1And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for its heads, and for its judges, and for its officers. And they placed themselves before God. 2And Joshua said to all the people, So says Jehovah the God of Israel, Your fathers have in the past lived Beyond the River (Terah the father of Abraham and father of Nahor) and they served other gods. 3And I took your father Abraham from Beyond the River, and caused him to go through all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave Isaac to him. 4And I gave Jacob and Esau to Isaac. And I gave Mount Seir to Esau, to possess it. And Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. 5And I sent Moses and Aaron and plagued Egypt, as I did in its midst. And afterward I brought you out. 6And I brought your fathers out from Egypt, and you went into the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and with horsemen, into the Sea of Reeds. 7And they cried to Jehovah, and He set thick darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea on them, and covered them. And your eyes saw that which I have done in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness many days. 8And I brought you into the land of the Amorite who lived beyond the Jordan. And they fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you possessed their land. And I destroyed them before you. 9And Balak the son of Zippor, the king of Moab, rose up and fought against Israel, and sent and called for Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. 10And I was not willing to listen to Balaam, and he greatly blessed you. And I delivered you out of his hand. 11And you crossed over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the masters of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I gave them into your hand. 12And I sent the hornet before you, and it cast them out before you, two kings of the Amorites, not by the sword nor by your bow. 13And I have given you a land for which you have not labored, and cities which you have not built, and you live in them. You are eating of vineyards and oliveyards which you did not plant. 14Now, then, fear Jehovah, and serve Him in sincerity and truth, and turn away from the gods which your fathers served Beyond the River, and in Egypt; and you serve Jehovah. 15And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve Jehovah, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods whom your fathers served Beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah. 16And the people replied and said, Far be it from us to forsake Jehovah, to serve other gods. 17For Jehovah our God is He who has brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves, and who has done these great signs before our eyes, and has preserved us in all the way in which we have gone, and among all the people through whom we have passed. 18And Jehovah has cast out all the peoples, even the Amorite inhabiting the land before us. We also will serve Jehovah, for He is our God. 19And Joshua said to the people, You cannot serve Jehovah, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God. He will not lift up from you your transgressions or your sins. 20When you forsake Jehovah, and shall serve strange gods, then He will turn away and do evil to you, and consume you, after He has done good to you. 21And the people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve Jehovah. 22And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen Jehovah for yourselves, to serve Him (for they said, We are witnesses). 23And now turn away from the strange gods among you, and incline your heart to Jehovah the God of Israel. 24And the people said to Joshua, We will serve Jehovah our God, and we will listen to His voice. 25And Joshua made a covenant with the people on that day, and laid on them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the Law of God, and took a great stone and raised it up there under the oak by the sanctuary of Jehovah. 27And Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the sayings of Jehovah which He has spoken with us. And it shall be against you for a witness, that you not lie against your God. 28And Joshua sent the people away, each to his inheritance. 29And it happened after these things, the servant of Jehovah, Joshua the son of Nun died, being a son of a hundred and ten. 30And they buried him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-serah, which is in the hills of Ephraim, on the north of the Hill of Gaash. 31And Israel served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders whose days were prolonged after Joshua, and who knew all the work of Jehovah which He did to Israel. 32And the bones of Joseph which the sons of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem, for a hundred silver pieces. And they were for an inheritance to the sons of Joseph. 33And Eleazar the son of Aaron died, and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the hills of Ephraim.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 JOSHUA ASSEMBLING THE TRIBES. (
Josh 24:1)
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem--Another and final opportunity of dissuading the people against idolatry is here described as taken by the aged leader, whose solicitude on this account arose from his knowledge of the extreme readiness of the people to conform to the manners of the surrounding nations. This address was made to the representatives of the people convened at Shechem, and which had already been the scene of a solemn renewal of the covenant (
Josh 8:30,
Josh 8:35). The transaction now to be entered upon being in principle and object the same, it was desirable to give it all the solemn impressiveness which might be derived from the memory of the former ceremonial, as well as from other sacred associations of the place (
Gen 12:6-
Gen 12:7;
Gen 33:18-
Gen 33:20;
Gen 35:2-
Gen 35:4).
they presented themselves before God--It is generally assumed that the ark of the covenant had been transferred on this occasion to Shechem; as on extraordinary emergencies it was for a time removed (Jdg. 20:1-18;
1Sam 4:3;
2Sam 15:24). But the statement, not necessarily implying this, may be viewed as expressing only the religious character of the ceremony [HENGSTENBERG].
