Ver. 1. Now Joshua was old and stricken in years— By assigning to Joshua the same age with Caleb, it is easy to justify what the sacred historian says; for Caleb was now eighty-five years old, ch. Joshua 14:10. Joshua, however, is commonly made to be more, for reasons drawn from the chronology of the time which elapsed from the departure out of Egypt, till the building of the temple of Solomon. See Bedford's Script. Chronol. b. v. c. 2. We suppose him, with the generality of interpreters, to have been about one hundred years of age; for, allowing him to have been forty-five when he left Egypt, if we add to them the forty years spent in the wilderness, and the seven which it took him to conquer the land of Canaan, we shall find him to be ninety-two years of age at the end of the war. Now he lived one hundred and ten years; so that, according to our supposition, he must have made the division of the country seven or eight years after the conquest. See Vignoles, tom. 1: p. 1-16.
And the Lord said unto him, Thou art old, &c.— It is evident that Joshua meditated new conquests: to divert him from which, God leads him to reflect on his great age; as if he had said, "Although a part of the country which I promised to give unto my people remains still to be conquered, yet it is time to make a division of the whole. If this people keep my covenant, I will fully perform my promises; but, in the mean time, it is proper to exercise their faith, and try their submission." God had never promised Joshua that he should conquer the whole land of Canaan; but only, that he should bring his people into it, Deuteronomy 31:23 and divide its territories among them, ch. Joshua 1:6. On the one hand, his great age no longer allowed him to bear the fatigues of war; and, on the other, it invited him to a speedy division of the country among the children of Israel, in order to prevent, by his authority, all contest and ground of discontent among them.