2 And the LORD said, Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.

While I must remain true to my own belief system, I still feel parts of the Bible offer important, inspirational messages to others. I realize my additional comments in this section of the post are likely of no importance to most readers.

innocents for the land.

Archaeologists working on the ground with shovels and whisk brooms have proved that the stories in the early books of the Bible are simply fictions. The brave work of Israeli expert Israel Finkelstein is a favorite of mine, many of his articles are available free on line. He and many others, armed with science instead of ancient fables, have brought to light the true past of the Iron Age Near East.

Far from coming late into the land as invaders, the forefathers of the Jews originated right there, were just another one of the many local peoples. In actual factual non-Biblical history.

Needless to say, Israel Finkelstein has has detractors among the Biblical literalists, IMHO mainly those who profit from literal interpretation. And so it goes. :)

Why couldn't god have told them, "This land isn't yours, but you can live here and please share it because that's a nice thing to do."