Ver. 33. And Eleazar—died— This event, probably, happened soon after the death of Joshua. The Samaritan Chronicle says, that Eleazar called together the elders and heads of the people before his death; and that after having exhorted them to piety, he stripped himself of his vestments, and put them upon Phinehas, his son and successor. We have no proof of this circumstance, but it is very probable.
And they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son— A little hillock, or, according to some, a town: it may be rendered, agreeable to the Vulgate, LXX, and Jonathan, they buried him in Gibeath of Phinehas; this town, or hillock, went by the name of Phinehas, according to the custom in those times of giving the name of the eldest in a family to the possessions which belonged to it.
Which was given him in mount Ephraim.— The Hebrew is doubtful. It does not immediately appear to whom this hill was given, whether to Eleazar or Phinehas: most probably it was to Eleazar; that, as being the high-priest, he might reside nearer to Shiloh, where the tabernacle was erected, and as all the cities assigned to the priests were in the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, except one only, which lay in the tribe of Ephraim. See ch. Joshua 21:9; Joshua 21:17; Joshua 21:19. But against this there is one great objection; namely, that the priests and Levites certainly received no portion on the division of the land: and therefore the Jews, to obviate this difficulty, are of opinion, that Eleazar, or Phinehas, held this estate in right of his wife as her dowry. See Selden de Success. Heb. c. 18. Grotius is of this opinion likewise; and he produces a similar example from 1 Chronicles 2:21-23. But to this Masius replies, that heiresses could not marry out of their tribe, (Numbers 36:8.) whence he concludes, that the present inheritance had been an extraordinary gift to Eleazar out of respect to him, and to accommodate him more conveniently within reach of Joshua and the tabernacle. The chief-priest, it seems, might receive this distinction, without any infringement of the general law respecting the other ministers at the altar. See Calmet and Le Clerc. To the end of this chapter the LXX add: And the children of Israel took the ark, and carried it about among them; and Phinehas was high-priest till he died; and they buried him in his own hill: and the children of Israel went to their homes. And they fell to worshipping Astarte and Ashtaroth: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Eglon, king of Moab; and he had the mastery over them eighteen years.
REFLECTIONS.—We have the account of the death of Joshua and Eleazar, and the burying of the bones of Joseph. This is the end of all the glory of man; and the best and greatest of God's saints are not exempt from the common lot of mortality.
1. Joshua's death and burial: soon after he had finished his work, he went to receive his everlasting reward, in a better inheritance than he left at Timnath-serah. He was a hundred and ten years old, and through life had approved himself a faithful servant, of which God bears him honourable testimony: his sepulchre was in Gaash, in a field of his own; for then the public places of assembly, or the house of God, were thought unfit receptacles of the corpses even of the blessed. Pity it is, that worse customs have since obtained.
2. Eleazar quickly followed Joshua; one loss seldom comes alone.
3. As long as these worthies and their cotemporaries lived, who had seen God's wonders, religion flourished among the people; but their sad decays will shortly appear: so much are good ministers missed, and so common is it to see the most flourishing congregations moulder away when their pastors are departed. But the residue of the Spirit is with our divine Joshua; and though one people, or congregation, turn from him, he will revive his work in another, and never want a spiritual seed and a visible church upon earth.
N.B. The last five verses of this chapter are certainly written by a hand subsequent to Joshua. Perhaps Samuel, desirous of bringing down the thread of the history uninterrupted from Joshua to his own time, might think proper to make the addition, after having, in like manner, completed the Pentateuch by the order and under the direction of God. See on Deuteronomy 34:1. This, however, is no argument that Joshua did not write the present book, any more than that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, because the like account given of his death and burial, in the conclusion of it, is given by another hand.
Reflections on the Life and Character of Joshua.
