10 but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.
Behold, the people that is come out of Egypt, it covers the surface of the earth: now, come curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to fight against them, and shall drive them out. God said to Balaam, You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people; for they are blessed.
Balaam answered the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can't go beyond the word of Yahweh my God, to do less or more. Now therefore, please wait also here this night, that I may know what Yahweh will speak to me more. God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, If the men are come to call you, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you, that shall you do.
Balaam said to Balak, Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go: perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me; and whatever he shows me I will tell you. He went to a bare height. God met Balaam: and he said to him, I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on every altar. Yahweh put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak. He returned to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt-offering, he, and all the princes of Moab. He took up his parable, and said, From Aram has Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East: Come, curse me Jacob, Come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy, whom Yahweh has not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, From the hills I see him: behold, it is a people that dwells alone, And shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, Let my last end be like his! Balak said to Balaam, What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have blessed them altogether. He answered and said, Must I not take heed to speak that which Yahweh puts in my mouth?
He said to Balak, Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet [Yahweh] yonder. Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak. He came to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. Balak said to him, What has Yahweh spoken? He took up his parable, and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear; Listen to me, you son of Zippor: God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good? Behold, I have received [commandment] to bless: He has blessed, and I can't reverse it. He has not saw iniquity in Jacob; Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel: Yahweh his God is with him, The shout of a king is among them. God brings them forth out of Egypt; He has as it were the strength of the wild-ox. Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; Neither is there any divination with Israel: Now shall it be said of Jacob and of Israel, What has God done! Behold, the people rises up as a lioness, As a lion does he lift himself up: He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, Drink the blood of the slain. Balak said to Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered Balak, Didn't I tell you, saying, All that Yahweh speaks, that I must do?
How goodly are your tents, Jacob, Your tents, Israel! As valleys are they spread forth, As gardens by the river-side, As lign-aloes which Yahweh has planted, As cedar trees beside the waters. Water shall flow from his buckets, His seed shall be in many waters, His king shall be higher than Agag, His kingdom shall be exalted. God brings him forth out of Egypt; He has as it were the strength of the wild-ox: He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, Shall break their bones in pieces, Smite [them] through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, As a lioness; who shall rouse him up? Blessed be everyone who blesses you, Cursed be everyone who curses you. Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Joshua 24
Commentary on Joshua 24 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 24
Jos 24:1. Joshua Assembling the Tribes.
1. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem—Another and final opportunity of dissuading the people against idolatry is here described as taken by the aged leader, whose solicitude on this account arose from his knowledge of the extreme readiness of the people to conform to the manners of the surrounding nations. This address was made to the representatives of the people convened at Shechem, and which had already been the scene of a solemn renewal of the covenant (Jos 8:30, 35). The transaction now to be entered upon being in principle and object the same, it was desirable to give it all the solemn impressiveness which might be derived from the memory of the former ceremonial, as well as from other sacred associations of the place (Ge 12:6, 7; 33:18-20; 35:2-4).
they presented themselves before God—It is generally assumed that the ark of the covenant had been transferred on this occasion to Shechem; as on extraordinary emergencies it was for a time removed (Jud 20:1-18; 1Sa 4:3; 2Sa 15:24). But the statement, not necessarily implying this, may be viewed as expressing only the religious character of the ceremony [Hengstenberg].
Jos 24:2-13. Relates God's Benefits.
2. Joshua said unto all the people—His address briefly recapitulated the principal proofs of the divine goodness to Israel from the call of Abraham to their happy establishment in the land of promise; it showed them that they were indebted for their national existence as well as their peculiar privileges, not to any merits of their own, but to the free grace of God.
Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood—The Euphrates, namely, at Ur.
Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor—(see Ge 11:27). Though Terah had three sons, Nahor only is mentioned with Abraham, as the Israelites were descended from him on the mother's side through Rebekah and her nieces, Leah and Rachel.
served other gods—conjoining, like Laban, the traditional knowledge of the true God with the domestic use of material images (Ge 31:19, 34).
3. I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan—It was an irresistible impulse of divine grace which led the patriarch to leave his country and relatives, to migrate to Canaan, and live a "stranger and pilgrim" in that land.
4. I gave unto Esau mount Seir—(See on Ge 36:8). In order that he might be no obstacle to Jacob and his posterity being the exclusive heirs of Canaan.
12. I sent the hornet before you—a particular species of wasp which swarms in warm countries and sometimes assumes the scourging character of a plague; or, as many think, it is a figurative expression for uncontrollable terror (see on Ex 23:28).
14-28. Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth—After having enumerated so many grounds for national gratitude, Joshua calls on them to declare, in a public and solemn manner, whether they will be faithful and obedient to the God of Israel. He avowed this to be his own unalterable resolution, and urged them, if they were sincere in making a similar avowal, "to put away the strange gods that were among them"—a requirement which seems to imply that some were suspected of a strong hankering for, or concealed practice of, the idolatry, whether in the form of Zabaism, the fire-worship of their Chaldean ancestors, or the grosser superstitions of the Canaanites.
26. Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God—registered the engagements of that solemn covenant in the book of sacred history.
took a great stone—according to the usage of ancient times to erect stone pillars as monuments of public transactions.
set it up there under an oak—or terebinth, in all likelihood, the same as that at the root of which Jacob buried the idols and charms found in his family.
that was by the sanctuary of the Lord—either the spot where the ark had stood, or else the place around, so called from that religious meeting, as Jacob named Beth-el the house of God.
Jos 24:29, 30. His Age and Death.
29, 30. Joshua … died—Lightfoot computes that he lived seventeen, others twenty-seven years, after the entrance into Canaan. He was buried, according to the Jewish practice, within the limits of his own inheritance. The eminent public services he had long rendered to Israel and the great amount of domestic comfort and national prosperity he had been instrumental in diffusing among the several tribes, were deeply felt, were universally acknowledged; and a testimonial in the form of a statue or obelisk would have been immediately raised to his honor, in all parts of the land, had such been the fashion of the times. The brief but noble epitaph by the historian is, Joshua, "the servant of the Lord."
31. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua—The high and commanding character of this eminent leader had given so decided a tone to the sentiments and manners of his contemporaries and the memory of his fervent piety and many virtues continued so vividly impressed on the memories of the people, that the sacred historian has recorded it to his immortal honor. "Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua."
32. the bones of Joseph—They had carried these venerable relics with them in all their migrations through the desert, and deferred the burial, according to the dying charge of Joseph himself, till they arrived in the promised land. The sarcophagus, in which his mummied body had been put, was brought thither by the Israelites, and probably buried when the tribe of Ephraim had obtained their settlement, or at the solemn convocation described in this chapter.
in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought … for an hundred pieces of silver—Kestitah translated, "piece of silver," is supposed to mean "a lamb," the weights being in the form of lambs or kids, which were, in all probability, the earliest standard of value among pastoral people. The tomb that now covers the spot is a Mohammedan Welce, but there is no reason to doubt that the precious deposit of Joseph's remains may be concealed there at the present time.
33. Eleazar the son of Aaron died, and they buried him in … mount Ephraim—The sepulchre is at the modern village Awertah, which, according to Jewish travellers, contains the graves also of Ithamar, the brother of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar [Van De Velde].