JOSHUA’S FINAL ADDRESS: HIS DEATH AND BURIAL
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 24:1. To Shechem] This gathering was apparently held a few weeks or months after that named in the previous chapter. There was great appropriateness in the selection of Shechem. Here the covenant was first given to Abram (Genesis 12:6-7); in the immediate neighbourhood Jacob seems to have renewed it (Genesis 33:19-20), and under an oak at Shechem he had “put away the strange gods” of his family (Genesis 35:2-4), as Joshua now reminded the Israelites (Joshua 24:23); here, also, the covenant had been renewed after the fall of Ai (chap. Joshua 8:30-35). No place could be more fit than Shechem for Joshua’s parting words, in which the covenant was once more solemnly established with the people. All the tribes] The assembly named in chap. 23. was one of the elders only; this was a gathering once more to Ebal of all the men of Israel. They presented themselves before God] “It is possible, as some have supposed, that the tabernacle and the ark were brought hither from Shiloh on this occasion; but the phrase ‘before God’ (lit. ‘before Elohim’) does not necessarily imply this; nor does even the phrase ‘before the Lord’ (lit. ‘before Jehovah’) always do so (cf., e.g., Judges 11:11), though used sometimes with reference to the tabernacle, as in Joshua 18:6.” [Speaker’s Com.]
Joshua 24:2. On the other side of the flood] “Nâhâr,” here used with the article, would be better rendered “the river,” a term specially applied to the Euphrates, which is indicated. Dean Stanley points out that “the words so often occurring in Ezra, ‘beyond the river,’ and ‘on this side the river,’ though without the article, refer to the Euphrates.” They served other gods] It is not said whether or not Abram joined in this idolatry. Some think these elohim of Terah and Nahor to have been the same as the teraphim of Laban named in Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:34.
Joshua 24:11. The men of Jericho] “The phrase ba ‘ălay y’ rîcho is noteworthy. It means, apparently, the owners or burghers of Jericho (cf. Judges 9:6; 2 Samuel 21:12).” [Speaker’s Com.]
Joshua 24:12. And I sent the hornet before you] This is evidently a figurative expression for terror or fear. The meaning seems to be identical with that in Exodus 23:27: “I will send my fear before thee,” a similar reference to hornets following in the succeeding verse in that place. The same association of the hornet and the terror of God is found in Deuteronomy 7:20-21.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 24:1-13
REVIEWING THE PAST
“This chapter brings before us another representative assembly—at Shechem this time, and not at Shiloh—in which Joshua renews the covenant between the people and God, as he had done nearly thirty years before in the same place (chap. Joshua 8:30-35). The former address of Joshua seems to have been delivered in the belief that he was soon to leave this world, and was prompted by his ardent desire for the purity of the people, who would, he knew, be sorely tempted away from God by the idolatrous population among them. This address, however, and the assembly at which it was delivered, were appointed by Divine direction, as we see by the phrase ‘before God,’ in Joshua 24:1, and by the formula, ‘Thus saith Jehovah, God of Israel,’ in Joshua 24:2. The former occasion was, so to speak, a private conference of Joshua with Israel. This occasion was an official conference, in which Joshua acted as the Divine legate.”—[Crosby.]
In the opening paragraph of this chapter we see the following things:—
I. Men called to remember their lowly origin. The forefathers of these Israelites were idolaters (Joshua 24:3). Joshua bade them remember that. He bade them remember it by the word of the Lord. The people had been exterminating idolaters. They had entered into the inheritance of idolaters. Yet, but for the grace of God, these Israelites had been idolaters also. Terah was an idolater, and perhaps Abraham also. In effect, Joshua says to these Israelites, as Isaiah seven centuries later said to their children, “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.”
1. A great people should remember that they were not always great. Somewhere in the distance backward, things were very lowly with every nation, and with every family.
2. A religious people should remember that they were not always religious. A religious nation should remember it collectively. The men of such a nation should remember it individually. Paul drew a dreadful picture of men who could not inherit the kingdom of God, and then said to the Corinthians, “And such were some of you.”
