CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 23:11. Take good heed therefore unto yourselves] Marg., “unto your souls.” “Take heed with all your soul;” so Winer and Ges., quoted by Keil, who adds, The form is used “for the sake of emphasis, to denote that inward vigilance which comes from the soul.”
Joshua 23:12. Make marriages with them] The same sense is conveyed by the Heb. in Joshua 23:7.
Joshua 23:13. Snares … traps … scourges … thorns] cf. passages in margin. The threatenings have a kind of cumulative force. The energy of the warnings here is the measure of the pathos in the entreaty of Joshua 23:8-11.
Joshua 23:14. Behold, this day] A similar use of hayyom, “this day,” occurs in Deuteronomy 9:1, where the phrase is also employed to denote, not this day actually, but an early day or time.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 23:11-16
FORCES OF PRESERVATION AND DESTRUCTION
Life, look upon it in what sphere we may, seems to have conflict for its inevitable condition. Sometimes life in one form preys upon life in another form. Everywhere, life has some foes that wait around it to work it harm—some influences by which it is ever being drawn unto death. There are also sustaining and restoring forces which are placed around life in every sphere. These verses present us with a picture of human life as it stands in contact with things that tend both to its preservation and destruction. Socially, nationally, and spiritually, human life is here shewn in possible contact with things which help it, and with things which destroy it.
I. The restraining power of love to God (Joshua 23:11). Love to God keeps men from “going back” to the influences which work death. The way of love to God is the way of life in God.
1. Love to God places a man higher in life than any other influence. He who lives in the love of God, lives far above all his fellows who want this love, let them dwell where they may. Love to God leads a man into a healthy region where life is ever strong, and where it takes on its noblest forms. The ideal of the ancient Romans was power. To them, to be mighty was to live. The ideal of the Greeks was beauty and wisdom. The Greek thought he lived most nobly when he dwelt amidst the most beautiful things which art could devise, and there talked philosophy. The modern English ideal seems to be riches. “Give me wealth,” says the Englishman; “it has a vast purchasing power over almost everything: to be rich is to live indeed.” The Bible ideal of life is love. Power may be pleasant, wisdom and beauty may be fascinating, and riches may help the soul, even within a few hours of death, to say, “Take thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up for many years;” yet life is not in these. A greater than these is love.
2. Love to God is life in a positive form, while mere obedience to God is hardly more than keeping from things which work death. Obedience submits to the voice which cries, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” Love responds, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!” Before the proclamation, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” Obedience just refrains from sculpture; but Love rejoins, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Obedience declines to take the name of the Lord God in vain; Love exclaims, “The desire of our soul is to Thy name;” “There is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we may be saved.” Obedience refuses to break the Sabbath; Love says, “I call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honourable.” Thus it is with the whole of the law. Love is the very soul of the commandments: it is the life thereof. Kept in the letter, they are mere tables of stone—cold, frigid, and unseemly; kept in love, they are a living power, filled with the beauty of the love which animates them.
3. Love to God leads to God who is the source of life. Love of country, even in the traveller, presently turns his steps towards his native land. Love of father and mother quickens the steps of the schoolboy on his way towards home. The man who loves God will seek to come to God.
4. Love to God makes him who loves like God. The man who loves letters gets presently a literary look. The farmer gets an agricultural appearance. Family likeness may be sometimes partly owing to family love. So they who gaze admiringly on God are “changed into His image.” When inspired Jude would have his brethren be found separate from evil-doers, he said, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” So when Joshua would restrain his people from fellowship with idolaters, he says, similarly, “Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God.”
II. The destroying power of corrupt society (Joshua 23:12-13). If the Israelites entered into close intercourse with the wicked, the wicked would vex them with many forms of pain, and ultimately cause them to perish from off the good land which the Lord their God had given them.
