Joshua 24:1

And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem,.... The nine tribes and a half; not all the individuals of them, but the chief among them, their representatives, as afterwards explained,

And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.

JOSHUA CHAPTER 24 Joshua assemble all the tribes at Shechem, . A brief history of God’ s benefits from Terah: he exhorts them faithfully to serve the true God, . Reneweth a covenant between them and God; promising for himself and his house; the people four several times promising for themselves, . He writes this in the book of the law, and sets up a stone for a witness, . His age, death, and burial, . The burying of Joseph’ s bones, . The death and burial of Eleazar, . Gathered all the tribes of Israel, to wit, by their representatives, as . To Shechem; either, 1. To Shiloh, where the ark and tabernacle was; because they are here said to present themselves before God; and because the stone set up here is said to be set up in or by the sanctuary of the Lord; of both which I shall speak in their proper places. And they say Shiloh is here called Shechem, because it was in the territory of Shechem; but that may be doubted, seeing Shiloh was ten miles distant from Shechem, as St. Jerom affirms. And had he meant Shiloh, why should he not express it in its own and proper name, by which it is called in all other places, rather than by another name no where else given to it? Or rather, 2. To the city of Shechem, a place convenient for the present purpose, not only because it was a Levitical city, and a city of refuge, and a place near to Joshua’ s city, but especially for the two main ends for which he summoned them thither. 1. For the solemn burial of the bones of Joseph, as is implied here, , and of the rest of the patriarchs, as is noted , , for which this place was designed. 2. For the solemn renewing of their covenant with God; which in this place was first made between God and Abraham, ,7, and afterwards was there renewed by the Israelites at their first entrance into the land of Canaan, between the two mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, , &c., which were very near Shechem, as appears from ,7; and therefore this place was most proper, both to remind them of their former obligations to God, and to engage them to a further ratification of them. Before God; either, 1. Before the ark or tabernacle, as that phrase is commonly used; which might be either in Shiloh, where they were fixed; or in Shechem, whither the ark was brought upon this great occasion, as it was sometimes removed upon such occasions, as . Or, 2. In that public, and venerable, and sacred assembly met together for religious exercises; for in such God is present, . Or, 3. As in God’ s presence, to hear what Joshua was to speak to them in God’ s name, and to receive God’ s commands from his mouth. Thus Isaac is said to bless Jacob before the Lord, i.e.

Joshua 24:1 And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.Ver. 1. And Joshua gathered all the tribes to Shechem.] The chief city of Ephraim, near to old Joshua, who called this parliament thither, and not far from mount Gerizim and mount Ebal, where the people had lately renewed their covenant, which they were now to do again; and the identity of the place might be some advantage: whence it is that they that give rules of direction concerning prayer, do advise us, amongst other helps, to accustom ourselves to the same place. And they presented themselves before God,] i.e., Before the ark brought hither for the purpose.

XXIV. (b) JOSHUA’S LAST CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE.(1, 2) Joshua gathered all the tribes . . .—At the former address the rulers alone appear to have been present; on this occasion all Israel was gathered. And what is spoken is addressed to the people in the hearing of the rulers. In the speech that now follows Joshua briefly recapitulates the national history; he had not thought this necessary for the rulers. To them he had said, “Ye know;” but “the people” embraced many persons of but little thought and education, whom it was necessary to inform and remind and instruct, even as to the leading events of their national history. The simple lesson which Joshua’s words are intended to enforce is the duty of serving Jehovah, and serving Him alone. It is the first great lesson of the old covenant. “I am Jehovah, thy God; thou shalt have no other gods beside Me.” The ark of this covenant had brought them over Jordan into the promised land. (2) Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood.—The flood, i.e., the river—probably Euphrates, though it may be Jordan, or both. Flood in our English Bible has been used for river in several places: e.g., Job 22:16, “whose foundation was overflown with a flood,” i.e., a river; Psalms 66:6, “He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood (the river, i.e., Jordan) on foot;” Matthew 7:25; Matthew 7:27, “The rain descended, and the floods (i.e., the rivers) came.” They served other gods.—They, i.e., Terah, Abraham, and Nachor.

CHAPTER XXIV Joshua gathers all the tribes together at Shechem, 1; and gives them a history of God's gracious dealings with Abraham, 2, 3; Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, 4; Moses and Aaron, and their fathers in Egypt, 5, 6. His judgments on the Egyptians, 7. On the Amorites, 8. Their deliverance from Balak and Balaam, 9, 10. Their conquests in the promised land, and their establishment in the possession of it, 11-13. Exhorts them to abolish idolatry, and informs them of his and his family's resolution to serve Jehovah, 14, 15. The people solemnly promise to serve the Lord alone, and mention his merciful dealings towards them, 16-18. Joshua shows them the holiness of God, and the danger of apostasy, 19, 20. The people again promise obedience, 21. Joshua calls them to witness against themselves, that they had promised to worship God alone, and exhorts them to put away the strange gods, 22, 23. They promise obedience, 24. Joshua makes a covenant with the people, writes it in a book, sets up a stone as a memorial of it, and dismisses the people, 25-28. Joshua's death, 29, and burial, 30. The people continue faithful during that generation, 31. They bury the bones of Joseph in Shechem, 32. Eleazar the high priest dies also, 33. NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV Verse 1. Joshua gathered all the tribes] This must have been a different assembly from that mentioned in the preceding chapter, though probably held not long after the former. To Shechem] As it is immediately added that they presented themselves before God, this must mean the tabernacle; but at this time the tabernacle was not at Shechem but at Shiloh. The Septuagint appear to have been struck with this difficulty, and therefore read σηλω. Shiloh, both here and in Joshua 24:25, though the Aldine and Complutensian editions have συξεμ, Shechem, in both places. Many suppose that this is the original reading, and that Shechem has crept into the text instead of Shiloh. Perhaps there is more of imaginary than real difficulty in the text. As Joshua was now old and incapable of travelling, he certainly had a right to assemble the representatives of the tribes wherever he found most convenient, and to bring the ark of the covenant to the place of assembling: and this was probably done on this occasion. Shechem is a place famous in the patriarchal history. Here Abraham settled on his first coming into the land of Canaan, Genesis 12:6-7; and here the patriarchs were buried, Acts 7:16. And as Shechem lay between Ebal and Gerizim, where Joshua had before made a covenant with the people, Joshua 8:30, c., the very circumstance of the place would be undoubtedly friendly to the solemnity of the present occasion. Shuckford supposes that the covenant was made at Shechem, and that the people went to Shiloh to confirm it before the Lord. Mr.

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.

Shechem, situated between those mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, which had already been the scene of a solemn rehearsal of the covenant soon after the first entry of the people into the promised land

JOSHUA’S ADDRESS AT SHECHEM, Joshua 24:1-24. 1. All the tribes — By their representatives. See Joshua 23:2, note. We have no means of determining the date of this transaction.