3. A great or a religious man should be humble in view of his origin. The “bar-sinister” on the escutcheon should also be taken into the account. Water will not rise beyond the level of its source. In outward things, men may rise far above their origin; but a wise man will say to his spirit, “There are possibilities of weakness and sin in my nature as bad as that worst place Lack there in the past; and let my circumstances rise as they may, my pride shall rise no higher than the poor low level of my own or my fathers’ shame. What has been may be again.”
II. Men told to consider God’s more quiet providences.
1. In raising up the chief of their national predecessors. Israel had been blessed by God with men of power (Joshua 24:4-5). Humanly, they were what they were through their leaders. God had given them an ancestor in Abraham to shew the power of obedience and faith. God had given them “a plain man” of meditative mood, and had shewn in Isaac that even such a mind, if pious, might occupy a conspicuous place in a nation’s history. God had given to them Jacob, a man of great industry and power to accumulate wealth; and then, as the getting of the wealth had been associated with Jacob’s sin, sweeping all of it away, and leaving the man to die a dependant in Egypt, God had shewn that through an ardent religious faith there may come to posterity a nobler legacy than riches could ever bestow. God had given to them Moses, through whom He had founded civil liberty, and also Aaron, through whom He had established spiritual worship. A man can be nothing without a nation; a nation can be nothing without leaders; leaders can be nothing without God to raise them up and to cause them to be strong. In the battles of Homer and Virgil, it is the leaders who are made to do all the effective fighting. That is a true picture of life in one sense, and in another sense it is very untrue. No nation can come to the greatness of many triumphs where the people do not bear the brunt of the battle; but then, no people ever did strive on to continuous victory, to whom God had not given strong leaders to guide and control their energy. The people are the force; true leaders are its right application. In these gifts of leading men to a nation, we see what have been termed God’s more quiet providences. They, also, are a gift of power. Here we see nothing of force as symbolised in the strong wind, the thunder, and the earthquake; but rather of force as seen in the dew, the air, the light, and the still small voices of nature. In some gifts God displays power; in others He prepares power. Such a preparation and treasuring of power is in God’s gift of real men to form the mind of a nation.
2. In choosing or rejecting the families which composed their nation. “And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau.” Yet Jacob alone became the father of Israel, and Esau was portioned off with Mount Seir. If Esau’s family had blended with that of Jacob, probably Israel would never have had even the measure of religious life which it eventually possessed. At so early a stage in the national history, the more open and reckless character of Esau, with his lack of reverence for the godly traditions of his fathers, could not but have exercised a bad influence. In matters like these we can see but little; we can see but little more than this, God makes of whom He will the nation and the people whom He would call His own.
III. Men asked to reflect on God’s mighty triumphs.
1. In delivering them from bondage. “I have brought your fathers out of Egypt.” God loves to deliver men from the toil of bondage; from the shame and pain of bondage; from the social wrongs of bondage.
2. In the overthrow of powerful enemies. The Egyptians, by the miracle at the Red Sea (Joshua 24:6-7). The Amorites, by ordinary warfare and the supernatural imposition of fear (Joshua 24:8; Joshua 24:12). Balak and Balaam, by wonderful and various instruments: now a voice, and then a vision; here an angel, there an ass (Joshua 24:9-10). The tribes of the assembled Canaanites, by the overthrow of the walls of Jericho. God had done great things for the people, whereof Joshua would see them glad. God would have us to sing of His triumphs for us, in order that the joy of the Lord may be our strength for yet more triumphs.
IV. Men bidden to contemplate God’s gracious gifts (Joshua 24:13). They had a land for almost no labour, cities without building, and vineyards and oliveyards which others had planted.
1. No man is so poor but he has some of God’s gifts on which his eye may rest every day.
2. The gifts which a man has in sight are the fruit of many other gifts of God which are no longer visible. Our daily bread is with us, but not the rain and the genial influences of light and heat by which God produced the harvest. Raiment is ours, but a thousand good and too often forgotten things lie unseen behind every garment which we wear. It is so with health, with capital, and with the social possessions in a man’s household. There is a crown laid up in heaven, but it is because of the cross on Calvary. There is a good hope of eternal life, and that, too, is “through grace” which was long poured out, ere such hope entered into the heart by which it is cherished.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 24:1.—THE ASSEMBLY AT SHECHEM.