1. Corrupt society is insidious in its attractions. It has “snares and traps.” True, it has also “scourges” for the sides, and “thorns” for the eyes; but as the significant order of the text, so is the ingenious cruelty of the process: the snares and traps are placed first, and not till the victim is secure come the scourges and the thorns. Corrupt men lead the pure away stealthily; they instinctively conceal their worst things, reveal their best, and thus draw their prey onward. The very virtues of the pure sometimes help in the work of destruction. “Charity thinketh no evil,” and the innocent man is tempted to say of his seducers, “These men have been unfairly spoken of; they are better than report stated.” Time, too, is on the side of decay.
2. Corrupt society has, for many, a fascinating influence. It plies them in their weakest places. It consults their peculiar appetites. In its various and bountiful cruelty it holds the cup of water to the thirsty, gives bread to the hungry, has wine for the intemperate, and a feast of fat things for the glutton. With its thousand influences of seductive battery it plies hard every gate of the senses.
3. Corrupt society is hard to escape from. Its “snares” draw very closely into fast knots, and its “traps” lock upon their prey as the jaws spring together.
4. Corrupt society works corruption, and death through corruption. In some forms of disease, the body seems mercifully to die first, and afterwards to decay. In other diseases corruption is a part of the process of dying. The latter is ever the dreadful form in which the soul goes down to its grave. Woful indeed is the cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Happy is he who can add, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Sometimes, even amid the wretchedness of this spiritual decay, a man flatters himself that he is still vigorous and healthy. The secret of the mistake may be found in the appropriately loathsome image of Burke, “Corruption breeds new forms of life.” There is in every realm of creation a life that worketh death, and such too is the life in which the corrupt mind finds enough to satisfy it that it is “not dead yet.”
III. The stimulating power of grateful recollections (Joshua 23:14).
1. The Israelites were to remember the good example of a faithful man. Joshua had led them in patience, and wisdom, and courage, and holiness. He was now going the way of all the earth; but he, being dead, might yet be found speaking helpfully.
2. They were to remember that God had fulfilled every good word of His promises. Not one promise had failed. They knew that in their own souls; they might know it also in their many possessions. God ever encourages His people by the faithfulness of some of their fellows, and always by His own faithfulness.
IV. The fatal power of Divine anger (Joshua 23:16). Before that, said Joshua, “Ye shall perish quickly.” As the beauty of God’s love, so is the terribleness of God’s anger.
1. The anger of God in no way reflects upon His holiness. All government supposes the punishment of evil-doers. Divine anger is not an impulsive passion, but the calm exercise of justice upon transgressors for the sake of all men.
2. The anger of God is not inconsistent with His mercy. There are instances in which righteousness demands anger. Thus it is said that “one of the late Dr. Spencer’s parishioners in Brooklyn met him hurriedly urging his way down the street one day; his lip was set, and there was something strange in that gray eye. ‘How are you to-day, doctor?’ asked the parishioner, pleasantly. He waked as from a dream, and replied soberly, ‘I am mad!’ It was a new word for a mild, true-hearted Christian; but he waited, and with a deep earnest voice went on, ‘I found a widow standing by her goods which were thrown into the street; she could not pay the month’s rent; the landlord turned her out; and one of her children is going to die; and that man is a member of the Church. I told her to take her things back again. I am on my way to see him.’ ” So mercy and anger dwelt together in the heart of Him who drove the traders out of the temple with a scourge of small cords, and wept over the city in its guilt and coming doom.
3. The anger of God is necessary to His mercy. If the anger could not be righteous, the mercy could not be real. If God’s anger towards the wicked were not right, He would be bound to pardon everybody. When pardon is compulsory, it is no longer mercy. If the idea of mercy is true, the possibility of anger must be true also. Mercy is a beautiful flower growing up from the very soil of righteous anger, and you cannot take away the ground in which the flower grows without removing the flower too. Mercy is a glorious picture, painted by the love of Christ upon the groundwork of justice in the punishment of sin, and he who destroys the canvas must not murmur when he finds that the picture has vanished.
