Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsh, [1857-78], at sacred-texts.com
Renewal of the Covenant at the National Assembly in Shechem. - Jos 24:1. Joshua brought his public ministry to a close, as Moses had done before him, with a solemn renewal of the covenant with the Lord. For this solemn act he did not choose Shiloh, the site of the national sanctuary, as some MSS of the lxx read, but Shechem, a place which was sanctified as no other was for such a purpose as this by the most sacred reminiscences from the times of the patriarchs. He therefore summoned all the tribes of Israel, in their representatives (their elders, etc., as in Jos 23:2), to Shechem, not merely because it was at Shechem, i.e., on Gerizim and Ebal, that the solemn establishment of the law in the land of Canaan, to which the renewal of the covenant, as a repetition of the essential kernel of that solemn ceremony, was now to be appended, had first taken place, but still more because it was here that Abraham received the first promise from God after his migration into Canaan, and built an altar at the time (Gen 12:6-7); and most of all, as Hengstenberg has pointed out (Diss. ii. p. 12), because Jacob settled here on his return from Mesopotamia, and it was here that he purified his house from the strange gods, burying all their idols under the oak (Gen 33:19; Gen 35:2, Gen 35:4). As Jacob selected Shechem for the sanctification of his house, because this place was already consecrated by Abraham as a sanctuary of God, so Joshua chose the same place for the renewal of the covenant, because this act involved a practical renunciation on the part of Israel of all idolatry. Joshua expressly states this in Jos 24:23, and reference is also made to it in the account in Jos 24:26. "The exhortation to be faithful to the Lord, and to purify themselves from all idolatry, could not fail to make a deep impression, in the place where the honoured patriarch had done the very same things to which his descendants were exhorted here. The example preached more loudly in this spot than in any other" (Hengstenberg). "And they placed themselves before God." From the expression "before God," it by no means follows that the ark had been brought to Shechem, or, as Knobel supposes, that an altar was erected there, any more than from the statement in Jos 24:26 that it was "by the sanctuary of the Lord." For, in the first place, "before God" (Elohim) is not to be identified with "before Jehovah," which is used in Jos 18:6 and Jos 19:51 to denote the presence of the Lord above the ark of the covenant; and secondly, even "before Jehovah" does not always presuppose the presence of the ark of the covenant, as Hengstenberg has clearly shown. "Before God" simply denotes in a general sense the religious character of an act, or shows that the act was undertaken with a distinct reference to the omnipresent God; and in the case before us it may be attributed to the fact that Joshua delivered his exhortation to the people in the name of Jehovah, and commenced his address with the words, "Thus saith Jehovah."
(Note: "It is stated that they all stood before God, in order that the sanctity and religious character of the assembly may be the more distinctly shown. And there can be no doubt that the name of God was solemnly invoked by Joshua, and that he addressed the people as in the sight of God, so that each one might feel for himself that God was presiding over all that was transacted there, and that they were not engaged in any merely private affair, but were entering into a sacred and inviolable compact with God himself." - Calvin.)
Joshua's address contains an expansion of two thoughts. He first of all recalls to the recollection of the whole nation, whom he is addressing in the persons of its representatives, all the proofs of His mercy which the Lord had given, from the calling of Abraham to that day (Jos 24:2-13); and then because of these divine acts he calls upon the people to renounce all idolatry, and to serve God the Lord alone (Jos 24:14, Jos 24:15). Jehovah is described as the "God of Israel" both at the commencement (Jos 24:2) and also at the close of the whole transaction, in perfect accordance with the substance and object of the address, which is occupied throughout with the goodness conferred by God upon the race of Israel. The first practical proof of the grace of God towards Israel, was the calling of Abraham from his idolatrous associations, and his introduction to the land of Canaan, where the Lord so multiplied his seed, that Esau received the mountains of Seir for his family, whilst Jacob went into Egypt with his sons.
(Note: "He commences with their gratuitous training, by which God had precluded them from the possibility of boasting of any pre-eminence or merit. For God had bound them to himself by a closer bond, because when they were on an equality with others, He drew them to himself to be His own peculiar people, for no other reason than His own good pleasure. Moreover, in order that it may be clearly seen that they have nothing whereof to glory, he leads them back to their earliest origin, and relates how their fathers had dwelt in Chaldaea, worshipping idols in common with the rest, and with nothing to distinguish them from the crowd." - Calvin.)