Calvin and a few others have thought that this meeting at Shechem was part of the same gathering as that of which we have a record in the preceding chapter. On this the English editor of Calvin remarks: “It may be that the two Chapter s refer only to one meeting; but certainly the impression produced by a simple perusal of them is, that they refer to two distinct meetings, between which some interval of time must have elapsed. It is only by means of laboured criticism, accompanied with a degree of straining, that some expositors have arrived at a different conclusion. But why should it be deemed necessary to employ criticism for such a purpose? There is surely no antecedent improbability that Joshua, after all the turmoils of war were over, should have more than once come forth from his retirement and called the heads of the people, or even the whole body of them, together, to receive his counsels, when he felt that the time of his departure was at hand. Observe, moreover, that each meeting is ushered in by its own appropriate preamble, and has its own special business. In the one, Joshua speaks in his own name, and delivers his own message; in the other, all the tribes are regularly assembled, and are said to have ‘presented themselves before God,’ because, although Joshua was still to be the speaker, he was no longer to speak in his own name, but with the authority of a divine messenger, and in the very terms which had been put into his mouth. Accordingly, the first words he utters are, ‘Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.’ The message thus formally and solemnly announced in chap. Joshua 24:2, is continued verbatim and without interruption to the end of Joshua 24:13.”
Joshua 24:2-3.—THE GOD OF ABRAHAM.
In these verses, which speak of God’s dealings with Abraham, three things may be noticed:
I. The memory of the Lord.
1. The Lord remembers who our fathers were. Terah is spoken of as the father of Abraham and Nachor, and Abraham as the father of Israel. God remembers our early training, with all its faults, and with all its advantages.
2. The Lord remembers where our fathers dwelt. “From the other side of the flood.” He not only knows what our home was but what our country was.
3. The Lord remembers what our fathers worshipped. “They served other gods.”
II. The grace of the Lord. “I took your father Abraham.”
1. This was the choice of one possibly an idolater. However that may have been, God chose the child of an idolater, out of whom to raise up to Himself a separated nation and a peculiar people. God loves to give us examples of what His grace can do with men at their worst.
2. The man so graciously chosen was most patiently led. “I led him throughout all the land of Canaan.”
III. The goodness of the Lord. “And multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.” Whom God calls, them He also leads; and whom He thus leads about from place to place, He neither forsakes nor forgets. He bestows upon them precious gifts. When He gathers them home to Himself, He perpetuates their name on earth in their children. God shews Himself interested, not only in good men, but in their children; He thinks of them as the descendants of those who lovingly obeyed His call.
Joshua 24:4-7.—THE MYSTERIES OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
I. God not only provides for His people, but prevents by His goodness those who might hinder them. “I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it.”
II. God not seldom provides for His people by taking from them all which they possess. “Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.” (Cf. pp. 289, 290.)
III. God who provides for His people loss and captivity, provides for them, also, a way back into liberty. “I sent Moses also, and Aaron … I plagued Egypt … I brought your fathers out of Egypt,” etc.
IV. The liberty which God provides for His people may be only the liberty of a wilderness, but, even there, His hand effectually sustains them. “Ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.” He can look even upon our desolate places, and say, “The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose” (cf. Isaiah 41:17-19).
Joshua 24:3-5.—THE GODLY MAN’S SILENCE ABOUT HIMSELF.
Joshua, speaking hero for God, recounts the names of all his great predecessors, but says nothing whatever of his own. The Lord, speaking through His servant, has somewhat to say of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, and of Aaron, but nothing of Joshua. God’s way is not for any man to extol himself.
Joshua 24:7.—MAN’S POOR PRAYER, AND GOD’S GREAT ANSWER.
