go. Joshua charges them to keep loving and obeying the LORD, blesses them, and sends them off with their share of the plunder and an instruction to divide it with the families who stayed behind.

They leave the rest of Israel at Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood, and head east toward Gilead. At the Jordan they stop and build a large altar, made to be seen.

A report reaches the other tribes: an altar has been built by the river. Under the law, sacrifice was permitted at one place only, so an altar nobody had authorised looked like rival worship, and rival worship could bring God’s anger down on the whole nation. The entire assembly gathers at Shiloh to go to war. Before they march, they send ten tribal princes and Phinehas the priest, the man who had stopped a plague at Peor years before, across to ask.

Phinehas accuses them of rebellion and reminds them what one sin at Peor cost, and what one man’s theft cost at Ai. Then he makes them an offer: come and live among us and share our land rather than fall into this. The eastern tribes swear by the name of God that the altar was never meant for sacrifice.

They built it because they were afraid that one day the river would be used to tell their grandchildren they had no share in the LORD. It was a copy, put there as a witness. Phinehas is satisfied, the delegation reports back, Israel blesses God, and the war is dropped.

One Word Summary

• Witness: the altar’s stated purpose and, in the end, its name.
• Misread: a report, an assumption, an army, and none of it true.
• Belonging: the eastern tribes’ own stated fear is exclusion rather than idolatry.

In One Sentence

Joshua sends Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh home across the Jordan, and the great altar they build on the way is read as rebellion until Phinehas and ten princes go and ask, and learn it was raised as a witness that these tribes belong to the LORD too.

Theme of Joshua 22

Joshua 22 is about belonging to God across a boundary. A river now runs between one part of Israel and the place God had chosen for his tabernacle, and both sides feel the danger in it, one side fearing that worship will be divided and the other that people will be.

Three more themes run alongside it: a promise kept to the last day and commended out loud, the seriousness of worshipping God only in the way he commanded, and the duty laid on Israel to investigate a report before concluding anything. Under all four sits one generation’s concern about whether the next one will still be counted in.

Joshua 22 Outline

• Joshua 22:1-3: Joshua summons the eastern tribes and commends them for staying with their fellow Israelites through the whole campaign.
• Joshua 22:4-5: He releases them to go home and charges them to love, obey, hold to and serve the LORD with all their heart and soul.
• Joshua 22:6-8: Joshua blesses them, notes that Manasseh’s two halves hold land on opposite sides of the river, and sends them off with the plunder to share at home.
• Joshua 22:9: Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh leave Israel at Shiloh and set out for Gilead.
• Joshua 22:10: At the Jordan they build a large and highly visible altar.
• Joshua 22:11-12: Israel hears of the altar and the whole assembly gathers at Shiloh to go to war.
• Joshua 22:13-15: Israel sends Phinehas the priest and ten tribal princes into Gilead to speak with them.
• Joshua 22:16-18: The delegation accuses them of rebellion and recalls the plague at Peor.
• Joshua 22:19-20: Phinehas offers them land among the western tribes and warns them with Achan’s example.
• Joshua 22:21-23: The eastern tribes swear by the name of God that the altar was never built for sacrifice.
• Joshua 22:24-25: They explain their fear that a later generation will use the Jordan to deny their children a place among God’s people.
• Joshua 22:26-28: They describe the altar as a copy built to stand as a witness rather than a place of offering.
• Joshua 22:29: They renounce any thought of raising a rival altar to the one before the tabernacle.
• Joshua 22:30-31: Phinehas and the princes accept the answer and say the LORD is among them.
• Joshua 22:32-33: The delegation reports back, Israel blesses God, and the war is abandoned.
• Joshua 22:34: Reuben and Gad name the altar a witness that the LORD is God.

The Eastern Tribes’ Defence

Joshua 22:21-29 is the only sustained speech in the chapter, and it is the speech that turns the chapter. Nine verses of unbroken reply, delivered by men who have just been accused of abandoning God. It falls into four parts.

• The oath (Joshua 22:22-23): they call God as witness, twice over, and invite his judgment on themselves if the charge is true.
• The fear (Joshua 22:24-25): they give the actual motive, which is a sentence they dread hearing said to their children.
• The plan (Joshua 22:26-27): they state what the altar is for, having twice stated what it was never for.
• The disclaimer (Joshua 22:28-29): “Behold the pattern,” and then “God forbid that we should rebel.”

Their opening is an oath:

“The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the LORD, (save us not this day,)”

Joshua 22:22

They stack up three names for God, then say all three again. God knows the truth of this, they say, and let Israel know it too. Then comes a self-curse: if this was rebellion, let him not rescue us today. They are inviting God to abandon them if the charge is right.

