Joshua 24:29 - Meaning and Application

This book began with victory, and it ends with funerals. That reminds us that all human glory fades. The chapter closes with the burial of Joseph, Joshua, and Eleazar, and with a short account of Israel’s condition at that time.

Joseph died about 200 years earlier in Egypt, but he had ordered that his bones should not rest until Israel had rest in the promised land (Genesis 50:25). So the Israelites carried his coffin full of bones with them out of Egypt and through the wilderness. The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s descendants, likely took special care of it. They kept it in the camp until Canaan was fully taken, and then they buried him in the piece of ground near Shechem that his father had given him (Genesis 48:22). It is likely that Joshua gathered all Israel at Shechem for this reason, so the meeting served both as Joseph’s burial and Joshua’s farewell. If this was in Joshua’s last year, the occasion would also have reminded him that his own death was near. He was not far from the age Joseph had reached when he died, 110 years old (Joshua 24:29; Genesis 50:26).

Joshua’s own death and burial are also recorded here (Joshua 24:29, 30). We are not told how many years he lived after Israel entered Canaan. Some think it was about seventeen years, while Jewish writers usually say twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He is called the servant of the Lord, the same title given to Moses when his death was mentioned (Joshua 1:1). Joshua was less great than Moses in some ways, but he was equal to him in this, he faithfully served God in the work given to him. The servant who used two talents received the same approval as the one who used five: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

His burial place was on the north side of the hill Gaash, or the “quaking hill.” Jewish writers say it was called that because it shook at Joshua’s burial, as a rebuke to Israel for not mourning such a great and good man as they should have done. At the death of Christ, our Joshua, the earth also quaked. Bishop Patrick notes that there is no mention of a formal mourning period for Joshua, unlike Moses and Aaron. Some of the fathers saw meaning in that. Under the law, when eternal life and immortality were not yet so clearly shown, people had reason to mourn deeply for the death of friends. But now that Jesus, our Joshua, has opened the kingdom of heaven, we may rather rejoice.

Eleazar, the chief priest, also died about the same time as Joshua, as Aaron had died in the same year as Moses (Joshua 24:33). The Jews say that shortly before he died, Eleazar gathered the elders and gave them his final charge, just as Joshua had done. He was buried in a hill that belonged to his son Phinehas. That hill did not come to Phinehas by inheritance from his father, since it would then have belonged first to Eleazar, and the priests did not have cities in Mount Ephraim. It was either given to him through marriage, as the Jews suppose, or freely granted to him by a godly Israelite who honored the priesthood. The text says it was given to him, and there he buried his beloved father.

This gives us a brief picture of Israel at that time (Joshua 24:31). While Joshua lived, religion was kept up among the people through his care and influence. But after he and his generation died, it began to decline. Often, one strong leader holds things together for a time. How good it is for the gospel church that Christ, our Joshua, remains with it by his Spirit and will be with it always, even to the end of the world.