Joshua 23
RileyJoshua 23:1-16
THE DAYS OF JOSHUAJoshua 23, 24.THE life of even the great man must draw to a close. We speak of Joshua as a great man, and with good occasion. The mentions made of him in the Pentateuch, namely, Exodus 24:13; Exodus 32:17; Exodus 33:11; Numbers 11:28 and Chapter 13, are not elaborate references, and, in fact, they appear as almost minor incidents in the history. And yet, from these we learn that he was the companion and minister of Moses; that he was absent from the camp when Aaron permitted its molten-calf idolatry; that he stood with Caleb in a minority report on the promised land, and in each of these instances the glimpse given into his life indicates its soundness, its essential worth.The man who can be loyal to his superior can be loyal to the Lord. The man who refuses to participate in idol worship is commonly the man who knows the true God; and the man who does not fear before the face of giants, but believes God with him, he can conquer, he is fit to become the captain of the Lord’s hosts.It was no amazement, therefore, when Moses fell that Jehovah spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, and placed him in instant command.In the twenty-two chapters over which we have passed, he has proven the wisdom of that appointment and revealed afresh that God never makes a mistake in the management of men. It would be easy, by reading the chapters of this Book, to misjudge the character of this commander.
There are those who charge him with inhumanity and who would have us believe that his whole conduct in war was that of a blood-thirsty slaughterer—a being that must have been repugnant to any loving and compassionate God. But such judges overlook two essential facts.
First, the customs of Joshua’s time; and second, the essential character of war itself.Abraham Lincoln was the leader of anti-slavery sentiment, when thousands and tens of thousands of his own brethren, many of whom were absolutely of blood kin, were slaughtered. And yet, so far from being inhumane, Abraham Lincoln was the tenderest and most compassionate of men. It is told that he turned back from urgent duties of State that were calling him, to pick up two fledglings that had been flung from their nest by a furious wind, and when chided for this loss of time to the affairs of government, he answered, “But I could not have slept tonight had I known the little things were out of their nest, chilled and dying.” In fact, it was Abraham Lincoln’s sympathy with the black man that made it possible for him to endure the slaughter of his white brethren. Such are the paradoxes of life; and consequently, superficial are the judgments of men.Old age often reveals the true traits of character as neither youth or middle life have done; and if one would know this man to the depths and understand and appreciate both his personal motives and his aspirations for Israel, he will discover it in the last chapters of this Book, and inTHE CLOSING OF THIS MANLet us attend, then, to the character and importance of these counsels.“And Joshua called for all Israel, and for their elders, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and said unto them, I am old and stricken in age.“And ye have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the Lord your God is He that hath fought for you” (Joshua 23:2-3).It is a declaration of dependence upon Divine power. The young man is tempted to trust his own strength, but when age reveals life, it is not difficult to see how often the arm of flesh faileth, and how constantly we are saved, sustained and made victorious by Divine intervention. It was this conviction that led Joshua to encourage Israel’s leaders with the words,“And the Lord your God, He shall expel them from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and ye shall possess their land, as the Lord your God hath promised unto you” (Joshua 23:5).It was on this basis that he counseled further, “Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 23:6).
Never a commander more clearly comprehended the danger to his people than did Joshua understand the approaching tests of Israel’s character. He knew that test to be an essential one, and yet, it would take on dual forms: First, to forget what God had spoken; and second, to consort with idol-worshipers.Does humanity change in any essential?
Is not that the two-fold temptation of the present time? Is it not true that ignorance of God’s Word, or indifference to what God has spoken, combines with the world’s temptation to undo the souls of men? And is it not when we forget the Word that we fellowship with the world and lose God? Is, then, the language of Joshua in the least out of date? Does the fact that it is the counsel of an old man detract from its essential wisdom, and is not what men call the swan-song often the summum bonum of intellectual and moral worth? Is it not constantly true that the younger generation despise the counsels of age and suffer in consequence?
And is it not a fact that men and women, who are enduring judgment before the day of judgment has come, are merely reaping whereon they themselves have sown; and by having served other gods and bowed themselves to them, they have lost the Divine favor and fallen on experiences of affliction?THE OF JOSHUA’S APPEALJoshua, Chapter 24.With mere counsel the old man was not content. His days were numbered and he knew it, and his people were unstable and he feared it.
