Joshua 18:3
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And Joshua said to the children of Israel, How long are you slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?
American King James Version (AKJV)
And Joshua said to the children of Israel, How long are you slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?
American Standard Version (ASV)
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land, which Jehovah, the God of your fathers, hath given you?
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Then Joshua said to the children of Israel, Why are you so slow to go in and take up your heritage in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?
Webster's Revision
And Joshua said to the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you?
World English Bible
Joshua said to the children of Israel, "How long will you neglect to go in to possess the land, which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you?
English Revised Version (ERV)
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you?
Clarke's Joshua 18:3 Bible Commentary
How long are ye slack to go to possess the land - We find an unaccountable backwardness in this people to enter on the inheritance which God had given them! They had so long been supported by miracle, without any exertions of their own, that they found it difficult to shake themselves from their inactivity. When it was necessary that all the people should go out to battle, they went with a measure of confidence, expecting miraculous help from God, and confiding in their numbers, but when each tribe found it necessary to fight for itself, in order to its establishment and the extension of its borders, it was discouraged, and chose rather a life of inglorious ease than the possession of an inheritance which would cost it much labor to conquer.
Barnes's Joshua 18:3 Bible Commentary
This backwardness probably arose from the indisposition of the people to abandon the nomad life in which they had been born and bred, and to settle in fixed abodes, and perhaps also from a dislike of the exterminating warfare incidental to a complete dispossessing of the Canaanites.
Wesley's Joshua 18:3 Bible Commentary
18:3 How long are you slack - This slackness is supposed to arise from an opinion of the impossibility of making any regular distribution of the parts, 'till the whole were more exactly surveyed, which accordingly is here done. Likewise, being weary of war, and having sufficient plenty of all things, they were unwilling to run into new hazards.