Joshua’s final exhortation chapter
23
📚And it came about a long time after the LORD had given rest 📖 to Israel from all their enemies on every side, that Joshua became old and advanced in age. 2 📚And Joshua called for all Israel and for their elders and for their heads and for their judges and for their officers, and said to them, “I am old and advanced in age; 23:2 Israel’s leader, after a lifetime of faithful service, desired to give parting words of wisdom and counsel.⚜
3 📚and you have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake; for the LORD your God is the one who has fought for you. 4 📚See, I have apportioned to you by lot these nations that remain, with all the nations that I have cut off, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan to the great sea 📖 on the west. 5 📚And the LORD your God will expel them from before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the LORD your God has promised to you.
23:4-5 Joshua calls to mind all that God had already given to His people. Every believer should always keep in remembrance the grace of God shown toward them in the past, and so have confidence for the future. The promise in v 5 refers to those enemies that still remained in the land (Josh 13:1, 13; 16:10; 17:12-13).⚜
6 📚“Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you turn not aside from it to the right hand or to the left,
23:6 Josh 1:7. Joshua had learned by experience the importance and blessedness of this. The promise of v 5 was based on this condition. If they did not do this, God would not do that.⚜
7 📚so that you do not mingle 📖 with these nations, these that remain among you, or mention the name of their gods or make oaths by them or serve them or bow down to them 📖, 8 📚but cling 📖 to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day.
9 📚“For the LORD has driven out from before you great and strong nations; but as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. 10 📚One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the LORD your God is the one who fights for you, as he has promised you.
23:10 Lev 26:8; Deut 32:30. The presence of the Lord with even one of His people provides greater power than is possessed by all the forces of evil (Ps 18:32-39; Rom 8:31; 1 Cor 15:57; 2 Cor 2:14; Phil 4:13; 1 John 4:4).⚜
11 📚Therefore be careful about yourselves. See that you love 📖 the LORD your God.
12 📚“For if you ever turn back and cling to the survivors of these nations, these that remain among you, and intermarry with them and go in to them and they to you,
23:12 Deut 7:3-4. Marriage is forbidden between God’s special people and those who are not. This is a principle clearly taught in the New Testament also (2 Cor 6:14-15).⚜
13 📚know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps to you and whips on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.
14 📚And, see, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you all know in your hearts and in your souls that not one of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you has failed. All have been fulfilled for you, and not one word of it has failed. 15 📚Therefore this is how it will be: just as all the good things which the LORD your God promised you have come on you, so the LORD will bring on you every bad thing until he has destroyed you from this good land which the LORD your God has given you. 16 📚When you break the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger 📖 of the LORD will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land which he has given to you”.
23:15-16 Lev 26:14-33; Deut 28:15-63. These verses show very clearly that these promises God made to them were based on conditions.⚜