So he“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.“And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 24:1-2).Therein is a new note. In the previous chapter, Joshua, using his own memory, rehearsed the history in which Divine guidance had been evident, and pled for an appreciation that would influence conduct. In this chapter he is not dealing in his own words, but in the Lord’s words. He is reminding them of the call of Abraham and of the promises made to him and his seed, and of the Divine fulfilment through his son, Isaac, and his grandchildren, Esau and Jacob; also of the rise of Moses and Aaron, and the redemption out of Egypt, and of the multiplied manifestations of the Divine hand in Israel’s affairs, in a history brought down to date.It takes an old man to mark providential movements; it takes an old man to understand the sequence of events. His observation has been sufficient, in time, to link one thing with another and see the Lord in them all.His knowledge reaches back to the beginnings of things. He makes note of where and when God enters into human affairs. “I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood”; that’s the beginning for Israel, “and multiplied his seed”; that’s the fulfilment of prophecy. “I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt”; that’s the providential care of Israel in her early and Egyptian experience. “And I brought your fathers out of Egypt”; when did redemption ever take place without God? “And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan”; that’s a reminder of the early conquest.
And at Jericho “I delivered them into your hand”; and “I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat”.Now, in all of this, Joshua is the spokesman of Jehovah.
When he uses the language of the first person here, he is not employing his own speech, but quoting from speech Divine. But the conclusion of it all represents the profound convictions of the old man. “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” (Joshua 24:14).Joshua faced them with a fair challenge. “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 Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).The effect of this grand old man’s words can be readily imagined. In fact, it is not even a matter of imagination; it is a matter of certainty, for “the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods” (Joshua 24:16). And, then they admitted the truth of all that Joshua had said, and rehearsed for themselves the same history over which the old man had passed in review.But even with that, Joshua was not yet content. He wanted to deepen the impression, and so he 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.“If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then He will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that He hath done you good.“And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the Lord.“And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve Him. And they said, We are witnesses” (Joshua 24:19-22).Then he put them to the true test,“Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.“And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey.“So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.“And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.“And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which He spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.“So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance” (Joshua 24:23-27).This is the end; this is the last time that Israel will ever listen to this mighty man—this monarch among his fellows—this true prophet—this loyal priest.
Let us hope that Israel, then living, never forgot this day, and while we shall find them declining from his words, it is doubtful if they could ever divest their memories of the same.There are some occasions that make an indelible impression upon all that experience them. You can’t be called to the father’s bedside and feel his old trembling hand on your head, and listen to his words about God and righteous living, and the result thereof, and never forget it.
Nor can you sit in the church and hear the man who has long been your pastor, who has held a high place in your heart’s affections, preach his last sermon, and when he lifts his hand to pronounce the benediction, see his knees bend and his stalwart form slump, and mark the excitement of the audience as they stir to his assistance, and have the doctor rise out of the crowd, and, after carefully hunting for his pulse, say, “He is dead”, and ever forget that discourse. It will live in you. The very manner of its completion will burn the words into your soul as the hot brand burns letters into the flesh of cattle. We are not surprised, therefore, that it is written,“And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel” (Joshua 24:31).The Book of Joshua concludes with the record of theDEATH OF JOSHUASome one says, “Who wrote the Book of Joshua?” We do not know. If Joshua had written this Book, could he have put on the record with which it concludes? Certainly not!
Then do not those facts: First, that we do not know who wrote the Book, and second, that Joshua could not have concluded it had he written the early part, disprove its claim to inspiration? Not at all!There may be Books in our Bible whose authorship is unknown, but that only casts a reflection against all other authors in the minds of those who prefer to doubt.
That is to say, if we admit that Joshua may not have written the Book of Joshua, but that some other inspired penman gave us the last letter of it, that in no wise raises a question as to the authorship of the Pentateuch; that in no wise raises the question as to the authorship of Job, or the Psalms. The simple annals of Joshua’s death and burial, as recorded in these last verses, has in it the very similitude of truth,“And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old.“And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash” (Joshua 24:29-30),“There is not a thing in this record that raises any question. If it is a faithful and true record, then it can retain its place in the inspired Book, for inspiration is truth.“And the bones of Joseph, which the Children of Israel brought up out of Egypt buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.“And Eleasar 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” (Joshua 24:32-33).With these plain statements the Book concludes; and what a Book it has been. Practically every feature of human life has been touched upon, and while war has been the chief theme, the building of a nation that should be loyal to God is evidently the Divine objective that runs through it all.And now, just to refresh the mind, let us return and review.In Chapter I we have Joshua made successor to Moses.In Chapter II we have the history of Rahab and the spies.In Chapter III we have the passages of Jordan. In Chapter IV we have the memorials erected.In Chapter V we have the ordinance of circumcision renewed.In Chapter VI we have the Fall of Jericho.In Chapter VII we have the sin of Achan.In Chapter VIII we have the conquest of Ai.In Chapter IX we have the league with the Gibeonites.In Chapter X we have Israel’s victory at Gibeon.In Chapter XI we have the final conquest of Canaan.In Chapter XII we have the captured kings.In Chapters XIII to XXII we have the division of the land.In Chapter XX we have the cities of refuge, and, in Chapters XXIII and XXIV we have the final counsels and the conclusion of Joshua’s life.