Joshua 24:14

Now therefore fear the Lord,.... Since he has done such great and good things, fear the Lord and his goodness, fear him for his goodness sake; nothing so influences fear, or a reverential affection

Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.

In sincerity and in truth; either these two expressions note the same thing; or sincerity is opposed to the mixture of false gods with the true, as it here follows, or of a false and corrupt worship of God with that which God appointeth; and truth is opposed to dissimulation and falseness, and instability of heart. Put away the gods; whereby it appears, that although Joshua had doubtless prevented and purged out all public and manifest idolatry, yet there were some of them who practised it in their private houses and retirements. See ,26 Acts 7:42,43. Your fathers, Terah, and Nahor, and Abraham, as , and others of your ancestors. On the other side of the flood, and in Egypt: see ,8,19,21,27. Under these particulars no doubt he comprehends all other false gods, which were served by the nations amongst whom they were, as appears from , but only mentions these, as the idols which they were in more danger of worshipping than those in Canaan; partly because those of Canaan had been now lately and palpably disgraced by their inability to preserve their worshippers from total ruin; and partly because the other idols came recommended unto them by the venerable name of antiquity, and the custom of their forefathers. See .

Joshua 24:14 Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.Ver. 14. And put away the gods.] Deastros illos, which some of them secretly worshipped, as they did likewise in the wilderness. So in Josiah’ s days, Baal had privily his "Chemarims," or chimney chaplains, yea, those that "worshipped the host of heaven upon the housetops," &c.

(14) Fear the Lord.—It should be remembered throughout the whole of this passage that Lord stands for JEHOVAH, the covenant God of Israel.

Verse 14. Fear the Lord] Reverence him as the sole object of your religious worship. Serve him] Perform his will by obeying his commands. In sincerity] Having your whole heart engaged in his worship. And in truth] According to the directions he has given you in his infallible word. Put away the gods, c.] From this exhortation of Joshua we learn of what sort the gods were, to the worship of whom these Israelites were still attached. 1. Those which their fathers worshipped on the other side of the flood: i.e., the gods of the CHALDEANS, fire, light, the sun. 2. Those of the EGYPTIANS, Apis, Anubis, the ape, serpents, vegetables, c. 3. Those of the CANAANITES, MOABITES, &c., Baal-peor or Priapus, Astarte or Venus, &c., &c. All these he refers to in this and the following verse. See Clarke on Joshua 24:33. How astonishing is this, that, after all God had done for them, and all the miracles they had seen, there should still be found among them both idols and idolaters! That it was so we have the fullest evidence, both here and in Joshua 24:23; Amos 5:26 and in Acts 7:41. But what excuse can be made for such stupid, not to say brutish, blindness? Probably they thought they could the better represent the Divine nature by using symbols and images, and perhaps they professed to worship God through the medium of these. At least this is what has been alleged in behalf of a gross class of Christians who are notorious for image worship. But on such conduct God will never look with any allowance, where he has given his word and testimony.

14. Now therefore fear the Lord] Comp. Job 28:28, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding;” Psalms 2:11, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling;” Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” in sincerity and in truth] “with perfite herte and most trewe,” Wyclif. The Greek word here rendered “sincerity” in the LXX. occurs also in 1 Corinthians 5:8, “let us keep the feast … with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth;” 2 Corinthians 1:12, “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity … we have had our conversation in the world;” 2 Corinthians 2:17, “but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” The Latin word from which our “sincerity” comes, denotes “honey without wax,” unmixed purity. The Greek word is considered by some to be founded on the idea of something held up in the rays of the sun, and proved to be without speck or flaw. put away the gods which your fathers served] Two epochs of ancestral idolatry are here alluded to; (a) on the other side of the flood, i. e. the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia; and (b) in Egypt. Some have supposed that the expression alludes to idolatry “in the heart,” but this is untenable. (i) In Leviticus 17:7 we read, “they (the people) shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring.” (ii) Again in Amos 5:25-26, quoted by St Stephen in his address before the Sanhedrim (Acts 7:42-43), “Have ye offered (= did ye offer) unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.” (iii) Once more, in Ezekiel 20:6-8 we read, “In the day that I lifted up my hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt … then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt … but they rebelled against Me, and would not hearken unto Me; they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt.” Joshua’s words plainly imply his sad conviction that there were still idolaters amongst them in secret, as there were in the days of Jacob before him, Genesis 35:2, and of Samuel after him, 1 Samuel 7:3, seq.

[14. Put away the gods which your fathers served — Many expositors hold that these words do not necessarily imply the actual possession of idols by the people, but rather a tendency to idolatry,