The ancestors of Israel dwelt "from eternity," i.e., from time immemorial, on the other side of the stream (the Euphrates), viz., in Ur of the Chaldees, and then at Haran in Mesopotamia (Gen 11:28, Gen 11:31), namely Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor. Of Terah's three sons (Gen 11:27), Nahor is mentioned as well as Abraham, because Rebekah, and her nieces Leah and Rachel, the tribe-mothers of Israel, were descended from him (Gen 22:23; Gen 29:10, Gen 29:16.). And they (your fathers, Terah and his family) served other gods than Jehovah, who revealed himself to Abraham, and brought him from his father's house to Canaan. Nothing definite can be gathered from the expression "other gods," with reference to the gods worshipped by Terah and his family; nor is there anything further to be found respecting them throughout the whole of the Old Testament. We simply learn from Gen 31:19, Gen 31:34, that Laban had teraphim, i.e., penates, or household and oracular gods.
(Note: According to one tradition, Abraham was brought up in Sabaeism in his father's house (see Hottinger, Histor. Orient. p. 246, and Philo, in several passages of his works); and according to another, in the Targum Jonathan on Gen 11:23, and in the later Rabbins, Abraham had to suffer persecution on account of his dislike to idolatry, and was obliged to leave his native land in consequence. But these traditions are both of them nothing more than conjectures by the later Rabbins.)
The question also, whether Abraham was an idolater before his call, which has been answered in different ways, cannot be determined with certainty. We may conjecture, however, that he was not deeply sunk in idolatry, though he had not remained entirely free from it in his father's house; and therefore that his call is not to be regarded as a reward for his righteousness before God, but as an act of free unmerited grace.
After his call, God conducted Abraham through all the land of Canaan (see Gen 12), protecting and shielding him, and multiplied his seed, giving him Isaac, and giving to Isaac Jacob and Esau, the ancestors of two nations. To the latter He gave the mountains of Seir for a possession (Gen 36:6.), that Jacob might receive Canaan for his descendants as a sole possession. But instead of mentioning this, Joshua took for granted that his hearers were well acquainted with the history of the patriarchs, and satisfied himself with mentioning the migration of Jacob and his sons to Egypt, that he might pass at once to the second great practical proof of the mercy of God in the guidance of Israel, the miraculous deliverance of Israel out of the bondage and oppression of Egypt.
Of this also he merely mentions the leading points, viz., first of all, the sending of Moses and Aaron (Exo 3:10., Jos 4:14.), and then the plagues inflicted upon Egypt. "I smote Egypt," i.e., both land and people. נגף is used in Exo 8:2 and Exo 12:23, Exo 12:27, in connection with the plague of frogs and the slaying of the first-born in Egypt. The words which follow, "according to that which I did among them, and afterward I brought you out," point back to Exo 3:20, and show that the Lord had fulfilled the promise given to Moses at his call. He then refers (Jos 24:6, Jos 24:7) to the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites, as they came out of Egypt, from Pharaoh who pursued them with his army, giving especial prominence to the crying of the Israelites to the Lord in their distress (Exo 14:10), and the relief of that distress by the angel of the Lord (Exo 14:19-20). And lastly, he notices their dwelling in the wilderness "many days," i.e., forty years (Num 14:33).
The third great act of God for Israel was his giving up the Amorites into the hands of the Israelites, so that they were able to conquer their land (Num 21:21-35), and the frustration of the attack made by Balak king of the Moabites, through the instrumentality of Balaam, when the Lord did not allow him to curse Israel, but compelled him to bless (Num 22-24). Balak "warred against Israel," not with the sword, but with the weapons of the curse, or animo et voluntate (Vatabl.). "I would not hearken unto Balaam," i.e., would not comply with his wish, but compelled him to submit to my will, and to bless you; "and delivered you out of his (Balak's) hand," when he sought to destroy Israel through the medium of Balaam (Num 22:6, Num 22:11).
The last and greatest benefit which the Lord conferred upon the Israelites, was His leading them by miracles of His omnipotence across the Jordan into Canaan, delivering the Lords (or possessors) of Jericho," not "the rulers, i.e., the king and his heroes," as Knobel maintains (see Sa2 21:12; Sa1 23:11-12; and the commentary on Jdg 9:6), "and all the tribes of Canaan into their hand," and sending hornets before them, so that they were able to drive out the Canaanites, particularly the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, though "not with their sword and their bow" (vid., Psa 44:4); i.e., it was not with the weapons at their command that they were able to take the lands of these two kings. On the sending of hornets, as a figure used to represent peculiarly effective terrors, see at Exo 23:28; Deu 7:20. In this way the Lord gave the land to the Israelites, with its towns and its rich productions (vineyards and olive trees), without any trouble on their part of wearisome cultivation or planting, as Moses himself had promised them (Deu 6:10-11).