Then they say what they were actually afraid of:

“In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with the LORD God of Israel? For the LORD hath made Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben and children of Gad; ye have no part in the LORD”

Joshua 22:24-25

One day, they say, your descendants will tell ours that the river God put between us settles the matter, and that we have no share in him. That is the whole reason the altar exists.

Observations from Joshua 22

Two Sides Arguing on Two Different Calendars (Joshua 22:16-18, 24-28)

Phinehas argues entirely in the present. The phrase “this day” appears seven times in the chapter, most of them in his charge, and he adds one more word for urgency: “seeing ye rebel to day against the LORD, that to morrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel” (Joshua 22:18). If you turn away today, God’s anger falls on all of us tomorrow.

The eastern tribes answer in a different tense. Three times they say “in time to come,” twice they say “our generations,” and across three verses they say “your children” and “our children” six times between them.

Phinehas is measuring faithfulness by what happens before sunset. They are measuring it by what their grandchildren will believe. Both sides are afraid Israel will lose the LORD, and the near war may owe as much to those two time frames as to the altar itself.

The Charge Was Worded as an Achan Charge Before Achan Was Named (Joshua 22:16, 20)

Phinehas opens with a loaded word: “What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel” (Joshua 22:16). What is this act of unfaithfulness you have done against Israel’s God? The Hebrew behind “trespass” is the same word Joshua 7:1 uses of Achan: “the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing.”

So when Phinehas reaches Achan in verse 20, he is naming the man his opening sentence already had in mind, four verses earlier. The western tribes thought they were watching Achan happen again, on the scale of two and a half tribes instead of one man.

They Say the Dreaded Sentence Out Loud, Twice (Joshua 22:25, 27)

“Ye have no part in the LORD” appears twice in the chapter, and both times it is the eastern tribes quoting words nobody has said to them yet. They stand accused of walking away from the LORD, and in the middle of answering that charge they repeat the sentence that frightens them most. Their worry was not imaginary. Generations later the men of Ephraim taunted Gilead with almost that sentence, calling them runaways who belonged to nobody, and forty-two thousand men died at the fords of the Jordan over it (Judges 12:4-6).

Two Words for the Same Road East (Joshua 22:4, 9 and 22:16, 18)

Joshua tells them to return: “therefore now return ye, and get you unto your tents” (Joshua 22:4). Go back to your homes and your own land. Three times the chapter uses that word of their road east.

Then a word that sounds close and means the opposite runs four times through the argument that follows, twice from Phinehas and twice from the men answering him: turning away “from following the LORD” (Joshua 22:16). The entire dispute is over which of those two things these men were doing when they walked east, and the chapter will not resolve until somebody asks them.

Difficult Verses Explained

Where Exactly Was the Altar Built?

The chapter does not settle it, and its own two descriptions pull against each other. Verse 10 says they built it “unto the borders of Jordan, that are in the land of Canaan,” which puts it on the western bank; verse 11 says it stood “over against the land of Canaan,” which reads more naturally as facing Canaan from outside it. Commentators divide accordingly, and neither side has a knockdown case.

The chapter does settle something more useful. The altar was built on a scale that made it visible at a distance, and its builders swore three times that nothing was ever offered on it. One argument favours the western reading. An altar on the far side of the river from the people who built it is no use to them for sacrifice, and being no use for sacrifice is exactly what makes it a witness.

Did the Eastern Tribes Sin by Building It?

Building a second altar for sacrifice would have been a serious sin, and no second altar for sacrifice was built. The law they were accused of breaking restricted burnt offerings to the one place God chose (Deuteronomy 12:13-14), which at this point was the tabernacle at Shiloh.

Three times the eastern tribes state that the altar was never for burnt offering or sacrifice (Joshua 22:23, 26, 29), and Phinehas accepts it. They were cleared because the command had not actually been broken, and not because their intentions were good. They should have said what they were doing before they did it, and Israel should have asked before assembling.

What Does “Now Ye Have Delivered the Children of Israel Out of the Hand of the LORD” Mean?

Phinehas means their innocence has removed the danger. His full sentence runs: “This day we perceive that the LORD is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the LORD: now ye have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the LORD” (Joshua 22:31). Today we can see God is with us, because you did not do this thing, and so you have kept the whole nation out of the punishment we were expecting. The judgment everyone feared had no ground under it, and their answer proved it.

Why Say Israel Was “Not Cleansed” From Peor?

Phinehas means the appetite for that sin was still alive in Israel. He asks, “Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed until this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the LORD” (Joshua 22:17). Numbers 25 records that twenty-four thousand died in that plague, and that Phinehas himself was the man who stopped it, so he knows the account was settled. His point is about the camp he is standing in, which is why a new altar frightened him so badly.