I. Ignorant prayers graciously answered. “They cried unto the Lord.” From the history in Exodus this prayer was evidently little more than the prayer of fear. It was an outcry in extremity (Exodus 14:10). It was the prayer of people who knew little of God.
II. Protection from danger by miraculous hiding. “He put darkness between you and the Egyptians.” God’s way of defence is sometimes by openly confronting His people’s enemies, and sometimes by concealing His people. Elijah was bidden to hide by the brook Cherith.
III. Relentless enemies suddenly destroyed. “He brought the sea upon them, and covered them.” Many plagues and warnings had failed to stay the Egyptians in their determination to oppress the Israelites. The unheeded reproofs of God are as so many milestones on the way to destruction, and the last is generally passed even more heedlessly and quickly than the first. God seldom advertises His last reproof as the last. The end comes suddenly (cf. Proverbs 29:1). It is “a covering” of the offender by inrushing waters.
IV. A barren wilderness yielding abundance. “Ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.” When God saves a man, His purpose is to bless that man. The man may defeat that purpose by his sins, but blessing was intended nevertheless. God hears prayer in order that men may often pray again. God delivers in order to keep. He whom God would keep will find enough for a long season, even in a wilderness.
Joshua 24:9-10.—GOD’S RULE OVER THE SPIRITS OF MEN.
“The turning of Balaam’s tongue to bless Israel, when he intended to curse them, is often mentioned as an instance of the Divine power put forth in Israel’s favour, as remarkable as any other, because in it God proved His dominion over the powers of darkness and over the spirits of men.”—[M. Henry.]
Joshua 24:12.—THE HORNETS AND THE AMORITES.
“The words, ‘I sent hornets before you, and thou didst drive out (the Canaanites and) the two kings of the Amorites, not by thy sword nor by thy how,’ point out the Divine promise: ‘I will send hornets before thee, that they may drive out before thee the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites’ (Exodus 23:28; Deuteronomy 7:20), as now fulfilled, and must be explained in agreement with those passages. Tsir‘âh is the hornet, the largest specimen of wasp. The article denotes a species, namely, the hornets, as a peculiar species of animals. Most of the earlier expositors understood these words in their literal signification; and Bochart, whose extensive reading is well known, has cited from Pliny, Justin, and Aelian, various accounts of the ancients, which tell of whole tribes that were driven from their possessions by frogs, mice, wasps, and other small animals. But the arguments by which Rosenmüller still defends the literal interpretation of the verse before us are not convincing. The decision of this point does not depend upon the question whether hornets could become a plague sufficiently fearful to compel a whole population to leave their abodes, nor, on the other hand, upon the absence of any account of the Canaanites having been thus expelled by hornets (for we willingly grant that the Old Testament does not contain a record of every single event), but upon the question whether we are at liberty to refer these words to a particular plague with which God afflicted the Canaanites. This must have been the case if we are to take the words literally; for we cannot possibly suppose, as C. a Lapide does, that God always sent hornets before the Israelites on both sides of the Jordan, which so plagued the Amorites and Canaanites, that ‘the Hebrews, who followed, easily slew them with their swords and defeated them with their arrows.’ So universal a plague would certainly have been recorded in the history of the conquest of Canaan. But to refer the words to one single plague would be opposed to the context, not only in the passage before us, but also in Exodus 23:28, and Deuteronomy 7:20. In these two passages the hornets are described as the means by which God would drive out before Israel, not only one Canaanitish tribe in particular, but all the Canaanites; for the three tribes, the Hivites, Hittites, and Canaanites, stand for the whole. And, according to the verse before us, not merely the seven tribes of Canaan on this side of the Jordan, but the two kings of the Amorites on the other side, were driven out by hornets. A figurative interpretation is therefore evidently necessary, and the only one which is admissible.”—[Keil.]
“NOT WITH THY SWORD, NOR WITH THY BOW.” The sword may be man’s, but God nerves the arm which wields it. The bow may be in human hands, but God guides the arrow. God is both the courage of the pursuing conqueror, and the terror of the fleeing foe. Thus, the battle is ever the Lord’s. (Cf. Psalms 44:3.)