The names of Joshua and Jesus are scarcely more like, than their achievements. This captain, so famous in the sacred history, was nominated to be the successor of Moses, and ordained to this high post by God's command, in the presence of all the congregation of Israel. He received the name of Joshua before, when sent to spy out the land, his former name being Oshea; and he is the first of the typical persons who was called by the very name, by which, in future ages, a greater Saviour than he was commonly known. Perhaps it was not without its meaning, that he was the servant before he was the successor of Moses; for it might signify, that our Jesus was first to become the servant of the law, before he should abolish it. But passing this, let us take a more particular retrospect of the most memorable passages of his marvellous campaign.
The first thing that presents itself to our view is, his passing the Jordan, which was miraculously driven back, to afford a safe passage to the chosen people. In this river God was pleased, for the first time, to magnify his servant Joshua in the sight of all the tribes of Israel; and in this river it pleased God to give the first and most public testimony to Jesus Christ, when the heavens seemed to open at his baptism, and the Holy Ghost descended in the likeness of a dove, and a voice from the excellent glory proclaimed his high character. But the chief thing to be observed here is, the resemblance between the passage of Israel over Jordan into the promised land, under the conduct of Joshua, and the passage of all the redeemed, through death, into the heavenly inheritance. Long had they traversed the vast and howling wilderness, the haunt of ravenous beasts and poisonous serpents, where their hearts, many a time, were like to faint for thirst and hunger; but now the land flowing with milk and honey receives them, and their wanderings in the pathless desart are for ever ended. Though Jordan overflows his banks, their march is not obstructed. O powerful presence of JEHOVAH! "The sea saw it, and fled, and Jordan was driven back." Psalms 114:3. And now that they have taken their farewel of the dreary wilderness, we hear no more of the miraculous cloud which conducted them, nor of the manna which fed them forty years. Such is the safety of all true Israelites, when marching to their promised rest, under the conduct of the Captain of their salvation. Death is the Jordan through which they pass from the wilderness of this world into the blissful regions of immortality. But when they pass through these waters, they shall not overflow them; for he who dries up the waters of the sea by his rebuke, will be graciously present with them, till they gain the safe shore of Immanuel's land. Then shall the ordinances be discontinued, and the Bible superseded, which are so necessary in their wandering state to support their lives, and guide their paths; as the cloud vanished, and the manna ceased to fall, when the fine wheat of Canaan supplied the Israelites with food, according to the promise. It is not Moses, but Joshua, who leads through Jordan. Jesus; thou art the only conqueror of death. What will they do when they come to the swellings of Jordan, who are not under thy auspicious conduct? Thanks be to God, who giveth us this victory over death, not through Moses, or the law, but through Jesus Christ our Lord!
From the banks of Jordan, let us now come to the walls of Jericho, the accursed city. Never was town or garrison besieged in such a manner before or since. No mounts are raised; no battering rams are applied to the walls; no attempts are made to sap the foundations; but, by the direction of the Lord of hosts, the army marches in silent parade round the walls. Their martial music is not the sound of their silver trumpets, but of rams-horns blown by their priests. Ridiculous, weak, and foolish, as this new method of assault might seem to the unbelieving sinners of Jericho, they soon found that the weakness of God is stronger than men, and that the most contemptible means, when God ordains them, shall gain their end, in spite of all opposition. "What ailed thee, O sea, that thou fleddest? Jordan, that thou wast driven back?" Psalms 114:5 and ye walls of Jericho, that ye fell flat to the ground, when compassed seven days? It was not owing to the sword of Israel, nor even to the sound of the trumpets; but to the power of Israel's God accompanying this feeble means, prescribed for the trial of their faith and proof of their obedience. For, O the power of faith! had their walls threatened the clouds, and been harder than adamant, firmer than brass, down must they tumble on the evening of the seventh day. Thus are the strong holds of sin, and every high thing that exalts itself against the New Testament Joshua, cast down by the mighty weapons of the Christian warfare, which are not carnal. The feeble voice of the gospel, when faithfully preached, though not with a silver sound, or with excellency of speech, shall be mighty, through God, to triumph over all opposition: so it was in the days of the apostles; so it has been in every distant age; and so it shall be till the victory is complete. Thus, Babylon, shall thy proud towers be levelled with the ground, though seemingly fearless of assault. "For the day of the Lord shall be on every high wall, and on every one that is proud and lifted up." Isaiah 2:12. Though the kings of the earth should give their strength to the beast, our Joshua shall prevail by the foolishness of preaching, and the sound of the gospel trumpet; and at the appointed time the strong-lunged angel shall cry, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen." Revelation 14:18.