These overwhelming manifestations of grace on the part of the Lord laid Israel under obligations to serve the Lord with gratitude and sincerity. "Now therefore fear the Lord (יראוּ for יראוּ, pointed like a verb הל, as in Sa1 12:24; Psa 34:10), and serve Him in sincerity and in truth," i.e., without hypocrisy, or the show of piety, in simplicity and truth of heart (vid., Jdg 9:16, Jdg 9:19). "Put away the gods (Elohim = the strange gods in Jos 24:23) which your fathers served on the other side of the Euphrates and in Egypt." This appeal does not presuppose any gross idolatry on the part of the existing generation, which would have been at variance with the rest of the book, in which Israel is represented as only serving Jehovah during the lifetime of Joshua. If the people had been in possession of idols, they would have given them up to Joshua to be destroyed, as they promised to comply with his demand (Jos 24:16.). But even if the Israelites were not addicted to gross idolatry in the worship of idols, they were not altogether free from idolatry either in Egypt or in the desert. As their fathers were possessed of teraphim in Mesopotamia (see at Jos 24:2), so the Israelites had not kept themselves entirely free from heathen and idolatrous ways, more especially the demon-worship of Egypt (comp. Lev 17:7 with Eze 20:7., Jos 23:3, Jos 23:8, and Amo 5:26); and even in the time of Joshua their worship of Jehovah may have been corrupted by idolatrous elements. This admixture of the pure and genuine worship of Jehovah with idolatrous or heathen elements, which is condemned in Lev 17:7 as the worship of Seirim, and by Ezekiel (l. c.) as the idolatrous worship of the people in Egypt, had its roots in the corruption of the natural heart, through which it is at all times led to make to itself idols of mammon, worldly lusts, and other impure thoughts and desires, to which it cleaves, without being able to tear itself entirely away from them. This more refined idolatry might degenerate in the case of many persons into the grosser worship of idols, so that Joshua had ample ground for admonishing the people to put away the strange gods, and serve the Lord.
But as the true worship of the living God must have its roots in the heart, and spring from the heart, and therefore cannot be forced by prohibitions and commands, Joshua concluded by calling upon the representatives of the nation, in case they were not inclined ("if it seem evil unto you") to serve Jehovah, to choose now this day the gods whom they would serve, whether the gods of their fathers in Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land they were now dwelling, though he and his house would serve the Lord. There is no necessity to adduce any special proofs that this appeal was not intended to release them from the obligation to serve Jehovah, but rather contained the strongest admonition to remain faithful to the Lord.
The people responded to this appeal by declaring, with an expression of horror at idolatry, their hearty resolution to serve the Lord, who was their God, and had shown them such great mercies. The words, "that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," call to mind the words appended to the first commandment (Exo 20:2; Deu 5:6), which they hereby promise to observe. With the clause which follows, "who did those great signs in our sight," etc., they declare their assent to all that Joshua had called to their mind in Jos 24:3-13. "We also" (Jos 24:18), as well as thou and thy house (Jos 24:15).
But in order to place most vividly before the minds of the people to what it was that they bound themselves by this declaration, that they might not inconsiderately vow what they would not afterwards observe, Joshua adds, "Ye cannot serve Jehovah," sc., in the state of mind in which ye are at present, or "by your own resolution only, and without the assistance of divine grace, without solid and serious conversion from all idols, and without true repentance and faith" (J. H. Michaelis). For Jehovah is "a holy God," etc. Elohim, used to denote the Supreme Being (see at Gen 2:4), is construed with the predicate in the plural. On the holiness of God, see the exposition of Exo 19:6. On the expression "a jealous God," see Exo 20:5; and on לפשׁע נשׂא, Exo 23:21. The only other place in which the form קנּוא is used for קנּא is Nah 1:2. "If ye forsake the Lord and serve strange gods, He will turn (i.e., assume a different attitude towards you) and do you hurt, after He has done you good," i.e., He will not spare you, in spite of the blessings which He has conferred upon you. חרע is used to denote the judgments threatened in the law against transgressors.
