11 You went over the Jordan, and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand.
It happened, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant being before the people; and when those who bore the ark were come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the time of harvest), that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. The priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over the Jordan.
For the priests who bore the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan, until everything was finished that Yahweh commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hurried and passed over. It happened, when all the people had completely passed over, that the ark of Yahweh passed over, with the priests, in the presence of the people. The children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spoke to them:
When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you;
For Yahweh your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you, until you were passed over, as Yahweh your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were passed over;
Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. Yahweh said to Joshua, Behold, I have given into your hand Jericho, and the king of it, and the mighty men of valor. You shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shall you do six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark: and the seventh day you shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him. Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said to them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of Yahweh. They said to the people, Pass on, and compass the city, and let the armed men pass on before the ark of Yahweh. It was so, that when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns before Yahweh passed on, and blew the trumpets: and the ark of the covenant of Yahweh followed them. The armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rearward went after the ark, [the priests] blowing the trumpets as they went. Joshua commanded the people, saying, You shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall you shout. So he caused the ark of Yahweh to compass the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of Yahweh. The seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of Yahweh went on continually, and blew the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; and the rearward came after the ark of Yahweh, [the priests] blowing the trumpets as they went. The second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did six days. It happened on the seventh day, that they rose early at the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on the day they compassed the city seven times. It happened at the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, Shout; for Yahweh has given you the city. The city shall be devoted, even it and all that is therein, to Yahweh: only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. But as for you, only keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when you have devoted it, you take of the devoted thing; so would you make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy to Yahweh: they shall come into the treasury of Yahweh. So the people shouted, and [the priests] blew the trumpets; and it happened, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword. Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, Go into the prostitute's house, and bring out there the woman, and all that she has, as you swore to her. The young men the spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brothers, and all that she had; all her relatives also they brought out; and they set them outside of the camp of Israel. They burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of Yahweh. But Rahab the prostitute, and her father's household, and all that she had, did Joshua save alive; and she lived in the midst of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers, whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Joshua charged them with an oath at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before Yahweh, that rises up and builds this city Jericho: with the loss of his firstborn shall he lay the foundation of it, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. So Yahweh was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land.
Now it happened, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them; that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men of it were mighty. Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, and to Piram king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me, and help me, and let us strike Gibeon; for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped against Gibeon, and made war against it. The men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Don't slack your hand from your servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill-country are gathered together against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. Yahweh said to Joshua, Don't fear them: for I have delivered them into your hands; there shall not a man of them stand before you. Joshua therefore came on them suddenly; [for] he went up from Gilgal all the night. Yahweh confused them before Israel, and he killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Horon, and struck them to Azekah, and to Makkedah. It happened, as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth Horon, that Yahweh cast down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died: they were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel killed with the sword.
So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. They took fortified cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, and olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance: so they ate, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
He gave them the lands of the nations. They took the labor of the peoples in possession,
which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David,
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].