Joshua 24:1-33
1 And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.
2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.
3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.
4 And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.
5 I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out.
6 And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea.
7 And when they cried unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.
8 And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, that ye might possess their land; and I destroyed them from before you.
9 Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you:
10 But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.
11 And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.
12 And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.
13 And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.
14 Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;
17 For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:
18 And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.
19 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.
20 If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.
21 And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD.
22 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.
23 Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.
24 And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.
25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.
27 And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.
28 So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.
29 And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.
30 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash.
31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overliveda Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.
32 And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
33 And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.
Joshua 24:1. Shechem. Some think this was the Sychar where our Saviour talked with the woman. John 4:5. This place became far famed on account of the renewal of the covenant before Joshua's death. He had built an altar here more than twenty years before. This town lies about eight miles from Samaria, and is now called Naplosa.
Joshua 24:2. Terah served other gods. Sabianism maintained that the world was eternal, and inculcated the worship of the planets as gods. The planets were also represented by metals, the sun by gold, the moon by silver, &c. Household gods followed next. It is not doubted but Abraham, for a time, worshipped in the same manner as his fathers. Sabianism had overspread the world; but after God called him he became, as the Jews call him, the pillar of the world.
Joshua 24:14. In Egypt, where they served Osiris, Apis, and Isis, as described, Exodus 32:4.
Joshua 24:27. This stone hath heard. The prosopopéia is one of the noblest figures of rhetoric. Give ear, oh heavens; and hear, oh earth. Deuteronomy 32:1; Isaiah 1:2. Joshua did all in his power to impress the nation, for he knew the human heart.
Joshua 24:29. A hundred and ten years old. God now evidently began to shorten the life of man. The animal life wears out and hastes to decay, which should prompt us to look for a better world and bury our tears with Joseph's bones, in hope of the resurrection of the dead.
Joshua 24:33. His son. The Septuagint superadds, “And the children of Israel took the ark, and carried it about with them; and Phinehas was highpriest till he died, and they buried him in his own hill. The children of Israel went to their own homes; and they fell away to the worship of Astarte and Ashtaroth; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Eglon king of Moab; and he had dominion over them for eighteen years.” This hill was given to the priest, it is thought, as his wife's portion. We have deeply to lament the death of Joshua, and of Eleazer, for with their death we find an almost total decay of religion.
REFLECTIONS.
Joshua having now, like Joseph, attained the age of one hundred and ten years; having seen the Jordan divide, Jericho fall, and the sun and moon stay their course at his command; and having conquered and divided the country, he was desirous once more to see the face of the elders and magistrates before he died. He wished to recite the mercies of the Lord, and to give them a solemn charge, though he had exhorted them to the same effect but awhile ago. What a proof of his piety; what an argument that he was about to expire with a soul filled with grateful recollections of God's works, and full of immortal hope.
He recited the history of the Hebrew family on a full scale, because it was the history of their glory, and of the last importance to all succeeding generations. He required of them a sincerity in the divine service correspondent to the fidelity with which God had fulfilled all his promises, and to the riches of grace which had constituted them a nation. If his arguments are conclusive, what must be the love, the gratitude and obedience, we owe to Jesus Christ? Surely if we trace our own history, and attempt to estimate the mercies of the Lord displayed to us in our pilgrimage, we shall enter into all the sentiments of this blessed prince and patriarch in Israel?
Joshua, after displaying the history of providence and grace, which had made of a wandering family the greatest and happiest of nations, puts the grand question; the question for which he had convened them before the Lord. “Choose ye this day whom you will serve.” What a contrast he makes between the gods of the heathen, who could do nothing for their votaries, and JEHOVAH who had done all these great and glorious things for them, and for their fathers. Hence we learn, that religion is a reasonable service, and that mankind endowed everywhere under the gospel with the covenant of grace, or initial salvation, are called to choose life that they may live: for life and death, a blessing and a curse, are set before them. God who has condescended to explain and justify his ways to man, demands in return a freewill offering of his heart and life. May the Lord then lay hold of the hand of the lingering sinner, and lead him out of Sodom, that he may escape for his life.
We also see that personal and family godliness is the best way of perpetuating religion in its purity to posterity. “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord:” let all heads of houses follow so divine a pattern. Let them read the holy scriptures, let them talk of the divine precepts in the ears of their children; and then falling down to prayer, let them deprecate the evil of sin, and implore the blessings of the covenant. Then the children so brought up will dread a prayerless house, as the paths of death; and being fully acquainted with the ways of the Lord, they will be armed with the weapons of truth against all the beguiling maxims of the world.
The elders and officers, deeply impressed with all they had just heard from the venerable prince, answered with a protestation against all the false gods, and with a most solemn avowal of the Lord for their God. It is good for a nation to assemble in all places of devotion, and for princes, nobles and magistrates to set the example, in renewing the christian covenant with God. Such should be all our days of fasting and prayer, all our days of thanksgiving, all sacrament occasions; and indeed, every time we bow the knee should be in some respect a renewal of covenant with heaven. By solemn acts of this kind, religion acquires a fresh influence over our hearts, over our children, and over our country.
Joshua wrote all the words of this covenant in a book, and rolled a huge stone under an oak, that all worshippers might read and see the testimonials of their covenants. These in case of apostasy were designed to testify against them. Hence we should learn solemnity and fidelity in all our transactions with God; for he ever lives the witness of his word, and the God of vengeance against all his foes.