The people adhered to their resolution. לא, minime, as in Jos 5:14, i.e., we will not serve other gods, but Jehovah.
Upon this repeated declaration Joshua says to them, "ye are witnesses against yourselves," i.e., ye will condemn yourselves by this your own testimony if ye should now forsake the Lord, "for ye yourselves have chosen you Jehovah to serve Him;" whereupon they answer עדים, "witnesses are we against ourselves," signifying thereby, "we profess and ratify once more all that we have said" (Rosenmller). Joshua then repeated his demand that they should put away the strange gods from within them, and incline their hearts (entirely) to Jehovah the God of Israel. בּקבּכם אשׁר הנּכר אלהי might mean the foreign gods which are in the midst of you, i.e., among you, and imply the existence of idols, and the grosser forms of idolatrous worship in the nation; but בּקרב also signifies "within," or "in the heart," in which case the words refer to idols of the heart. That the latter is the sense in which the words are to be understood is evident from the fact, that although the people expressed their willingness to renounce all idolatry, they did not bring any idols to Joshua to be destroyed, as was done in other similar cases, viz., Gen 35:4, and Sa1 7:4. Even if the people had carried idols about with them in the desert, as the prophet Amos stated to his contemporaries (Amo 5:26; cf. Act 7:43), the grosser forms of idolatry had disappeared from Israel with the dying out of the generation that was condemned at Kadesh. The new generation, which had been received afresh into covenant with the Lord by the circumcision at Gilgal, and had set up this covenant at Ebal, and was now assembled around Joshua, the dying servant of God, to renew the covenant once more, had no idols of wood, stone, or metal, but only the "figments of false gods," as Calvin calls them, the idols of the heart, which it was to put away, that it might give its heart entirely to the Lord, who is not content with divided affections, but requires the whole heart (Deu 6:5-6).
On the repeated and decided declaration of the people, "the Lord our God will we serve, and to His voice will we hearken," Joshua completed the covenant with them that day. This conclusion of a covenant was really a solemn renewal of the covenant made at Sinai, like that which took place under Moses in the steppes of Moab (Deu 29:1). "And set them a statute and right at Shechem," sc., through the renewal of the covenant. These words recall Exo 15:25, where the guidance of Israel to bitter water, and the sweetening of that water by the means which the Lord pointed out to Moses, are described as setting a statute and right for Israel, and then explained by the promise, that if they would hearken to the voice of Jehovah, He would keep them from all the diseases of Egypt. And in accordance with this, by the renewal of the covenant at Shechem, there were set for Israel, a חק, i.e., a statute, which bound the people to a renewed and conscientious maintenance of the covenant, and a משׁפּט, or right, by virtue of which they might expect on this condition the fulfilment of all the covenant mercies of the Lord.
All these things (האלּה הדּברים are not merely the words spoken on both sides, but the whole ceremony of renewing the covenant) Joshua wrote in the law-book of God, i.e., he wrote them in a document which he placed in the law-book of Moses, and then set up a large stone, as a permanent memorial of what had taken place, on the spot where the meeting had been held, "under the oak that was in the sanctuary of Jehovah." As בּמקדּשׁ neither means "at the sanctuary," nor near the sanctuary, nor "in the place where the sanctuary was set up;' the "sanctuary of Jehovah" cannot signify "the ark of the covenant, which had been brought from the tabernacle to Shechem, for the ceremony of renewing the covenant." Still less can we understand it as signifying the tabernacle itself, since this was not removed from place to place for particular sacred ceremonies; nor can it mean an altar, in which an oak could not possibly be said to stand; nor some other illegal sanctuary of Jehovah, since there were none in Israel at that time. The sanctuary of Jehovah under the oak at Shechem was nothing else than the holy place under the oak, where Abraham had formerly built an altar and worshipped the Lord, and where Jacob had purified his house from the strange gods, which he buried under this oak, or rather terebinth tree (Gen 12:6-7; Gen 35:2, Gen 35:4). This is the explanation adopted by Masius, J. D. Michaelis, and Hengstenberg (Diss. ii. p. 12). In Jos 24:27 Joshua explains to the people the meaning of the stone which he had set up. The stone would be a witness against the people if they should deny their God. As a memorial of what had taken place, the stone had heard all the words which the Lord had addressed to Israel, and could bear witness against the people, that they might not deny their God. "Deny your God," viz., in feeling, word, or deed.
Joshua then dismissed the people, each one to his inheritance. He had done all that was in his power to establish the people in fidelity to the Lord.
