Joshua 13: Unconquered Lands of Consciousness

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Quick Insights

An elderly leader surveying unpossessed land is the mind recognizing that much inner territory remains unexplored even late in life.
The detailed borders and tribes describe how attention, memory, habit and identity divide inner space into provinces, some claimed, some neglected.
Names of enemies and remnants point to the persistence of old fears and unmet complexes that dwell among us until consciously addressed.
The special mention of a tribe without land and the command to divide by lot reveal a paradox between service-oriented consciousness and the creative act of allocating attention to manifest inner reality.

What is the Main Point of Joshua 13?

This chapter speaks to the psychological moment when awareness realizes that despite past victories and achievements there is still wide, fertile inner terrain awaiting ownership; imagination is the instrument by which the mind maps, claims, and organizes that territory. The text frames possession not as conquest by force but as the deliberate, imaginative distribution of attention and identity to regions within the psyche, with some parts serving through vocation rather than possession and others remaining unintegrated until named and assigned.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Joshua 13?

The opening scene of an aged leader told that land still remains turns the reader inward: aging consciousness often discovers new appetites and possibilities precisely because accumulated experience clarifies what was not yet imagined. The remaining land is not a lack but an invitation—the shape and name of undiscovered capacities, creative projects, relationships, and states of being that have not yet been enlivened by sustained attention. To recognize this territory is the first work of spiritual maturity; it requires acceptance that life’s work continues and that imagination can be turned toward completion rather than lament. The chapter’s catalogue of borders and peoples functions like a psychological map. Borders mark limits created by belief and habit; neighboring peoples represent clusters of feeling and thought that influence each other. To list them is to make them visible. The order and specificity suggest that the psyche responds to precise, detailed imagining: when attention names a region and outlines its edges, the psyche knows where to put anchors. Conversely, unnamed regions remain amorphous and subject to old narratives and reactive patterns that the mind believes are givens rather than constructs. The special treatment of the tribe without an inheritance points to a spiritual paradox: some aspects of consciousness are called to service rather than ownership. Devotional intention, inner witness, or the faculty that consecrates experience receives its sustenance not by territorial possession but through ritual, sacrifice, and attention directed to what is not claimed for ego. Recognizing that some inner functions are sustaining rather than acquisitive dissolves the hunger to possess everything and opens a creative economy in which imagination can allocate without trampling the sacred roles that hold psyche and soul together.

Key Symbols Decoded

The ‘‘land remaining to be possessed’’ is latent potential—skills, relationships, capacities, and states of being that imagination must claim through clear inner acts. The many named regions and borders are mental categories, each with its own history and resistance; they appear like neighborhoods of habit where certain narratives govern behavior. The repeated naming shows how attention gives form: to name is to define a field where imagination can operate. The ‘‘lords’’ and ‘‘kings’’ are compact images of dominant internal voices—fear, doubt, pride—that previously controlled those fields and must be acknowledged and reassigned. The references to tribes and the allocation of inheritance translate into the practice of inner distribution: parts of the self require recognition and a role. The tribe that receives no land but serves symbolizes the conscience or witnessing awareness whose inheritance is not territory but the capacity to consecrate and transform whatever is offered. The stubborn presence of peoples not expelled suggests unresolved material in the unconscious that can coexist with new ownership until it is integrated; encountering these residues invites compassion and disciplined imagination rather than brute repression.

Practical Application

Read the chapter as a guided inventory. Begin by imagining yourself as the aging leader walking over a wide map of your life. Take time to visualize the spaces that feel unpossessed—projects unstarted, talents underused, relationships unclaimed—and give them names. Naming creates boundary and identity for an inner field. Then, in imagination, allocate these named regions: see yourself assigning attention and time to each as if distributing inheritance. Notice which parts resist; name the resistances—old fears, habits, stories—and visualize them given their appropriate place and role rather than banished with violence. Cultivate the role of the non-possessive witness by practicing a daily consecration: before sleep, rehearse a brief scene in which you inhabit the newly assigned region, feel its textures, perform a small act there, and express gratitude. When remnants of old patterns appear, receive them without panic and invite them to sit within the new boundaries you have imagined, learning from them instead of being ruled by them. Over time this disciplined imaginative rehearsal rewrites felt reality: inner territory becomes habitually owned, and the psyche reorganizes itself around those deliberate, repeated acts of attention.

Unclaimed Territory: The Inner Work of Possessing Your Promise

Joshua 13 reads like an aging commander surveying an inner map: Joshua, advanced in years, stands before the unclaimed territories of himself. The voice that speaks to him is not only an external deity but the creative principle within consciousness pointing out what remains to be realized. This chapter is a psychological inventory — a disclosure that even the mature mind has wide provinces of experience, feeling, and power it has not yet inhabited. The literal names and borders become symbols for states of mind, unconscious habits, and the imaginative acts needed to possess them.

