Joshua 24:1 - Meaning and Application

Joshua had thought his last farewell to Israel was in the serious charge he gave in the previous chapter, when he said, "I am going the way of all the earth." But God kept him alive longer than expected and gave him renewed strength, so Joshua wanted to use that extra time for Israel’s good. He did not think, "I have already said goodbye once, so that is enough." Instead, while he still had time left, he called them together again to see what more he could do to lead them to God. We should never think our work for God is finished until our life is finished. If God lengthens our days beyond what we expected, we should take that as a sign that he has more service for us to do.

The people gathered were the same ones named in the previous chapter, the elders, heads, judges, and officers of Israel (Joshua 24:1). But this meeting was made more solemn than the earlier one. The place was Shechem, chosen not only because it was nearer to Joshua than Shiloh, and therefore easier for him to reach in his weakness, but also because it had deep meaning for Israel’s history. Abraham, the first receiver of God’s covenant with this people, had settled there when he came into Canaan, and God had appeared to him there (Genesis 12:6-7). Near Shechem were Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, where the people had renewed their covenant with God when they first entered Canaan (Joshua 8:30). This place would remind them both of God’s promises to their fathers and of the promises they had made to God.

They stood not only before Joshua, but before God. That means they came together in a serious religious way, as if standing in God’s special presence, ready to hear him speak through Joshua. It is likely the meeting began with prayer. Some interpreters think Joshua had the ark of God brought there by the priests for this great occasion, since Shechem was about ten miles from Shiloh. They think it was set in the meeting place, which is later called "the sanctuary of the Lord" (Joshua 24:26), because the ark’s presence made it holy for that time. This would have added honor to the gathering and filled the people with reverence. We do not now have such visible signs of God’s presence, but we should believe that where two or three gather in Christ’s name, he is truly among them, just as God was present where the ark stood.

Joshua spoke to them in God’s name, as a prophet does, saying, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, your covenant God, whom you are bound to hear and obey" (Joshua 24:2). We should receive God’s word as his own, no matter who brings it. The messenger’s greatness cannot make it greater, and his lowliness cannot make it less. Joshua’s message had two parts, doctrine and application. The doctrinal part was a history of the great things God had done for Israel and for their fathers before them. Through Joshua, God was saying, in effect, "I did this and that." They needed to know not only that these things happened, but that God himself did them.

God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans (Joshua 24:2-3). Abraham and his family had served other gods there, for that was a land where idolatry had taken root, as some think, even though it was famous for learning. There, by human wisdom, people did not know God. Abraham, who later became God’s friend and a special favorite of heaven, had been raised in idolatry and lived in it for a long time, until God’s grace rescued him like a brand taken out of a fire. They were to remember the rock from which they had been cut and not fall back into the sin from which their fathers had been delivered by a miracle of free grace. God says, "I took him," because without that divine rescue he would never have left that sinful condition. For that reason, Paul uses Abraham’s being made right with God, that is, justified, as an example of God justifying the ungodly (Romans 4:5).

God also brought Abraham into Canaan and established his family there. He led him through the land to Shechem, where they now stood. He multiplied Abraham’s children through Ishmael, who became the father of twelve princes, and at last gave him Isaac, the promised son, and through Isaac multiplied his seed. When Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau, God gave Esau an inheritance elsewhere, in Mount Seir, so that the land of Canaan would remain fully for Jacob’s family. In this way, Esau’s descendants would not claim a share in it.

God delivered Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt with a mighty hand (Joshua 24:5-6), and rescued them from Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea (Joshua 24:6-7). The same waters were Israel’s protection and Egypt’s grave. This rescue came in answer to prayer, because although the story says they grumbled in that distress (Exodus 14:11-12), Joshua here notes that they cried out to God. God kindly accepted those who prayed to him and passed over the foolishness of those who complained against him.

God protected them in the wilderness, where they are said not to have wandered, but to have lived for a long time (Joshua 24:7). Their movements were directed with such wisdom, and they were kept so safely, that even there they had as secure a home as if they had lived inside a fortified city.

God gave them the land of the Amorites on the east side of the Jordan (Joshua 24:8). There he also ruined Balak and Balaam’s plot against Israel. Balaam wanted to curse them, but could not. Since Balak had planned to attack them, Joshua speaks as though he had done it. The turning of Balaam’s tongue from cursing Israel to blessing them is often mentioned as a striking example of God’s power on Israel’s behalf. In it, God showed, and still shows more than we notice, his rule over the powers of darkness and over human spirits.

God then brought them safely and triumphantly into Canaan, gave the Canaanites into their hand (Joshua 24:11), and sent hornets ahead of them. These swarms tormented the enemy with their stings and frightened them with their noise, making them easy for Israel to defeat. The hornets first appeared in the wars against Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings, and then in Israel’s later battles (Joshua 24:12). God had promised to do this for them (Exodus 23:27-28; Deuteronomy 7:20), and Joshua points out that promise now fulfilled. These hornets, it seems, did more harm to the enemy than Israel’s weapons did, so Joshua adds, "not with your sword or your bow." It was entirely the Lord’s doing.

At last, they were now settled peacefully in a good land and were enjoying the fruit of other people’s labor (Joshua 24:13).

Joshua applies this history of God’s mercy by calling the people to fear and serve God, so that they will be grateful for his favor and keep enjoying it (Joshua 24:14). In light of all that God has done, they are to “fear the Lord,” meaning they must honor him, be careful not to offend him, and live with a steady awareness of his presence (Hosea 3:5). They should respect his power, tremble at the thought of losing his goodness, and keep a holy awe of his majesty and his authority.

Their actions must match that fear. They are to serve him through outward worship and through obedience in all of life, doing it in sincerity and truth, with a single-minded and upright heart. This is the “truth in the inward part” that God requires (Psalm 51:6). There is no use pretending before a God who searches the heart.

They also must put away the false gods, both the Chaldean and Egyptian idols, because these were the temptations they were most likely to return to. This warning is repeated later (Joshua 24:23), which suggests that some among them were privately keeping images or small idols in their homes, perhaps as family keepsakes handed down from their ancestors. Joshua urges them to throw these away, destroy them, and remove every chance of being drawn back into idolatry.

Jacob had pressed his own household to do the same, and at this very place. When his family gave him their little idols, he buried them under the oak near Shechem (Genesis 35:2, Genesis 35:4). The oak mentioned here (Joshua 24:26) may have been the same one, or another tree in the same place, and it could well be called the oak of reform, since idolatrous oaks had also been used for evil.