Common Misunderstandings

Each line below states something written about this chapter that the text does not support, followed by what Joshua 22 actually says.

• That the sanctuary in this chapter is the temple in Jerusalem. The chapter names the tabernacle (Joshua 22:19, 29) and Shiloh (Joshua 22:9, 12). Jerusalem does not appear in Joshua 22, and the temple would not be built for centuries.
• That Phinehas says Achan’s whole family was destroyed. Joshua 22:20 says only that Achan “perished not alone in his iniquity,” which is a statement about the nation bearing the consequence of one man’s sin.
• That Eleazar led the delegation, or that Joshua sent it. The text says the children of Israel sent Phinehas the son of Eleazar (Joshua 22:13). Joshua is not mentioned again after verse 7, and takes no part in the dispute.
• That the altar was built years after the tribes got home. Joshua 22:9-10 puts the building on the road home, at the river, before they reached Gilead.
• That the altar’s location is settled. Several summaries state flatly that it stood on the western bank. The chapter’s own two phrases disagree, and the meaning of the altar does not depend on which bank it stood on.

Christ Connection

The whole crisis in Joshua 22 is a question about altars: whether God’s people may have a second one. Israel answered that question with an army, because a second altar meant a second way of coming to God, and the law had already fixed both the place and the manner. The New Testament answers the same question with a finality no altar in Joshua could carry.

Hebrews says of Jesus that “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12), and adds, “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). One sacrifice, offered once, and the priest sat down because the work was finished. Hebrews then says plainly of Christians, “We have an altar” (Hebrews 13:10). A finished work rules out a rival by simply leaving nothing for one to do.

The other half of the chapter reaches Christ just as directly. The eastern tribes were not afraid of idols. They were afraid of a sentence: “ye have no part in the LORD.” They raised an altar so that no one could later turn a boundary into an argument for exclusion.

• Belonging for the far off. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Ephesians 2:13-14). Those who were once at a distance have been brought near by Jesus’ death, and the barrier between the two groups has been pulled down.
• The dreaded sentence answered. “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). Nobody in Christ has to build a monument to prove they are counted in.
• The location question closed. A woman at a well asked Jesus which mountain was the right place to worship, and he moved the question off geography altogether: “the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).
• Peace among brothers as evidence of God’s presence. Phinehas read a healed breach as proof that God was with them, and Paul asks believers to guard the same thing, “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).

When, Where, and Why

• When: near the end of Joshua’s life, after the fighting and after the land had been divided, at the opening of the book’s final section. The chapter itself begins with “Then” and does not fix the interval. Most reckon the campaign at about seven years, and an old Jewish tradition puts the whole period at fourteen, seven for subduing the land and seven for dividing it. Both are reckonings rather than dates.
• Where: the tribes set out from Shiloh in Canaan, where the tabernacle had been pitched (Joshua 18:1), and travelled east toward Gilead. The Jordan River runs between the two, and the altar went up at the crossing. That river is the reason belonging felt like an open question to anyone living on the far side of it.
• Why: Joshua 22 opens the three chapters that close the book, and all three ask the same thing. Israel now has the land; will Israel stay one people worshipping one God in it? Joshua answers it in three scenes: a near civil war over an altar, his own farewell, and the covenant Israel makes at Shechem.

Key Verses

“But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Joshua 22:5

Be very careful to do what Moses commanded: love the LORD your God, live the way he tells you to live, obey what he commands, hold on to him, and serve him with everything in you. Five things asked of men about to live a long way from the place God had chosen.

“And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.”

Joshua 22:12

When Israel heard about the altar, the whole nation assembled at Shiloh to march against their own people. Nothing in this chapter makes sense until a reader grasps that an unauthorised altar was worth a war to them.

“The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know”

Joshua 22:22

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, said twice over: he knows what we did and why, and Israel will know it too. The strongest confession of God in the chapter comes from the men accused of walking away from him.

“And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar Ed: for it shall be a witness between us that the LORD is God.”

Joshua 22:34

Reuben and Gad named the altar Witness, because it stood as testimony between the tribes that the LORD is God. The Hebrew word is missing after “the altar” in most manuscripts, so some read the verse as stating the altar’s purpose rather than giving it a formal name, and the sense holds either way. What fear built ended up carrying the best name in the chapter.

Key Lessons from Joshua 22

• The years a person stays count with God as much as the day they turned up, which is what Joshua singles out for praise (Joshua 22:3).
• Israel gathered for war and still sent men to ask questions first, because the law required an investigation before a conclusion (Joshua 22:13; Deuteronomy 13:14).
• Phinehas offered to hand over part of his own inheritance rather than watch his brothers fall, which is what confronting someone can cost when it is love (Joshua 22:19).
• Accused of abandoning God, the eastern tribes answered God first and their accusers second (Joshua 22:22).
• A worry about whether the next generation will still know God is worth doing something about, and the chapter honours the men who acted on theirs (Joshua 22:24-25).
• Being proved wrong about a brother is a mercy worth thanking God for, and Israel treated it as one (Joshua 22:30, 33).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: 23 Definitive Lessons from Joshua 22.

