Joshua 24:15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Seem evil Unjust, unreasonable, or inconvenient. Choose ye Not that he leaves them to their liberty, whether they would serve God or idols; for Joshua had no such power himself, nor could give it to any other; and both he and they were obliged by the law of Moses to give their worship to God only, and to forbear all idolatry in themselves, and severely to punish it in others; but his words are a powerful insinuation, which implies that the worship of God is so highly reasonable, necessary, and beneficial, and the service of idols so absurd, vain, and pernicious, that if it were left free for all men to take their choice, every man in his right senses must needs choose the service of God before that of idols. And he provokes them to bind themselves faster to God by their own choice. We will serve the Lord But know this, if you should all be so base and brutish as to prefer senseless and impotent idols before the true and living God, it is my firm purpose that I will, and my children and servants (as far as I can influence them) shall be, constant and faithful to the Lord. And that, whatever others do. They that resolve to serve God must not start at being singular in it. They that are bound for heaven must be willing to swim against the stream, and must do, not as most do, but as the best do.