Joshua proposes that three men from each tribe go out and survey the land, determine the boundaries for each of the seven tribes, and return with their findings to Joshua, who will then draw lots to determine the Lord’s will in the matter (see 14.2). The men probably are only of the seven tribes involved, and not of all nine and one-half tribes west of the Jordan.

These three verses form a sense unit and so may be placed together and arranged in logical order. Good News Translation has already deleted some of the redundancy (compare Revised Standard Version), but it is possible to omit even more. A pattern for translating may be:

• The tribe of Judah already has its territory in the south, and the descendants of Joseph have their territory in the north. So let each of the seven remaining tribes select three men and send them to me. I will send them out to write down a description of the entire territory that they would like to receive. They will divide the territory into seven parts and bring the information to me. Then I will draw lots to determine which section the LORD wants each tribe to receive.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .