Joshua 23:1-5

JOSHUA’S FIRST FAREWELL ADDRESS

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Joshua 23:1. A long time after that the Lord had given rest] Probably the beginning of this period is to be reckoned from the time indicated in chap. Joshua 21:44, to the similar phrase of which the historian looks back. The “long time,” after the second division of the land, appears to have been about sixteen years (cf. on chap. Joshua 13:1).

Joshua 23:2. Called for all Israel and for, etc.] Omit “and.” The gathering was a representative one, and the four clauses which follow are meant to stand in explanation of the words “all Israel.” Joshua called all Israel, i.e., their elders, their heads, etc.

Joshua 23:3. Because of you] Heb., mipp’nçychem =from before you. It is not said that God slew the Canaanites because of the Israelites, but before their “faces,” i.e., before the Israelites in battle. The figurative meaning, on account of, though frequently admissible, would here obviously alter the sense of the passage. Calvin translates by in conspectu vestro, but Tremellius and Junius have propter vos. The same form in Joshua 23:5 is rendered, from before you, with which in both places, agree the LXX.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 23:1

THE DOMINATING INTEREST OF A GODLY MAN IN HIS LAST DAYS

Almost everything about a man gets “old and stricken in age,” saving the desires of the godly towards God and godly things. The body decays, let it have been ever so vigorous. Appetites fail, one by one, till the choicest dainties and even necessary food no longer tempt. Beauty wanes and vanishes. The problems which have kept a mind active for half a century presently fail to command more than a passing thought. The love of pleasure and wickedness is no exception to the general rule. The things which once so seductively won and delighted the life that chose to revel in them, sooner or later, not only fail to please, but are found absolutely nauseous. Many other preachers than Solomon, whether publicly or only to themselves, eventually cry, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” It says something, at least, for the spiritual mind, that as long as other minds can watch it, it shews no sign of decay. When everything else gets stricken with many days, the love of the heart towards God and goodness is strong as ever. Nay, this is the time when it renews its youth. (Cf. Psalms 73:26.) Infidelity finds its strongest foe in the life most stricken with weakness. The roughest camping ground for unbelief is on the margin of the grave. It is there, more than anywhere else, that faith is unencumbered by doubt. It does us good to see this venerable servant of God so stricken without, and yet so strong within. The ruling desire of the failing veteran was to see idolatry banished, Israel holy and happy, and Jehovah glorified.

I. Here is an aged man diligently setting himself to complete the work of his life. Hoping that Israel would feel the appeal that came from one whose life had been given to them in so simple and thorough a manner, Joshua tried to say words that might make his past service an abiding help to his people.

1. Many useful lives are left to drift down to posterity as best they can. Our aged men are too prone to retire. Then, what they have done well through many years is apt to retire from the public mind also. A few broken words from an aged man with a great life behind him, are words which no one else can speak. Such a man should try and say them. They are very beautiful from such lips. Power goeth forth from them. Many lives are like nails well driven home, but unclenched. There are aged men just gone from us, and some among us now, whose broken words of weakness compel our faith and fervour as did none of the more eloquent utterances of their younger days.

2. A life which has been for others all through, can only end nobly as it continues for others to the last. Joshua did not call the elders to get them to aid him in perpetuating his own fame. Not a word falls from the dear old man which takes the slightest tinge of self-admiration or self-concern. The pain of the bodily effort was all for the people. Love for them and love for God was moving the aged man to this effort. It was not self-love. Joshua does not even impress us with the feeling that he was trying to prepare to die well. All that had been settled long ago. He was working with his last strength to try and get others to live well. A godly life has no room for selfishness even on the borders of the grave.

3. However nobly a life may continue and end, only one life is complete—the life of Jesus Christ. Joshua was but the supplement of Moses. The purposes of Moses, like those of Job, were “broken off.” He died looking into the land which he failed to reach. And even Joshua had left many Canaanites still unconquered. There remained, still, very much land to be possessed. The best lives are only a segment. We are all only arcs, some longer and some shorter, in the circle of God’s plan. Only the life of Jesus represents a completed idea. Probably His were the only lips which ever tried to frame for their dying utterance the august words, “It is finished.” Paul said, “I have finished my course,” but he had no such fulness of meaning in his mind as He who declared, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” The Lord, who was so separate from sinners in His life, is no less alone in His death.

II. An aged man hiding the work of a great life behind the greater work of God. “Ye have seen all that the Lord hath done … for the Lord your God is He that hath fought for you.” To the people, Joshua had seemed to have done much. They probably both honoured and loved him. It would have been easy for Joshua to have magnified his own work. Instead of this, and with a beautiful freedom from affectation in his humility, the veteran soldier treats himself as a mere subordinate, and extols God as the real leader of the army. John the Baptist was willing that his own light should wane before the greater brightness of the Rising Sun of Righteousness. Thus, also, Joshua conceals his own fame by bidding the people gaze on the incomparable glory of Jehovah.

1. To extol God is due to truth. (a) God had wonderfully and visibly interposed in times of Israel’s greatest difficulties. The dividing of the Jordan. The fall of the walls of Jericho. The hailstorm at Beth-horon, and the phenomenal staying of the sun and moon. (b) God had guided Joshua. The plans of battle had been from the Captain of the Lord’s host (chap. Joshua 5:13, Joshua 6:1). (c) God had encouraged Joshua in almost every battle where his own heart might have failed him. The gracious “fear not” of Jehovah was continually anticipating Joshua’s trembling and depression (chap. Joshua 3:7; Joshua 6:2; Joshua 8:1; Joshua 8:18; Joshua 10:8; Joshua 11:6). (d) When God had once withdrawn from His servant, then Joshua had been utterly defeated (chap. Joshua 7:1). (e) God had maintained, every day, Joshua’s health and strength. It would have been false to truth if Joshua had exalted himself. Every triumph of ours might be as truly traced to the help of the Lord.

2. To extol God is due to God. If His own “right hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory,” shall a man rob God of the glory due unto His name? Let us rather imitate Joshua here, and sing with the pious Israelite of a later generation about these same triumphs: “In God we boast all the day long” (cf. Psalms 44:1).

3. To extol God is due to men. Those about us should not be drawn from God by our own personal vanity, but rather be led to God by our adoring praise. When the king passes by, he is but a mean citizen who tries to attract attention to himself.

4. To extol God is due to ourselves. The man who seeks to appropriate the glory due to Jehovah does but rob himself. He gains nothing, and loses all the joy of fealty and childhood.

III. An aged man reviewing God’s goodness in the past, and finding therein an assurance of God’s help in difficulties yet to come. “The Lord your God, He shall expel them from before you,” etc. Many years of experience had taught Joshua that he might unquestionably trust in Jehovah. Looking into the future of the Israelites, no doubt troubled his clear faith on that side of things which related to God. Of the people, Joshua had many doubts; of God, none whatever. He was far from assuming that Divine help had been given on his own account. He saw that hitherto Divine help had been given because of Divine love to the nation, and that if the people continued faithful, God would continue to bless them. The aged warrior felt that he was fast going the way of all the earth; he did not therefore think that victory must fail the people. He could no longer lead them to the battle; God would be as able and as willing to cause them to triumph notwithstanding. With such a life of prowess behind him, it is very beautiful that Joshua in no way considered himself essential to victory. The thought of his own absence did not so much as begin to obscure his faith in the sufficiency of God’s presence. The triumphs of the Church in our day have all been of the Lord. No individual servant of God is a necessity. True faith dwells altogether above men, resting only in God.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Joshua 23:1 -THE LORD’S GIFT OF REST.