The opening sentence, 'Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old ... and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed,' is a declaration about maturation and the persistence of potential. Age here is not decay alone but a vantage point: from it one can see territories still unentered. The 'remaining land' is the set of unrealized virtues, untapped capacities, and hidden inner resources. That God points it out emphasizes that the power to possess is not outside us; it comes from the creative awareness that names and stakes claim within imagination.

The long catalogue of places is the map of psyche: the borders of the Philistines, Geshuri, Sihor (the edge of Egypt), Ekron, the Sidonians, the Amorites, Lebanon, Hermon, Hamath, Bashan, and Og the giant. Each place represents a class of inner phenomena. The Philistines and their five lords—the Gazathites, Ashdothites, Eshkalonites, Gittites, Ekronites—are the recurring, externalized attitudes that challenge every inner advance: habit patterns that favor the material, the skeptical, the defensive instincts that resist imaginative change. To say 'all the borders of the Philistines' signals the pervasiveness of these patterns at the boundaries of conscious life.

Sihor as 'which is before Egypt' points to memory-brine and bondage: the blacking influence of conditioned memory that keeps one bound to past identification. Egypt in inner terms is the landscape of bondage to form and antecedent self-conceptions. Crossing Sihor into the new land is the work of imagination disentangling identity from inherited pattern.

Sidon and Lebanon, the hill country, represent aspiration and the social sense: Sidon corresponds to reputation and the desire to be seen, while Lebanon — with its cedars and heights — signifies ideals and aesthetic faculties. Mount Hermon, the great high place, is the peak-state of lofty vision. Hamath marks the outermost limit of personal reach. These places together show that the inner country includes both low territories of fear and high ones of aspiration: imagination must reconcile and possess both.

Bashan and Og, 'the remnant of the giants,' describe the older, resistant complexes that survived previous victories. Moses, the earlier mode of consciousness, 'smiting' giants indicates that earlier reformations succeeded partially; yet the 'remnant' remains because fierce, ancient beliefs are stubborn. The narrative admits psychological truth: the past may have been altered, but traces linger as pockets of resistance within the ostensibly victorious self. Recognizing their presence is the first step toward their eviction by conscious creative work.

'All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel' becomes a promise that the imaginative act can displace limiting states. Yet the text also instructs 'only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.' The 'lot' is the moment-to-moment allocation of attention and assumption. To cast lots is to choose where to dwell inwardly. The command to divide the land among the tribes is the inner task of apportioning attention, assigning priority, and formally inhabiting chosen states until they become habitual.

The nine tribes plus half the tribe of Manasseh stand for differentiated faculties of the mind to whom specific inheritances are given. Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh — who had received their inheritance beyond Jordan — are noteworthy. 'Beyond Jordan' symbolizes states already claimed by earlier decisions: characteristics won and settled in a distinct domain of experience. Their settlement indicates that certain parts of the psyche have been successfully redefined and given function, but the rest of consciousness still requires the active imagination to be led into possession.

The tribes' geographic lists — Aroer, the river Arnon, Medeba, Dibon, Heshbon — are not historical footnotes but the granular qualities of temperament and habit that compose each faculty's domain. To 'give' these cities is to populate an inner faculty with imagined scenes, conversations, and identities until the faculty lives them as real. The sense of inheritance is not physical property but the inner occupancy: a man or woman takes up residence in a new disposition by continually assuming its reality internally.

Particularly striking is the treatment of the Levites. 'Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave none inheritance; the sacrifices of the LORD God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance.' Psychologically this identifies the priestly function as the non-possessing center of consciousness whose inheritance is activity rather than territory. The Levites represent the faculty of inner worship, imaginative offering, and conscious attention that supports all other occupations but does not cling to outcomes. Their 'inheritance' is the practice of conscious sacrifice: the willingness to give attention, to consecrate images, and to offer the creative act without grasping for possession as an ego claim. The priestly part of the psyche receives authority through service: its reward is the quality of imaginative communion rather than a parcel of the inner map.

The list of cities and borders that Moses gave to Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh underlines a different point: reform and distribution are often delegated within consciousness by earlier beliefs. Moses symbolizes formative principle and instruction; Joshua symbolizes the executant imagination that must complete the act. There is an intergenerational movement in psyche: one phase lays plans and victories; the next must complete the appropriation. The text warns that completion is not automatic; 'much land yet remaineth' even after major victories.