The saving of Rahab and her household is the next remarkable occurrence. Who would have expected to find, in this city of destruction, even a strong believer, whose faith should be celebrated by one apostle, and her works by another, and who should also have the honour to make one of the illustrious line from whence the Messiah should arise? But so it was. Though once a notorious sinner, and called Rahab the harlot to this day, yet she was a believer of the promise that God made to Israel, and proved by her works that her faith was genuine; for, protecting the messengers of Joshua at the hazard of her life, she preferred the interests of the Church of God to those of her country, which she very well knew could not be saved. Though we can by no means justify the dissimulation by which she saved the spies from the pursuivants of the king of Jericho, yet, as God has forgiven her for being once a harlot and a liar, so must we also forgive those blame-able parts of her conduct, of which she has long since truly repented. Well does Joshua answer his name, in saving not the race of Israel only, but Rahab, though a cursed Canaanite, with all her household, though sinners of the Gentiles. Was it not a dark prelude of Jesus Christ, our better Joshua, of his saving the Gentile world from the wrath to come, as well as the preserved of Jacob? Might it not portend, that publicans and harlots, and such notorious sinners, should be received among the first into his heavenly kingdom? and that the harlot Gentiles, who formerly were serving divers lusts, and living in the most abominable idolatries, should be incorporated into the holy society of the church, and espoused as a chaste bride to Jesus Christ, as Rahab became a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and the wife of Naasson an illustrious prince in the chief of their tribes? Perhaps the scarlet thread, which, at the direction of the spies, she hung forth out of her window, as a discriminating signal, by which all under her roof were exempted from the dismal desolation; perhaps, I say, this might be an intimation, though a very obscure one, that the shedding of Christ's red blood should prove the means of salvation to the Gentile world, and of making peace between the Jews and them, who were formerly at variance, and harboured mutual hatred. Red was the colour of salvation to Israel in Egypt, when the sprinkling their doors with blood protected them from the destroying angel's word; and red is the colour of salvation to Rahab in Canaan, when the hanging a scarlet thread over her windows was her security from the destroying sword of Israel. Happy they who have the blood of Christ upon them, not for destruction, (as the Jews who murdered him, and imprecated this dreadful vengeance on themselves, and their posterity,) but for salvation, as all have who believe. Rahab's safety was confirmed by the oath of men; but their's by the oath of God, for whom it is impossible to lie. Destruction approaches not those doors, death enters not those windows where the blood of Christ is found.
In vain did the kings of Canaan conspire to oppose the victorious Joshua after the destruction of Jericho; for at last he bids his captains set their feet upon the necks of the hostile princes, in token of full conquest. Nor was it strange that he should be able to do this, when the very heavens befriended them, by casting down prodigious hailstones to kill his flying enemies; and their most glorious luminaries, the sun and moon were obedient to his voice, and stood still in their habitation, till the vengeance written was executed upon the devoted nations. Such is that complete victory over all the enemies of God and his people, which he shall gain who goes forth conquering, and to conquer! It is the distinguished honour of all the faithful soldiers of Christ, to tread upon the devil, the world, and the lusts of the flesh. These are the dragons and the lions which they trample under their feet; these are the kings that they bind with chains; these are the nations that they shall dash in pieces, as a potter's vessel with a rod of iron. And a time is coming, when the upright shall have dominion over the wicked; for so is his will, whom not only the sun and moon, but all the numerous hosts of heaven and earth obey.
At last, the favoured nation of the Jews are brought into their promised rest, under the conduct of their valiant general. He puts them in quiet possession of that happy country which he had before spied out for them. This Moses could not do. So Jesus Christ has introduced us, not into a temporal rest, like thine, O Joshua, but into a spiritual and eternal rest, an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, which the law could not do, having become weak through the flesh.