Death and Burial of Joshua and Eleazar. - With the renewal of the covenant Joshua had ended his vocation. He did not formally lay down his office, because there was no immediate successor who had been appointed by God. The ordinary rulers of the congregation were enough, when once they were settled in Canaan, viz., the elders as heads and judges of the nation, together with the high priest, who represented the nation in its relation to God, and could obtain for it the revelation of the will of God through the right of the Urim and Thummim. In order therefore to bring the history of Joshua and his times to a close, nothing further remained than to give an account of his death, with a short reference to the fruit of his labours, and to add certain other notices for which no suitable place had hitherto presented itself.
Soon after these events (vv. 1-28) Joshua died, at the age of 110, like his ancestor Joseph (Gen 50:26), and was buried in his hereditary possessions at Timnath-serah, upon the mountains of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash. Timnath-serah is still in existence see at Jos 19:50). Mount Gaash, however, has not been discovered.
Joshua's labours had not remained without effect. During his own lifetime, and that of the elders who outlived him, and who had seen all that the Lord did for Israel, all Israel served the Lord. "The elders" are the rulers and leaders of the nation. The account of the burial of Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought with them from Egypt to Canaan (Exo 13:19), is placed after the account of Joshua's death, because it could not have been introduced before without interrupting the connected account of the labours of Joshua; and it would not do to pass it over without notice altogether, not only because the fact of their bringing the bones with them had been mentioned in the book of Exodus, but also because the Israelites thereby fulfilled the promise given by their fathers to Joseph when he died. The burial of Joseph in the piece of field which Jacob had purchased at Shechem (vid., Gen 33:19) had no doubt taken place immediately after the division of the land, when Joseph's descendants received Shechem and the field there for an inheritance. This piece of field, however, they chose for a burial-place for Joseph's bones, not only because Jacob had purchased it, but in all probability chiefly because Jacob had sanctified it for his descendants by building an altar there (Gen 33:20). The death and burial of Eleazar, who stood by Joshua's side in the guidance of the nation, are mentioned last of all (Jos 24:33). When Eleazar died, whether shortly before or shortly after Joshua, cannot be determined. He was buried at Gibeah of Phinehas, the place which was given to him upon the mountains of Ephraim, i.e., as his inheritance. Gibeath Phinehas, i.e., hill of Phinehas, is apparently a proper name, like Gibeah of Saul (Sa1 15:34, etc.). The situation, however, is uncertain. According to Eusebius (Onom. s. v. Γαβαάς), it was upon the mountains of Ephraim, in the tribe of Benjamin, and was at that time a place named Gabatha, the name also given to it by Josephus (Ant. v. 1, 29), about twelve Roman miles from Eleutheropolis. This statement is certainly founded upon an error, at least so far as the number twelve is concerned. It is a much more probable supposition, that it is the Levitical town Geba of Benjamin, on the north-east of Ramah (Jos 18:24), and the name Gibeah of Phinehas might be explained on the ground that this place had become the hereditary property of Phinehas, which would be perfectly reconcilable with its selection as one of the priests' cities. As the priests, for example, were not the sole possessors of the towns ceded to them in the possessions of the different tribes, the Israelites might have presented Phinehas with that portion of the city which was not occupied by the priests, and also with the field, as a reward for the services he had rendered to the congregation (Num 25:7.), just as Caleb and Joshua had been specially considered; in which case Phinehas might dwell in his own hereditary possessions in a priests' city. The situation, "upon the mountains of Ephraim," is not at variance with this view, as these mountains extended, according to Jdg 4:5, etc., far into the territory of Benjamin (see at Jos 11:21). The majority of commentators, down to Knobel, have thought the place intended to be a Gibeah in the tribe of Ephraim, namely the present Jeeb or Jibia, by the Wady Jib, on the north of Guphna, towards Neapolis (Sichem: see Rob. Pal. iii. p. 80), though there is nothing whatever to favour this except the name.
With the death of Eleazar the high priest, the contemporary of Joshua, the times of Joshua came to a close, so that the account of Eleazar's death formed a very fitting termination to the book. In some MSS and editions of the Septuagint, there is an additional clause relating to the high priest Phinehas and the apostasy of the Israelites after Joshua's death; but this is merely taken from Jdg 2:6, Jdg 2:11. and Jos 3:7, Jos 3:12., and arbitrarily appended to the book of Joshua.