The presence of people who still dwell among the Israelites — 'the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day' — means that integration sometimes permits residual hostile tendencies to live within the new identity. Integration differs from eradication: some traits are recontextualized and made useful, others remain unresolved and must be attended to. The wise imaginative leader does not merely conquer; it discernibly reorganizes inner life so that former enemies are assimilated or contained.

What is the operative technique implied here? Imagination is the speaking, naming faculty that delegates, divides, and occupies. The divine command to possess is an inner injunction to imagine oneself as the holder of those territories — to see, speak, and act as if the new states are already real. This is not magical thinking but disciplined assumption: the continuous, settled inner conversation from premises of fulfilled ideals that lays down new tracks. To 'drive out' the Philistines psychologically is to persistently refuse their counsel, to re-assign attention toward the new borders, and to cherish images that bear witness to the desired inheritance.

Finally, the chapter's administrative tone — lists of cities, borders, and inheritances — teaches that imagination's work is practical and specific. Spiritual progress is not vague yearning but concrete reallocation of feeling and attention. One must name the territories to be possessed, assign them to faculties, and practice dwelling in them daily. The old commander, though aged, is urged on: maturation is compatible with expansion. The creative power within human consciousness remains operative until every intended 'land' is possessed.

In sum, Joshua 13 as psychological drama reveals an inner geography of potentials and resistances. The voice of God is the inward creative consciousness calling for completion. The map of places and peoples is a map of attitudes and complexes; the tribes are faculties needing clear inheritance. The priestly center keeps the flame of imaginative sacrifice alive. The method of possession is explicit: choose — by lot of attention — allocate, assume, and persist in inner conversations that embody the desired states. Only thus does imagination transform the unseen into the seen, and the old commander will find that no land remains unclaimed within him.

Common Questions About Joshua 13

How does Neville Goddard interpret the 'land yet to be possessed' in Joshua 13?

Neville Goddard reads the “land yet to be possessed” as the inward territory of experience not yet occupied by your assumed state of consciousness; it is the promise still awaiting embodiment (Joshua 13:1). In his teaching, imagination is the creative faculty that takes possession of this land by living in the end and assuming the reality you desire. The biblical narrative becomes an allegory of inner conquest: God assigns the land, but you must enter by discipline of assumption. The unpossessed land is thus not a future external event but an unclaimed state within you that yields to persistent, incarnated imagination.

What Bible study resources combine Joshua 13 exegesis with Neville Goddard principles?

Look first to Neville Goddard’s own works, particularly The Power of Awareness and his lectures where he allegorizes Scripture and teaches the imaginative method; these provide the experiential key to Joshua’s unpossessed land. Pair those readings with classic allegorical commentators—Origen or typological studies—that emphasize inner meanings, and consult modern writers who explore Christian mysticism and consciousness for practical application. Study guides or podcasts that focus on imaginative prayer and the law of assumption can help you translate exegetical insight into nightly practices, while small group study coupled with journaling bridges textual understanding and living assumption.

Can the unclaimed territories in Joshua 13 be read as unmanifest states of consciousness?

Yes; the unclaimed territories in Joshua 13 read naturally as unmanifest states of consciousness awaiting occupation by the assumption you hold. The biblical pattern shows an assigned promise that must be inwardly realized before it appears outwardly, so every “territory” corresponds to a psychological realm—fear, abundance, relationship, purpose—that remains unpossessed until realized through imagination. When you assume the state of already having entered those territories and persist in that inner act, the unseen becomes seen; the promise moves from potential to fact, consistent with Scripture’s assertion that faith gives substance to things hoped for (compare Joshua 13:1 and the principle of assumption).

What practical imaginal exercises does Neville’s approach suggest for Joshua 13 themes?

Practically, Neville’s approach invites a nightly imaginal practice where you quietly enter the scene of having already possessed the land, sensing every detail as real until feeling completes belief; imagine walking its borders, naming cities, and experiencing gratitude as if it is accomplished (Joshua 13:1). Use short vivid scenes that end in the fulfilled state and repeat them until they feel natural; revise any day’s disappointments by re-imagining the desired outcome. Couple this with declarative assumption upon waking and sleeping, and treat small daily actions as tokens of possession, thereby translating inner assumption into outward evidence.

How do Neville’s teachings treat Joshua’s role and the passing of leadership in chapter 13?

Neville’s teaching treats Joshua as the consciousness that has matured to receive the promise yet must oversee distribution; the passing or sharing of leadership mirrors the internal transition from one state of being to another as tribes receive their allotted inheritances. Joshua’s aging and the instruction to divide the land suggest the soul’s work of assigning realized states to aspects of the self so each function may operate from possession. The transfer of leadership is therefore an inner graduation—allowing delegated faculties to act from the new assumption—so the fulfillment becomes durable and organized within the whole psyche (Joshua 13:1, 13:33).