Bible Commentaries

Ch. Joshua 24:1-15. The Second Parting Address

1. And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel] that they might listen to his last charge, and be bound by his parting words to an everlasting covenant of faithfulness to the God who had done such great things for them. The former charge had been made to the rulers only and the chiefs, this was addressed to the whole nation. Not that the whole nation was present, but that all the tribes sent representatives to the great and solemn gathering.

to Shechem] The LXX. here has Shiloh, but all other versions and the MSS. read Shechem. No spot could have been more appropriate:—

(a) Here Abraham, “the solitary, childless patriarch, who had listened to the voice that spake at Ur of the Chaldees,” received the first recorded promise of the goodly land (Genesis 12:6-7), and here he built his first altar to the Lord;

(b) Here Jacob had settled after his long sojourn in Mesopotamia, and purified his household from the remains of idolatry by burying their Teraphim under an oak (Genesis 33:18-20; Genesis 35:2; Genesis 35:4);

(c) Here the bones of Joseph were laid (Joshua 24:32; Acts 7:16);

(d) Here, from the heights of Ebal and Gerizim, die blessings and curses of the Law had been solemnly enunciated, and the nation had already bound itself by a covenant to Jehovah (Joshua 8:30-35).

and they presented themselves before God] We saw in Joshua 8:31 that the Hebrew Leader raised an altar on Mount Ebal “of whole stones,” where sacrifices were offered before the building of the Tabernacle. Shechem was thus truly a “sanctuary of the Lord” (Joshua 24:26), and those now assembled there were gathered “before God;” comp. Job 1:6; Job 2:1, or, as it is in the Hebrew, with the article, “the God,” the only true and living Elohim. “How grand a gathering it was! There stood the victor in a hundred battles, now ‘old and stricken in age;’ for it was already ‘a long time after that the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies.’ Before him was gathered all Israel, ‘their elders, their heads, their judges, and their officers,’ and he opened that mouth from which such words of might, and trust, and prayer had issued in the days of their troubles, and he spake to them what all felt to be his last counsels and commandments.” Bishop Wilberforce’s Heroes of Hebrew History, p. 132.

2. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel] The title is significant. It recurs in Joshua 24:23. Joshua recalls to the minds of the people the mercies of God as displayed in five great events:—

(i) The Call of Abraham;

(ii) The Deliverance from Egypt;

(iii) The Defeat of the Amorites on the east of the Jordan, and the frustration of the machinations of Balaam;

(iv) The Passage of the Jordan and Capture of Jericho;

(v) The Victories over all the nations of Canaan.

on the other side of the flood] Or better, on the other side of the river, i.e. the Euphrates, in Ur of the Chaldees, and then in Haran (Genesis 11:28; Genesis 11:31). “Biзond the flood,” Wyclif.

Terah] The ancestor, through Abram, Nahor, and Haran, of the great families of the Ishmaelites, Israelites, Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites (Genesis 11:24-32). With his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, he went in a north-westerly direction from Ur “into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there” (Genesis 11:31), and at Haran he died at the age of 205 years (Genesis 11:32).

and they served other gods] The objects of nature, especially the heavenly bodies, were in those far-back times invested with a “glory” and a “freshness” which has long since “passed away” from the earth. They seemed to be instinct with a divinity which exercised an almost irresistible fascination over their first beholders. The sight of the “sun when it shined, and of the moon walking in brightness,” was a temptation as potent to them as to us it is inconceivable. “Their heart was secretly enticed, and their mouth kissed their hand” (Job 31:26-27). There was also another form of idolatry, though less universal in its influence. “There were giants on the earth in those days;” giants, if not actually, yet by their colossal strength and awful majesty; the Pharaohs and Nimrods, whose form we still trace on the ornaments of Egypt and Assyria in their gigantic proportions, the mighty hunters, the royal priests, the deified men. From the control of these powers, before which all meaner men bowed down, from the long ancestral prepossessions of ‘country and kindred and father’s house,’ the first worshippers of One who was above all alike, had painfully to disentangle themselves.” Stanley’s Jewish Church, Joshua 1:15-16. Of the worship of “images,” or “Teraphim,” we have traces in Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:30; Genesis 31:34. Tradition asserts that Terah was a maker of idols, and that Abraham was persecuted in Ur of the Chaldees for refusing to take part in idolatries.

3. And I took] Joshua says nothing more of the life of Abraham than that Jehovah caused him to wander through the Land of Canaan, and finally gave him a son Isaac.

and gave him Isaac] Which means “Laughter” as one “born out of due time,” when Hope might have ceased to hope, and all fulfilment of the Promise seemed impossible. It was either at Gerar or Beersheba that Sarah gave birth to him (Genesis 21:2).

4. And I gave unto Isaac Jacob] After he too and Rebekah had been childless upwards of nineteen years.

Jacob] = he that holds by the heel, or supplanter (Genesis 25:26).

Esau] = hairy, rough; whose robust frame and rough aspect were the type of a wild and daring nature.

mount Seir] = “rough” or “rugged,” extended along the east side of the valley of Arabah, from the Dead Sea to the Elamitic Gulf. The name may either have been derived from Seir the Horite, who appears to have been the chief of the aboriginal inhabitants (Genesis 36:20), or, what is perhaps more probable, from the rough aspect of the whole country. These Horites, the excavators of those singular rock-dwellings found in such numbers in the ravines and cliffs around Petra, were dispossessed by the descendants of Esau (Deuteronomy 2:12; Deuteronomy 2:22), they were divided into tribes under a sheikh, or “duke” (Genesis 36:20-30).

but Jacob] who alone was to have Canaan for himself and his posterity, “went down into Egypt,” as is related in Genesis 45:1-28; Genesis 46:6; Acts 7:15.

5. I sent Moses also and Aaron] Comp. Exodus 3:10. This is the second proof of the Divine favour, the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. The chief incidents of this great event are succinctly alluded to; (1) the mission of Moses and Aaron; (2) the infliction of the plagues upon Egypt; (3) the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea.

I plagued Egypt] See Exodus 7-12. “Y smoot Egipt with many signes and wondris,” Wyclif. (1) The turning the water into blood; (2) frogs; (3) lice, or gnats; (4) flies; (5) murrain; (6) boils and blains; (7) thunder, lightning, and hail; (8) locusts; (9) darkness; (10) slaying of the firstborn.

6. And I brought your fathers] Comp. Exodus 12:37-42; Exodus 12:51.

and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers] Astonished that they had not made good their flight into Asia, and deeming them entangled in the land and shut in by the wilderness, the Egyptian monarch directed all his forces, his horses and his chariots, to give chase to the fugitives (Exodus 14:9).

7. when they cried unto the Lord] The Israelites were encamped on the western shore of the Red Sea, when suddenly a cry of alarm ran through the vast multitude. Over the ridges of the desert hills were seen the well-known horses, the terrible chariots of the Egyptian host; “Pharaoh pursued after the children of Israel, and they were sore afraid.”

he put darkness] “He settide derknessis bitwix зou and Egipcians,” Wyclif. A grand, poetical description. In the midst of the terror and perplexity of the Israelites the Angel of God, who went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, stationed himself behind them so as to deepen the gloom in which the Egyptians were advancing, and afford light and encouragement to the Israelites. Comp. Exodus 14:20; Psalm 78:12-14.

and brought the sea upon them] Determined to prevent the escape of their prey, the Egyptians had rushed on amidst the pitchy darkness that surrounded them into the pass between the walls of water standing up on either side of the Chosen People, but the hand of Moses was uplifted, and straightway the waters began to break and give way, and the sea to return in his strength. The engulphing waves closed over them; all efforts to escape were fruitless; horse and chariot and horseman “sank like lead in the mighty waters” (Exodus 15:10).

and covered them] “And hilide hem,” Wyclif. A good illustration of the meaning of the A. S. hélen = to cover, conceal, whence the word Hell, the covered place, the invisible underworld.

your eyes have seen] The trembling panic-stricken host stood still and saw “the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14:13), and the great work which He did upon the Egyptians (Exodus 14:31).

a long season] Even forty years, a year for each day the spies had been engaged in searching out the land” (Numbers 14:33-34), during which time every one of the generation from twenty years old and upwards died, and their carcases lay bleaching in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:5; Hebrews 3:17).

8. And I brought you] The third proof of God’s favour is here indicated; (a) the victory of the nation over the Amorites, and (b) the frustrating of Balaam’s purposed curse.

the land of the Amorites] For the meaning of this name see above, ch. Joshua 3:10. Tempted by the rich pasture lands east of the Jordan, a colony of the Amorities appears to have crossed it, and having driven the Moabites with great slaughter and the loss of many captives from the country south of the Jabbok (Numbers 21:26-29), they made the wide chasm of the Arnon file boundary of their territory. The Amorite chief Sihon made Heshbon his capital; while Og, of the giant race of the Rephaim, entrenched himself in the wonderful district called Argob, or “the stony.” See above, ch. Joshua 12:4.

and they fought with you] having refused the request of the Israelitish leader for a peaceful passage through their territory (Numbers 21:33).

I destroyed them from before you] Sihon himself, his sons, and all his people, were smitten with the sword, his walled towns were captured, and his numerous flocks and herds taken (Numbers 21:27-30), while Og was utterly routed, and his threescore cities fenced with high walls, gates and bars, besides unwalled towns a great many, fell into the hands of the Israelites (Numbers 21:33-35). Long afterwards the subjugation of these great kings, famous kings, mighty kings, was deemed worthy of being ranked with the deliverance from Egypt. See Psalm 135:10-12; Psalm 136:15-21.