Bible Study Questions

1. What exactly does Joshua commend the eastern tribes for in Joshua 22:2-3, and what does he pass over?
2. What are the five things Joshua asks of the eastern tribes in Joshua 22:5, and how do they relate to one another?
3. Why did an altar by the Jordan look like rebellion to the rest of Israel? What did the law say about where sacrifice could be offered?
4. Israel assembled for war and then sent a delegation. What does the order of those two actions tell you about them?
5. Phinehas raises Peor and Achan in Joshua 22:17 and 22:20. What is he arguing, and why would those two examples carry weight?
6. In Joshua 22:24-25 the eastern tribes name what they were afraid of. What was it, and why did they think a structure would help?
7. Joshua 22:31 says “This day we perceive that the LORD is among us.” What made Phinehas say that at that moment?
8. Have you ever settled a question about another believer from a report instead of asking them? What did Israel do differently in Joshua 22:13?

Frequently Asked Questions

Joshua 22, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 Then Joshua called the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh,

2 And said unto them, Ye have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, and have obeyed my voice in all that I commanded you:

3 Ye have not left your brethren these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD your God.

4 And now the LORD your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he promised them: therefore now return ye, and get you unto your tents, and unto the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side Jordan.

5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

6 So Joshua blessed them, and sent them away: and they went unto their tents.

7 Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh Moses had given possession in Bashan: but unto the other half thereof gave Joshua among their brethren on this side Jordan westward. And when Joshua sent them away also unto their tents, then he blessed them,

8 And he spake unto them, saying, Return with much riches unto your tents, and with very much cattle, with silver, and with gold, and with brass, and with iron, and with very much raiment: divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren.

9 And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

10 And when they came unto the borders of Jordan, that are in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by Jordan, a great altar to see to.

11 And the children of Israel heard say, Behold, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar over against the land of Canaan, in the borders of Jordan, at the passage of the children of Israel.

12 And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.

13 And the children of Israel sent unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest,

14 And with him ten princes, of each chief house a prince throughout all the tribes of Israel; and each one was an head of the house of their fathers among the thousands of Israel.

15 And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,

16 Thus saith the whole congregation of the LORD, What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the LORD, in that ye have builded you an altar, that ye might rebel this day against the LORD?

17 Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed until this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the LORD,

18 But that ye must turn away this day from following the LORD? and it will be, seeing ye rebel to day against the LORD, that to morrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel.

19 Notwithstanding, if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over unto the land of the possession of the LORD, wherein the LORD’S tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession among us: but rebel not against the LORD, nor rebel against us, in building you an altar beside the altar of the LORD our God.

20 Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity.

21 Then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered, and said unto the heads of the thousands of Israel,

22 The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the LORD, (save us not this day,)

23 That we have built us an altar to turn from following the LORD, or if to offer thereon burnt offering or meat offering, or if to offer peace offerings thereon, let the LORD himself require it;

24 And if we have not rather done it for fear of this thing, saying, In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with the LORD God of Israel?

25 For the LORD hath made Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben and children of Gad; ye have no part in the LORD: so shall your children make our children cease from fearing the LORD.

26 Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice:

27 But that it may be a witness between us, and you, and our generations after us, that we might do the service of the LORD before him with our burnt offerings, and with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings; that your children may not say to our children in time to come, Ye have no part in the LORD.

28 Therefore said we, that it shall be, when they should so say to us or to our generations in time to come, that we may say again, Behold the pattern of the altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifices; but it is a witness between us and you.

29 God forbid that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn this day from following the LORD, to build an altar for burnt offerings, for meat offerings, or for sacrifices, beside the altar of the LORD our God that is before his tabernacle.

30 And when Phinehas the priest, and the princes of the congregation and heads of the thousands of Israel which were with him, heard the words that the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh spake, it pleased them.

31 And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the children of Manasseh, This day we perceive that the LORD is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the LORD: now ye have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the LORD.

32 And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the princes, returned from the children of Reuben, and from the children of Gad, out of the land of Gilead, unto the land of Canaan, to the children of Israel, and brought them word again.

33 And the thing pleased the children of Israel; and the children of Israel blessed God, and did not intend to go up against them in battle, to destroy the land wherein the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt.

34 And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar Ed: for it shall be a witness between us that the LORD is God.