Era 5 · The Promised LandJoshua
Manasseh and Zelophehad's Daughters
"The LORD commanded Moses to give us an inheritance"
Manasseh's lot is given to its clans: Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher and Shemida. "But Zelophehad… had no sons, but daughters: and these are the names of his daughters, Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they came near before Eleazar the priest, and before Joshua… saying, The LORD commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brethren. Therefore according to the commandment of the LORD he gave them an inheritance."
Manasseh is given Beth-shean, Ibleam, Dor, En-dor, Taanach and Megiddo. "Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land." When Israel grew strong, it put them to forced labor.
The children of Joseph complain: "Why hast thou given me but one lot… seeing I am a great people?" Joshua answers: "get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there." They object: "all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron." Joshua: "the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down… for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong."
The daughters, from Numbers to Joshua
Numbers 27 records the sisters' appeal and the new law; Numbers 36 limits their marriages to their father's tribe; Joshua 17 shows the promise kept. Two of their names, Noah and Hoglah, appear as districts on the 8th-century BC Samaria ostraca, and Tirzah is a city that became the first capital of the northern kingdom. These are later records showing the names in use as places in Manasseh, not documents of Joshua's time.
Iron chariots
"Chariots of iron" probably means chariots with iron fittings or plating. Late Bronze and early Iron Age chariots were mainly wood and leather, with metal parts; iron was becoming more available in the 12th–11th centuries BC. The phrase marks the military advantage of the lowland cities, not unusually advanced technology, and nothing in it suggests anything beyond ancient metalworking.
Clearing the hills
Iron I settlement in the central hills involved clearing woodland and building terraces and cisterns. Surveys show hundreds of new small villages there in the 12th–11th centuries BC. Joshua's instruction to "cut down for thyself" fits that picture.
The Case for the Biblical Account
Scripture's account
Manasseh's land; the daughters' inheritance; the Canaanite valley cities remain (Joshua 17).
What evidence would we expect?
Canaanite valley cities continuing; hill-country clearing; Manasseh's clan names as places.
The discoveries
Megiddo, Beth-shean and Taanach as continuing Canaanite or Egyptian-garrison cities in the 12th century BC; Iron I highland villages; the Samaria ostraca's clan districts.
Testing the discoveries
The contrast between lowland cities and highland villages is well attested archaeologically.
The strongest reconstruction
Manasseh's story fits the archaeology of highland settlement beside lowland Canaanite cities.
What remains possible
How and when the valley cities came under Israel's control.
What the evidence shows
- Beth-shean was an Egyptian garrison town in the 12th century BC.
- Noah and Hoglah appear as district names on the Samaria ostraca (8th century BC).
- "Iron chariots" were made wholly of iron. Iron fittings is the likely meaning.
Continue the journey
Connected elsewhere in ScriptureInheritance and JoshuaNumbers 27:1–11: The daughters' appeal.More from this lesson
Why this matters to the rest of Scripture
- The daughters' appeal.
- Inheritance protected.
- Judah and the iron chariots.
- Manasseh and the valley cities.