2 RELATES GOD'S BENEFITS. (
Josh 24:2-
Josh 24:13)
Joshua said unto all the people--His address briefly recapitulated the principal proofs of the divine goodness to Israel from the call of Abraham to their happy establishment in the land of promise; it showed them that they were indebted for their national existence as well as their peculiar privileges, not to any merits of their own, but to the free grace of God.
Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood--The Euphrates, namely, at Ur.
Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor--(see
Gen 11:27). Though Terah had three sons, Nahor only is mentioned with Abraham, as the Israelites were descended from him on the mother's side through Rebekah and her nieces, Leah and Rachel.
served other gods--conjoining, like Laban, the traditional knowledge of the true God with the domestic use of material images (
Gen 31:19,
Gen 31:34).
3 I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan--It was an irresistible impulse of divine grace which led the patriarch to leave his country and relatives, to migrate to Canaan, and live a "stranger and pilgrim" in that land.
4 I gave unto Esau mount Seir--(See on
Gen 36:8). In order that he might be no obstacle to Jacob and his posterity being the exclusive heirs of Canaan.
12 I sent the hornet before you--a particular species of wasp which swarms in warm countries and sometimes assumes the scourging character of a plague; or, as many think, it is a figurative expression for uncontrollable terror (see on
Exod 23:28).
14 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth--After having enumerated so many grounds for national gratitude, Joshua calls on them to declare, in a public and solemn manner, whether they will be faithful and obedient to the God of Israel. He avowed this to be his own unalterable resolution, and urged them, if they were sincere in making a similar avowal, "to put away the strange gods that were among them"--a requirement which seems to imply that some were suspected of a strong hankering for, or concealed practice of, the idolatry, whether in the form of Zabaism, the fire-worship of their Chaldean ancestors, or the grosser superstitions of the Canaanites.
26 Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God--registered the engagements of that solemn covenant in the book of sacred history.
took a great stone--according to the usage of ancient times to erect stone pillars as monuments of public transactions.
set it up there under an oak--or terebinth, in all likelihood, the same as that at the root of which Jacob buried the idols and charms found in his family.
that was by the sanctuary of the Lord--either the spot where the ark had stood, or else the place around, so called from that religious meeting, as Jacob named Beth-el the house of God.
29 HIS AGE AND DEATH. (
Josh 24:29-
Josh 24:30)
Joshua . . . died--LIGHTFOOT computes that he lived seventeen, others twenty-seven years, after the entrance into Canaan. He was buried, according to the Jewish practice, within the limits of his own inheritance. The eminent public services he had long rendered to Israel and the great amount of domestic comfort and national prosperity he had been instrumental in diffusing among the several tribes, were deeply felt, were universally acknowledged; and a testimonial in the form of a statue or obelisk would have been immediately raised to his honor, in all parts of the land, had such been the fashion of the times. The brief but noble epitaph by the historian is, Joshua, "the servant of the Lord."
31 Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua--The high and commanding character of this eminent leader had given so decided a tone to the sentiments and manners of his contemporaries and the memory of his fervent piety and many virtues continued so vividly impressed on the memories of the people, that the sacred historian has recorded it to his immortal honor. "Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua."
32 the bones of Joseph--They had carried these venerable relics with them in all their migrations through the desert, and deferred the burial, according to the dying charge of Joseph himself, till they arrived in the promised land. The sarcophagus, in which his mummied body had been put, was brought thither by the Israelites, and probably buried when the tribe of Ephraim had obtained their settlement, or at the solemn convocation described in this chapter.
in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought . . . for an hundred pieces of silver--Kestitah translated, "piece of silver," is supposed to mean "a lamb," the weights being in the form of lambs or kids, which were, in all probability, the earliest standard of value among pastoral people. The tomb that now covers the spot is a Mohammedan Welce, but there is no reason to doubt that the precious deposit of Joseph's remains may be concealed there at the present time.
33 Eleazar the son of Aaron died, and they buried him in . . . mount Ephraim--The sepulchre is at the modern village Awertah, which, according to Jewish travellers, contains the graves also of Ithamar, the brother of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar [VAN DE VELDE].