4. The anger of God is real, and terrible in its results. When it is kindled against men, they quickly perish from off the good land where mercy loved to see them dwell. That is always the spirit of the Scripture representation.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 23:11.—A MAN’S COMMAND OF HIS OWN HEART.
Some persons regard love as entirely spontaneous. Admitting that a wrong affection may be held in check, they assume also that love cannot be created, and that it is free from the control of the will. If that were true, while it might be sinful to love wrong objects, it would no longer be sinful to fail to love right objects. This is not the teaching of the Bible: that not only says, ‘Love not the world;’ it also bids us love God with all our hearts, love one another, and further says to us, ‘Set your affections on things above.’ Any metaphysical difficulty in obeying these commands will ever disappear before practical and earnest piety. He who guards himself from all love that is wrong, will find little difficulty in obeying the Scripture admonition to love that which is right. This verse suggests the following considerations:—
I. Men are commanded to watch their affections. ‘Take good heed,’ etc.
II. Men are commanded to control their affections. They are to set them on right objects.
III. Men are commanded to set their affections upon God. ‘Love the Lord your God.’ These commands are given in view of the fact that God ever helps the man who sincerely seeks the way of righteousness.
Joshua 23:12-13.—THE POWER OF EVIL ASSOCIATIONS.
Every healthy mind seeks other minds with which it can have fellowship. It is only the morbid disposition that cries often for ‘a lodge in some vast wilderness.’ Companions are a necessity. God’s word recognises the necessity, but bids us choose our associates carefully.
I. Wicked companions make a man satisfied with a heart of unbelief. It would be very difficult for any Israelite to worship idols, if every one around him worshipped God. It would be very hard work for any wicked man to continue an unbeliever in Jesus Christ now, if he were the only unbeliever. A man should sometimes ask himself, “How should I feel if I were the only unbeliever in my family?—in my town or parish?—in England?—in the world?” Robinson Crusoe’s lot provokes pity. This spiritual isolation would be far more pitiable, and far more unendurable. There are probably few, even of the boldest infidels, who could bear to be the only infidel in the world. Yet it is not difficult to think of a man as able to endure the thought of cleaving to Christ with a holy joy, even though every one else rejected Christ. Every unbelieving man is responsible for the countenance which his example is giving to others. The fellowship of holy men is a great power for good; the fellowship of the wicked is no less a power for evil.
II. Wicked companions make others partakers of their wickedness. Idolatrous Canaanites would make idolatrous Israelites.
1. There is the law of assimilation. Where life is the stronger force, it builds itself up into yet more strength by feeding on surrounding matter, and by making that a part of itself. But often disease and decay overcome life, and assimilate it to their condition. Infection and contagion are parts of the process of assimilation. So a man becomes like his companions, the weaker man succumbing to the stronger. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of fools shall be destroyed.” A man may say, “I do not believe that it will be so in my case.” But his belief does not matter; the operation of the law is no more affected by the man’s opinion of the law, than yeast is affected by a man’s faith or unbelief in its power to leaven the whole lump into which it is put. This law works on silently and slowly, but surely; and, like other laws, it takes small heed of a man’s opinion about its power. With fools, means like fools, whether a man believes it or not. With idolaters, means idolatry.
2. There is also to be taken into account the habit of imitation. Men everywhere practise it unconsciously. More than this; such imitators usually copy the worst features most strongly. “Paint me as I am, blotches and all,” said Oliver Cromwell to his artist. Thus, in unconscious imitation, men continually reproduce others, and, so far from omitting the blotches, they usually magnify them in the process.
