Joshua 24:33

And Eleazar the son of Aaron died,.... Very probably in a short time after Joshua; and, according to the Samaritan Chronicle (i), he died as Joshua did, gathered the chief men of the children of

And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that Eleazar ... died, and they buried him in ... mount Ephraim.

By special favour, and for his better conveniency in attending upon the ark, which then was, and for a long time was to be, in Shiloh, which was near to this place; whereas the cities which were given to the priests were in Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, which were remote from Shiloh, though near to the place where the ark was to have its settled abode, to wit, to Jerusalem.

Joshua 24:33 And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill [that pertained to] Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.Ver. 33. In a hill that pertained to Phinehas.] Or, In Gibeathpineas, the name of a city, bearing his name. Which was given him.] By the synagogue, saith Vatablus, in an extraordinary way; that, being the high priest, he might be near to Joshua, and not far from the tabernacles where his business lay.

(33) And Eleazar the son of Aaron died.—“Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun,” were the Moses and Aaron of this period. It is fitting that the Book of Joshua should close with the death of Eleazar, who was Joshua’s appointed counsellor; for when Joshua was given as a shepherd to Israel, in answer to the prayer of Moses, Eleazar was also given to Joshua for a counsellor (Numbers 27:21). At Eleazar’s word he was to go out and come in, “both he and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.” It is rather singular that nothing but this has been recorded of Eleazar’s personal history. Everything stated about him in his lifetime is official. Not a word that he uttered has been preserved. A hill. . . . given him in mount Ephraim.—The inheritance of Phinehas as a priest would lie within the tribe of Judah (Joshua 21:13, &c.) or Benjamin. This gift to Phinehas in Mount Ephraim, near the seat of government, seems to have been a special grant to him over and above his inheritance. But inasmuch as the tabernacle itself was at Shiloh, in Mount Ephraim, it was altogether suitable and natural that some place of abode should be assigned to the priests in that neighbourhood, where they were compelled to reside. Although Phinehas himself was “zealous for his God,” he lived to see the tribe of Benjamin nearly exterminated from Israel for repeating the sin of the Canaanites. (See Judges 20:28.) We can hardly say that the people served Jehovah all the days of Phinehas. With Eleazar and Joshua the spirit of strict obedience to the law seems to have, in a great measure, passed away.

Verse 33. And Eleazar - died] Probably about the same time as Joshua, or soon after; though some think he outlived him six years. Thus, nearly all the persons who had witnessed the miracles of God in the wilderness were gathered to their fathers; and their descendants left in possession of the great inheritance, with the Law of God in their hands, and the bright example of their illustrious ancestors before their eyes. It must be added that they possessed every advantage necessary to make them a great, a wise, and a holy people. How they used, or rather how they abused, these advantages, their subsequent history, given in the sacred books, amply testifies. A hill that pertained to Phinehas his son] This grant was probably made to Phinehas as a token of the respect of the whole nation, for his zeal, courage, and usefulness: for the priests had properly no inheritance. At the end of this verse the Septuagint add: - "In that day the children of Israel, taking up the ark of the covenant of God, carried it about with them, and Phinehas succeeded to the high priest's office in the place of his father until his death; and he was buried in Gabaath, which belonged to himself. "Then the children of Israel went every man to his own place, and to his own city. "And the children of Israel worshipped Astarte and Ashtaroth, and the gods of the surrounding nations, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Eglon king of Moab, and he tyrannized over them for eighteen years." THE last six verses in this chapter were, doubtless, not written by Joshua; for no man can give an account of his own death and burial. Eleazar, Phinehas, or Samuel, might have added them, to bring down the narration so as to connect it with their own times; and thus preserve the thread of the history unbroken. This is a common case; many men write histories of their own lives, which, in the last circumstances, are finished by others, and who has ever thought of impeaching the authenticity of the preceding part, because the subsequent was the work of a different hand? Hirtius's supplement has never invalidated the authenticity of the Commentaries of Caesar, nor the work of Quintus Smyrnaeus, that of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; nor the 13th book of AEneid, by Mapheus Viggius, the authenticity of the preceding twelve, as the genuine work of Virgil. We should be thankful that an adequate and faithful hand has supplied those circumstances which the original author could not write, and without which the work would have been incomplete. Mr.

33. Eleazar the son of Aaron] It seems probable that Eleazar had died during the lifetime of Joshua. He was the third son of Aaron, by Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab. After the death of Nadab and Abihu without children (Leviticus 10:1-2; Numbers 3:4), Eleazar was appointed chief over the principal Levites. He comes before us (a) Ministering with his brother Ithamar during their father’s lifetime. (b) Invested on Mount Hor, as the successor of Aaron, with the sacred garments (Numbers 20:28). (c) Superintending the census of the people (Numbers 26:3-4). (d) Taking part in the distribution of the Land after the conquest (Joshua 14:1). and they buried him in a hill] “Et sepelierunt eum in Gabaath-Phinees filii ejus,” Vulgate, which Wyclif curiously mistranslates “and Phynees and his sones birieden him in Gabaa.” in a hill] The word here employed for “hill” is “Gibeah,” which gives its name to several towns and places in Palestine, which would doubtless be generally on or near a hill. This place was Gibeah-Phinehas, the city of his son, which had been given to the latter on Mount Ephraim. Robinson identifies it with the Gaba of Eusebius and Jerome, and the modern Chirbet Jibia, 5 miles north of Guphna, towards Nablûs or Shechem. “His tomb is still shewn in a little close overshadowed by venerable terebinths, at Awertah, a few miles S. E. of Nablûs.” Stanley’s Lectures, i. 281, n.

(Eleazar’s burial-place is placed by Conder not at Tibneh but in the village of ‘Awertah.)

26. Joshua wrote these words — A description of all that occurred at Shechem in this solemn renewal of the covenant.