To go up to war against them. — There is no more striking proof of Israel’s obedience to the law and veneration for it in the days of Joshua than this. A single altar to Jehovah, besides the one in Shiloh. is sufficient cause for war against the builders of it. But see what is the language of the prophet. “According to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to Bosheth (disgrace), even altars to burn incense to Baal” (Jeremiah 11:13). What stronger proof could we require of the veracity of the narrative in this place, and that it is genuine contemporary history? What writer of the days of Jeremiah, to which date some have referred the Book of Deuteronomy and its requirements, could have conceived such a scene as this, when altars to Jehovah on the high places were hardly regarded as illegal, and altars to Baal were as numerous as the very streets?
Another passage in a different part of the Old Testament corroborates indirectly, but in a striking manner, the tone of this (Nehemiah 8:17): “The congregation.... made booths, and sat under the booths” (as required by the law of Moses in the Feast of Tabernacles); “for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so.”