3. The influence of food should not be forgotten in its bearing upon this subject. In a measure, a man’s physical nature is made by what he eats and drinks. Companions are the food of a man’s social nature, and, to some extent, here also, as the food so the man. In his book on “The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Mankind,” Sir John Lubbock gives several curious illustrations of the ludicrous beliefs which the natives of some countries have in respect to food. “The Malays at Singapore give a large price for the flesh of a tiger, not because they like it, but because they believe that the man who eats tiger acquires the sagacity as well as the courage of that animal.” Thus, too, the Dyaks of Borneo are said to shun the flesh of the deer, lest they should become timid; the Caribs reject the flesh of pigs and tortoises, that they may not have small eyes; and the Arabs ascribe the passionate and revengeful character of their countrymen to the use of camel’s flesh. It is further said that “the New Zealanders, after baptizing an infant, used to make it swallow pebbles, so that its heart might be hard and incapable of pity.” All this proceeds on the assumption that a man’s physical food affects his moral qualities, which, while true in some aspects, is absurd in the manner stated. A man’s moral food, however, will certainly affect his moral nature. He who socially feeds on idolatry will become an idolater. He who walks in the counsels of the ungodly will presently occupy the seat of the scorner, as one belonging to himself.
4. All history confirms the truth of these observations. Different nations are marked by distinct traits of character. The names of Greece and Rome represent literature. Turks are known as idle and cruel, Russians as ambitious and cruel, the Spanish as proud, the French as polite, and the Scotch as patriotic. One man in a nation has influenced another, some features have become predominant, and thus a distinctive character has been given to the world’s separated tribes and peoples. Thus, too, there have been distinctive ages: an age of painting, an age of letters, an age of religious persecution, and ages when these things were out of fashion, and something else was more popular. It is worth while, also, to note how many Calvinists have Calvinistic children, and how many Arminians find their offspring holding Arminian views. The children of Episcopalians attach themselves, for the most part, to the Church of their fathers; while in the families of Wesleyans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and the like, the sect also descends from the father to the child. Creeds are hereditary, not so much because of the character of the creed, but because a man becomes like those who are about him to form his character. With so much history to teach him, no man can afford to neglect the warning given in these verses. He who would not become an idolater must shun idolaters.
III. Wicked companions destroy all that remains of a man’s better feelings and desires.
1. Good things are neglected, and neglect works death. A limb unused would soon become useless. An unexercised faculty dies out. So it is in a man’s soul: “From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
2. Men get used to evil things, and the evil things destroy the good. It is said that a prisoner who had been confined for many years in the Bastile, when liberated, cried like a child to be taken back again to the old solitude and darkness with which he had become familiar. Men may get used to strange things. The idolater presently finds his idolatry far more agreeable than the worship of God. A man may get used to no prayer, no Bible, no story of the cross, and no Saviour. It is terrible to think that it is possible to be “without hope and without God in the world,” and to be so reconciled to that dreadful condition as to wish for no alteration.
Joshua 23:14 a—THE WAY OF ALL THE EARTH.
I. Death in its certainty. This is a universal way. The exceptions of Enoch and Elijah do but lay emphasis on the rule.
II. Death in its variety. Death has many ministers and forms. It is met in various moods. It has vastly different issues.
III. Death in its conscious nearness. “This day I am going,” etc. That is to say, “I am going soon: I feel it.” The hour of departure is often known to be at hand.
Joshua 23:14 b.—THE UNFAILING WORDS OF THE LORD.
I. The words of the Lord are good words. “All the good things which the Lord your God spake.”
II. The words of the Lord are wrought cut gradually. The war itself had taken several years. Many years had elapsed since the first promises were made to Abraham.
III. The words of the Lord are every one fulfilled. “Not one thing hath failed of all the good things.”
IV. The words of the Lord are fulfilled to the satisfying of the heart and soul. “Ye know in all your hearts,” etc. It is much to satisfy a man’s mind, and to prevent all occasion of actual complaint. It is far more to satisfy the heart. The heart in its sanguine hopefulness ever puts large meanings to words of promise. God meets our highest hopes. He not only silences objections; “He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”
Joshua 23:15.—GOD’S FULFILMENT OF HIS PROMISES A GUARANTEE OF HIS FULFILMENT OF HIS THREATENINGS.