I. The Lord’s gift of rest in spite of great difficulties. The bondage in Egypt; the pursuing Egyptians, and the confronting sea; the swellings of Jordan; the enemies within the land itself: under Divine leading, and before Divine power, all these hindrances were as nothing. So far from preventing the gift of rest, they only exalted it. They became, as it were, the emphasis of the rest. Witness the after songs of peace which these conflicts only served to provoke. “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

II. The Lord’s gift of rest, notwithstanding many sins. Sin in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan. Sin in the leaders of Israel, as by Moses and Aaron. Sin among the people: prominent sins, as at the return of the spies, as by Korah, Zimri, and Achan; secret and unrecorded sins. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

III. The Lord’s gift of rest unto Israel.

1. Rest given to the children of many promises. See the covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

2. Rest given to a people whom God sought to make a praise in the earth. The Lord was preparing them to sing, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.”

3. Rest given to the people of God as a witness against idolatry. The penalties of sin are to forfeit everything worth keeping, and to inherit only desolation and pain. The reward of serving God is to be made heirs of God.

4. Rest given to the people of God, but given only in instalments. All the enemies were not yet subdued; if Israel only kept the faith, they would be. If the people served Jehovah truly on earth, Canaan would be merely the portico to heaven. He who serves the Lord faithfully may always say, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” The children of the King of kings ever have some estate in possession, and much in reversion.

IV. The Lord’s gift of rest to Israel the prediction and beginning of a higher rest to be offered to all the world. God began to teach the world in one place. Israel was only a concentrated view of mercy which God was ready to offer to all men. Canaan was never intended to be other than God’s preface to a Christian world. Local blessing stands here as a preamble to the epistle of God’s universal love. Canaan was God’s preparation for Calvary, and Israel did but make way for the fulness of the Gentiles. The rest of God was never meant to rest.

Joshua 23:2.—THE PROVIDENCE OF A FATHERLY SPIRIT.

“The pious solicitude of Joshua is here set forth, for the imitation of all who are in authority. For as the father of a family will not be considered sufficiently provident if he thinks of his children only till the end of his own life, and does not extend his care farther, studying as much as in him lies to do them good even when he is dead; so good magistrates and rulers ought carefully to provide that the well-arranged condition of affairs, as they leave them, be confirmed and prolonged to a distant period. For this reason Peter writes (1 Peter 1:25), that he will endeavour after he has departed out of the world to keep the Church in remembrance of his admonitions, and able to derive benefit from them.”—[Calvin.]

Joshua 23:3.—THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND OF MEN.

I. Men may seem to hold the sword, but it is ever God who fights against the enemies of truth. The Israelites were simply instruments in the Divine chastisement of idolaters. This is continuously insisted on throughout the book. It is the same in many other instances. The overthrow of Tyre, Nineveh, Jerusalem, and other places, let the instruments vary as they may, is spoken of as God’s punishment of transgression. Thus also a godly man of the last generation said of his trials, “My sins are reappearing to me in the form of men.”

II. Men may seem to win prowess, but in all true victories the battle is the Lord’s.

1. The Lord is He who really fights. “The Lord your God is He that hath fought.”

2. The Lord’s fighting is for His people. “He hath fought for you.”

3. The Lord’s fighting is for the truth, that through it many may become His people indeed.

III. Men may seek praise for themselves, or give glory to the Lord, but only he who honours God is really exalted. Joshua has come to far more exaltation through his humility than could ever have been possible through a foolish vanity. It is ever thus. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” If that is God’s word, it is also man’s resolute dogma. Many men are weak enough to be vain; no man will tolerate foolish conceit outside of his own heart. This history shews us that:

1. Temptations to self-glorying are numerous.

2. Inducements to praise God are more numerous.

3. To give glory sincerely to the Lord is to receive lasting honour from men.

Joshua 23:3.—THE LORD’S WORK AND MAN’S WORK.

I. The Lord’s work affording a glorious retrospect. What has been done, He has done. “Ye have seen all,” etc. (Joshua 23:3).

II. The Lord’s work the foundation of all that seems done by men. “I have not fought, but He.” “I have divided unto you, but I have done even that by the guidance of the Lord’s lot,” God had been both power and light.

III. The Lord’s work the only hope for the future.

1. In the casting out of enemies. “He shall expel them.”

2. In the possession of an undisturbed inheritance. “As the Lord your God hath promised you.”