CHAPTER 24

(1427 B.C.)

JOSHUAS FAREWELL ADDRESS

¹And Joshua 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 (at the Tabernacle, where the Altar and the Ark of the Covenant were).

²And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. (When Grace found Abraham, he was an idolater. In fact, in one way or the other, all who do not know the Lord are guilty of the sin of idolatry. With many it is the worship of self. Even in Christendom, idols are plentiful, although in a different form than during the time of Joshua. Many worship their Churches, their Denominations, etc.)

³And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood (the Euphrates River), and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac (the Lord was the Author of all of these things, as it pertained to Abraham).

⁴And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.

⁵I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out. (From this Chapter, we learn that Joshua stood in the Office of the Prophet. We find the proof of this in Verses 2 and 27. In fact, everything between these two Verses, and including those Verses, is prophetic.)

⁶And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and you came unto the Sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red Sea.

⁷And when they cried unto the LORD, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the Sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. (It was the Will of the Lord that Israel would spend a short period of time in the wilderness, in order that they might learn faith and trust in Him. That time frame would have been approximately 2 years; however, they instead would spend approximately 40 years in the wilderness because of unbelief. It was truly a long season.)

⁸And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land; and I destroyed them from before you (as long as Israel served the Lord, the Lord fought for them).

⁹Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you:

¹⁰But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.

¹¹And you went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand (seven nations strong, which were defeated by the Lord).

¹²And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with your sword, nor with your bow (the Lord used the lowly hornet to effect victory).

¹³And I have given you a land for which you did not labour, and cities which you built not, and you dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which you planted not do you eat.

¹⁴Now 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.

¹⁵And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served who were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (the warrior cannot answer for others, but he does answer for himself; and his answer should be the answer of every human being on Earth).

¹⁶And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;

¹⁷For the LORD our God, He it is Who brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:

¹⁸And the LORD drove out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for He is our God. (The people answered correctly; however, as the near future would prove, their hearts were not exactly according to their words.)

¹⁹And Joshua said unto the people, You cannot serve the LORD: for He is an Holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. (The idea is, the word forgive, as used here, signifies to remove or to bear the burden of guilt. In other words, God could not do such, if proper Atonement is not made, which is the proper Sacrifice, which is a Type of the Cross, and Faith in that Sacrifice. Transgressions signifies a breach of covenant. One can have Forgiveness, Mercy, and Grace only on the basis of the Crucified Christ, and Faith in that atoning Work [Jn. 3:16; Eph. 2:8-9].)

²⁰If you forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then He will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that He has done you good (in all of this, God doesnt change; He rewards obedience, and brings Judgment on disobedience).

THE COVENANT

²¹And the people said unto Joshua, No; but we will serve the LORD.

²²And Joshua said unto the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen you the LORD, to serve Him. And they said, We are witnesses.

²³Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel. (This Passage proves that there was still idolatry among the Israelites, despite the great things done for them by the Lord. This is why John the Beloved said, Little children, keep yourselves from idols [I Jn. 5:21].)

²⁴And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and His Voice will we obey.

²⁵So Joshua made a Covenant with the people that day, and set them a Statute and an Ordinance in Shechem.

THE MONUMENT

²⁶And 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.

²⁷And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest you deny your God (the Lord told the Pharisees that the very stones were prepared to give their testimony to His Person and Mission [Lk. 19:40]).

²⁸So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. (This would be the last time that many of them would see Joshua, one of the greatest men of God who ever lived.)

JOSHUAS DEATH

²⁹And 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. (No higher accolade could be given to any man or woman than to refer to them as the Servant of the Lord. Joshua closed his life with the full consciousness that he had discharged the duties God had imposed upon him, and had done so without failure of Faith.)

³⁰And 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. (Tradition says that they carved the rising Sun on the stone placed over the entrance to the tomb. This commemorated the tremendous miracle wrought by the Lord, when Joshua asked for the day to be lengthened that the victory may be complete. God honored his request.)

³¹And 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. (We see here the value of personal influence. All the days of Joshuas government were only 14 years, and all the days of the Elders who outlived him only 3 years; and then came Israels swift lapse into the abominations of idolatry Williams.)

³²And 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. (Incidentally, both Joseph and Joshua each lived to be 110 years old [Gen. 50:24-26].)

³³And 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. (A glorious Chapter closes, with now a darker Chapter concerning Israel about to begin.)