I. The certainty of Divine promises is to be taken as an assurance of the certainty of Divine threatenings. The argument is: “As all good things, so all evil things.”
1. Fidelity to words sometimes fails from want of power to fulfil words. Men promise to-day, and to-morrow their power to discharge their promise is taken from them by unforeseen circumstances. Men threaten, it may be quite righteously, but become unable to fulfil their threat. This cannot be so with God.
2. Fidelity to words sometimes fails because of short-sightedness in the use of words. Men use words of which they do not see all the meanings. This can never be so with God.
3. Fidelity to words sometimes fails from a conscientious change of mind. What Saul might have promised the high priest when he desired of him letters to Damascus, he might have felt it wicked to fulfil after that eventful journoy had been taken. God can never change His mind about the righteousness of either His threats or His promises.
4. Absolute fidelity to words is irrespective of the nature of the words. Man’s weakness, or short-sightedness, or his changed views, might afford him some excuse for not keeping his words; but, for all that, an unkept word is a broken word. It is no part of the question of fidelity that words be about “good things” or “evil things”—that they be promises or threatenings. Hence this same argument is sometimes used in an inverted form (cf. Jeremiah 31:28; Jeremiah 32:42). God may choose to pardon, if He will, just as any father might withdraw his word and forgive an offending child; but, as a rule, it is here asserted that as God is true to His promises of good things, so He is true in His promises of evil things.
II. The bearing of this truth on our religious faith and life.
1. No present prosperity should be taken as an essential earnest of permanent prosperity. God tries men with His good things to see how they will use them. If they are abused, He will take them away. The riches of Dives here, can give no security against the poverty of Dives hereafter. Purple and fine linen may be only for a time. Sumptuous fare to-day is no pledge that there may not be agony for a drop of water presently.
2. The dark side of the Bible is as true as the bright side. The faith of many people has in it real promises and empty threatenings, a real heaven and a fabulous hell, real redeemed and scarecrow lost, real angels and more than spectral fiends, a real Christ and a mythical devil. God Himself is held to be real on the side of mercy and gentleness and love, and unreal on the side of every sterner quality. If all this be so indeed, the half of the Bible that is untrue renders the half that is true too poor for either respect or hope.
3. Every fulfilled promise of God should become to us a warning. The good things in which He has faithfully kept His word should preach to us of the evil things in which He will also be true. These are very gentle lips which thus solemnly proclaim “wrath to come” against the ungodly. The very tenderness of the tones ought to have, to every unbelieving man, the solemn emphasis of truth. When a mother threatens a child sotto voce, while tears of love stream down her face, it is time for the child to repent. So when God sets mercy to preach wrath, and bids His “good things” assure the wicked of His “evil things,” it is time to believe indeed.
4. The measure of man’s hope should become, also, the measure of his fear. There are many who are not Christians who admire the faith and enthusiasm of the Church. The hymns of the Church are not seldom the admiration of many who make no claim whatever of belonging unto Christ. All the joy in which men legitimately hope for heaven as the home of the righteous is preaching the certainty of the sorrow which awaits the ungodly.
Joshua 23:14-16.—CHILDHOOD THROUGH FATHERHOOD.
God was seeking to make the Israelites into a nation which should be separate from all the nations of the earth. He would fashion these children of Abraham into children of God. Mark the process. God assumes that His people will be faithful. He does not prove them before He blesses them. He treats them as a peculiar people already, in order to make them peculiar. He foresees their coming unfaithfulness, but He does not, even on that account, withhold His good gifts. He still gives the good land, with all its accompanying mercies, and does but warn His people that the gifts are conditional. In view of this spirit, the following thoughts may be expanded and illustrated:
I. God proposes to make men His children by treating them as His children.
II. God the Father gives to men abundantly in the present, that He may prepare them to enjoy the still more abundant mercy of the future.
III. To repudiate God’s fatherhood, and to ignore the purpose of His fatherly gifts, is to be cut off from the joys of childhood altogether.