11 And ye went over the 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.
And it came to pass when the people removed from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, that the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were before the people; and when they that bore the ark were come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (and the Jordan is full over all its banks throughout the days of harvest), the waters which flowed down from above stood [and] rose up in a heap, very far, by Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan; and those that flowed down towards the sea of the plain, the salt sea, were completely cut off. And the people went over opposite to Jericho. And the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan. And all Israel went over on dry ground, until all the nation had completely gone over the Jordan.
And the priests who bore the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan, until everything was finished that Jehovah had commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. And the people hasted and passed over. And it came to pass, when all the people had completely gone over, that the ark of Jehovah went over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, went over in array before the children of Israel, as Moses had spoken to them.
When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou,
because Jehovah your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you, until ye had passed over, as Jehovah your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we had passed over;
Now Jericho was shut up and was barred, because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And Jehovah said to Joshua, See, I have given into thy hand Jericho, and the king thereof, [and] the valiant men. And ye shall go round the city, all the men of war, encompassing the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall carry before the ark seven blast-trumpets; and on the seventh day ye shall go round the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass when they make a long blast with the blast-horn, that all the people on hearing the sound of the trumpet shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall flat, and the people shall go up, each one straight before him. And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said to them, Carry the ark of the covenant, and seven priests shall carry seven blast-trumpets before the ark of Jehovah. And he said to the people, Pass on, go round the city, and they that are armed shall pass on before the ark of Jehovah. And it came to pass when Joshua had spoken to the people, that the seven priests carrying the seven blast-trumpets before Jehovah passed on and blew with the trumpets; and the ark of the covenant of Jehovah went after them. And the armed men went before the priests who blew with the trumpets, and the rearguard came after the ark; they blew with the trumpets in marching. And Joshua had commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, neither shall a word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I say to you, Shout; then shall ye shout. And the ark of Jehovah went round the city, encompassing [it] once; and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests carried the ark of Jehovah. And the seven priests carrying the seven blast-trumpets before the ark of Jehovah went on and blew continually with the trumpets; and the armed men went before them, and the rearguard went after the ark of Jehovah; they blew with the trumpets in marching. And on the second day they went round the city once, and returned into the camp. So they did six days. And it was so that on the seventh day they rose early, about the morning-dawn, and went round the city after the same manner seven times; only on that day they went round the city seven times. And it came to pass the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, that Joshua said to the people, Shout; for Jehovah has given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, it and all that is in it, to Jehovah; only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. But in any wise keep from the accursed thing, lest ye make [yourselves] accursed in taking of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. And all the silver, and gold, and vessels of copper and iron, shall be holy to Jehovah; they shall come into the treasury of Jehovah. And the people shouted, and they blew with the trumpets. And it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpets, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat; and the people went up into the city, each one straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city; both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. And Joshua said to the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house and bring out thence the woman, and all that she has, as ye swore unto her. And the young men, the spies, went in and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had: all her kindred did they bring out, and they left them outside the camp of Israel. And they burned the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of copper and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of Jehovah. And Joshua saved alive Rahab the harlot, and her father's household, and all that she had, and she dwelt in the midst of Israel to this day; because she hid the messengers whom Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho. And Joshua swore at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before Jehovah who shall rise up and build this city Jericho! In his first-born shall he lay its foundation, and in his youngest son shall he set up its gates. And Jehovah was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land.
And it came to pass when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it, that he had done to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them, that they feared greatly; for Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. And Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, and to Piream king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon; for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. And the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, [and] the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their armies, and they encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, saying, Withdraw not thy hand from thy 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 against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, even all the valiant men. And Jehovah said to Joshua, Fear them not; for into thy hand have I given them: not a man of them shall stand before thee. And Joshua came upon them suddenly; he went up from Gilgal all night. And Jehovah discomfited them before Israel, and smote them [with] a great slaughter at Gibeon; and he chased them on the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, and smote them up to Azekah and Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, -- they were at the descent of Beth-horon, -- that Jehovah cast down great stones from heaven upon them up to Azekah, and they died. They were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel had slain with the sword.
And the children went in and possessed the land; and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, both their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, wells digged, vineyards and olive-gardens, and fruit trees in abundance. And they did eat and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
And he gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the labour of the peoples:
which also our fathers, receiving from their predecessors, brought in with Joshua when they entered into possession of [the lands of] the nations, whom God drove out from [the] face of our fathers, until 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].