It was a busy time at Shiloh when the Israelites made ready to go away to their own homes in different parts of the promised land. The tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin moved toward the south country from Shiloh, while the tribes of Asher, and Zebulun, and Naphtali, and Issachar, and one half of the tribe of Manasseh moved toward the north country. The tribe of Dan journeyed west from Shiloh, and the tribe of Ephraim stayed in the valleys near the tabernacle. You remember that before Moses died he gave the land east of the Jordan River to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and one half of the tribe of Manasseh. Now at last all of the twelve tribes had been given parts of the promised land in which to build their houses and plant gardens and be really at home.
And you remember, too, that the men from the tribes east of the Jordan River had come into Canaan with the other tribes to help drive out their enemies. Now they were ready to return again to their wives and children; for the great battles had been fought and many of the enemies had been driven away or killed. Before they started away from Shiloh, Joshua called them to his tent to talk with them. He thanked them for helping in the battles that the Israelites fought in Canaan. He said, “Now you may return to your own land, which Moses gave to you before he died. But when you go away across the River, do not forget the commandments of God, which you promised to obey. Do not forget the laws which Moses gave to all the Israelites.” Joshua sent Levites with these men to live in their cities and to remind them of God’s law. And he gave the men a part of all the gold and silver and iron and brass and a part of all the cattle that the Israelites had taken from their enemies.
When these soldiers came to the River Jordan and looked across to their own country on the other side, they thought, “This river divides our land from the rest of the land of Israel. But we will not let this river cut us off from the worship of the true God at Shiloh.” So they built on the high banks of the river an altar like the one on which the priests offered burnt sacrifices to God at Shiloh. Then they marched on to their own homes.
Now God had commanded the Israelites to offer sacrifices on no altar except the one at the tabernacle. And when the men of the other tribes of Israel heard about the new altar that had been built on the bank of the Jordan River, they felt angry. They believed the men on the east side of the river were trying to worship God in their own land instead of coming to the tabernacle at Shiloh. They remembered how God had punished all the people when only a part of them had sinned, and now they were afraid that God would allow some trouble to happen to them because those men had built a new altar. So they gathered together and planned to cross the river and fight against those men who dared to disobey God’s word.
Then these angry men thought, “Perhaps we had better ask those., other tribes why they built that new altar before we go out to fight against them.” So they chose Phinehas, the son of the high priest, and ten princes of Israel to go on this errand.
The men on the east side of the river were surprized when they saw Phinehas and the ten princes of Israel coming to see them so soon after they had left Shiloh. And they were more surprized when they learned why these men had come. They said, “We do not intend to worship God on this altar which we built by the river. Neither will our children offer sacrifices on it after we die. But We built it because we were afraid that the time might come some day when your children would not want to allow our children to come to Shiloh to worship the true God at the tabernacle. Then our children could show your children this altar, and your children could see that it is built like the altar at the tabernacle. They will understand that these tribes east of the river have a share in the worship of the true God at Shiloh.”
Phinehas and the ten princes were pleased when they heard these words. They hurried back to Shiloh and told the people why the altar had been built by the river. And all the people were glad, because they knew that the tribes on the other side of Jordan would not try to be different from them, but that they would keep on serving the true God.
After this had happened the men went back again to their homes in the other parts of Canaan. But Joshua lived at Shiloh, for he belonged to the tribe of Ephraim. Now the tribe of Ephraim and the tribe of Manasseh were both descended from Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was called Israel. And the men of these tribes had carried the stone coffin of their father Joseph all the way from Egypt because he had asked the Israelites before he died to bury him in the land of Canaan. Now at last they buried his coffin at a place called Shechem, not far from Shiloh, near the fields where in that long-ago time his brothers were keeping their cattle when they sold him into Egypt.