Joshua 24:19

And Joshua said unto the people,.... To their heads and representatives now assembled together, and who had returned to him the preceding answer: ye cannot serve the Lord; which he said not to

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the

Ye cannot serve the Lord: he speaks not of an absolute impossibility, (for then both his resolution to serve God himself, and his exhortation to them to do so, had been vain and ridiculous,) but of a moral impossibility, or a very great difficulty, which he allegeth not to discourage them from God’ s service, which is his great design to engage them in; but only to make them more considerate and cautious in obliging themselves, and more circumspect and resolved in answering their obligations. The meaning is, God’ s service is not, as you seem to fancy, a slight and easy thing, as soon done as said; but it is a work of great difficulty, and requires great care, and courage, and resolution; and when I consider the infinite purity of God, that he will not be mocked or abused; and withal your great and often manifested proneness to superstition and idolatry, even during the life of Moses, and in some of you whilst I live, and whilst the obligations which God hath laid upon you in this land are fresh in remembrance; I cannot but fear that after my decease you will think the service of God too hard and burdensome for you, and therefore will cast it off, and revolt from him, if you do not double your watch, and carefully avoid all occasions of idolatry, which I fear you will not do, but I do hereby exhort you to do. He is a jealous God; he will not endure a co-rival or partner in his worship; you cannot serve him and idols together, as you will be inclined and tempted to do. He will not forgive your transgressions; if you who own yourselves for his people and servants, shall wickedly and wilfully transgress his laws by idolatry or other crimes, he will not let this go unpunished in you, as he doth in other nations; therefore consider what you do when you take the Lord for your God; weigh your advantages and inconveniences together; for as if you be sincere and faithful in God’ s service, you will have admirable benefits by it; so if you be false to your professions, and forsake him whom you have so solemnly avouched to be your God, he will deal more severely with you than with any people in the world.

Joshua 24:19 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he [is] an holy God; he [is] a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.Ver. 19. Ye cannot serve the Lord.] You that are yet unregenerate, and that would fain make a mixture of religions, cannot serve the Lord; for he must be served like himself, that is, truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving; he will not take up with a seeming or slubbering service. "Offer it now to thy prince; will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts." For he is a holy God.] And requireth to be sanctified in all those that draw near unto him; it will be worse with them else. Neither profaneness nor formal profession will he endure; but least of all idolatry. For he is a jealous God.] And will not be yoked with idols, neither will he give his glory, which is as his wife, to another. If any cast but a leering look toward it, he shall smart and smoke for so doing. He will not forgive your transgressions,] sc., Unless you forego them: or if he do forgive them, yet he may take vengeance, temporal vengeance, of their inventions; and for that matter their repentance may come too late. All this Joshua speaketh, not to weaken but to waken their diligence in God’ s service.

(19) And Joshua said . . . Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is . . . jealous . . .—Jehovah will not consent to be served as one God among many: the very thing which Israel was doing at the moment, which they meant to do, and did do, with rare intervals, down to the Babylonish captivity, when the evil spirit of (literal) idolatry was expelled for evermore. Israel always maintained the worship of Jehovah (except in very evil times) as the national Deity, but did not abstain from the recognition and partial worship of other national deities of whom they were afraid, and whom they thought it necessary to propitiate. Therefore Joshua’s argument is perfectly intelligible, and was entirely necessary for those times.

Verse 19. Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is a holy God] If we are to take this literally, we cannot blame the Israelites for their defection from the worship of the true God; for if it was impossible for them to serve God, they could not but come short of his kingdom: but surely this was not the case. Instead of לא תוכלו lo thuchelu, ye CANNOT serve, &c., some eminent critics read לא תכלו lo thechallu, ye shall not CEASE to serve, &c. This is a very ingenious emendation, but there is not one MS. in all the collections of Kennicott and De Rossi to support it. However, it appears very possible that the first ו vau in תוכלו did not make a part of the word originally. If the common reading be preferred, the meaning of the place must be, "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is holy and jealous, unless ye put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the flood. For he is a jealous God, and will not give to nor divide his glory with any other. He is a holy God, and will not have his people defiled with the impure worship of the Gentiles."

19. Ye cannot serve the Lord] Joshua checks their hasty impulsiveness and confident protestation of fidelity, by reminding them of the difficulty involved in serving Jehovah aright; and he specially would have them dwell on (i) His holiness, and (ii) His jealousy. His words remind us of our Lord’s warnings in the Sermon on the Mount, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). he is a holy God] Comp. Leviticus 19:2; 1 Samuel 6:20; Psalms 99:5; Psalms 99:9; Isaiah 5:16. Holiness is the principle that guards the eternal distinction between Creator and creature, between God and man; it preserves the Divine dignity and majesty from being infringed by the Divine love; it eternally excludes everything evil and impure from the Divine nature. Comp. Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts.” See Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, pp. 99, 100. The plural Elohim, here used, “directs attention to the infinite riches and infinite fulness contained in the one Divine Being, and therefore to the fact that, if we were to believe in innumerable gods, and endow them with perfection, they would still all be contained in the one Elohim.” Hengstenberg. he is a jealous God] “Deus enim sanctus et fortis æmulator est,” Vulgate. “A strong feruent loouyere,” Wyclif. Numerous passages in the Prophets bring out the idea of God as One, Who requires of His people, whom He has married, the unbroken fidelity of marriage, and punishes most inflexibly any attachment to another god, any departure from Him, whilst He continues His blessings upon love and fidelity even to distant generations. Comp. Jeremiah 2:2; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:22; Ezekiel 16:60; Ezekiel 23:3; Ezekiel 23:8; Ezekiel 23:19; Hosea 2:16. “The Divine zeal is just the energy of Divine holiness. His jealousy turns especially against (1) idolatry, and (2) all sin, by which His holy Name is desecrated.” Oehler’s Theology of the Old Testament, i. 166, 167. he will not forgive] Compare the words of God to Moses respecting the Angel of the Covenant, “Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for My Name is in him,” Exodus 23:21; and comp. Numbers 14:35; Deuteronomy 18:19; Jeremiah 5:7. Forgiveness is conditional on repentance and amendment of life.

19. Ye cannot serve the Lord — Joshua utters these discouraging words, based on the waywardness of the people’s hearts, to draw out from them the expression of strong purpose to serve Jehovah.