Covenant renewed at Shechem
24
📚And 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. 24:1 This chapter records a public renewal of the covenant God made with Israel.⚜
2 📚And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD God 📖 of Israel, ‘In olden times your fathers 📖, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, lived on the other side of the Euphrates river; and they served other gods. 3 📚And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river and led him through the whole land of Canaan, and increased the number of his offspring and gave him Isaac. 4 📚And I gave Jacob and Esau to Isaac; and I gave Mount Seir to Esau to possess. But Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.
5 📚“‘And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt by what I did among them; and afterwards I brought you, 6 📚and I brought your fathers out of Egypt; and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen 📖 to the Red Sea. 7 📚And when they cried out to the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea over them and covered them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt; and you lived in the desert for a long time 📖.
8 📚“‘And I brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan. And they fought with you; and I gave them into your hands, so that you might possess their land. And I destroyed them from before you. 9 📚Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent men and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. 10 📚But I would not listen to Balaam. Therefore he had to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hands.
24:10 Numbers chapters 23,24.⚜
11 📚“‘And you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the men of Jericho fought against you, as did 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 hands. 12 📚And I sent hornets 📖 before you, which drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but not with your sword or with your bow 📖. 13 📚And I have given you a land for which you did not labour and cities which you did not build, and you live in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’
24:13 Deut 6:10-12. The land was God’s gift to them. It was all of grace. Just as the believer’s possessions in Christ are all of grace (Eph 1:3-6).⚜
14 📚“Now 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 river and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
24:14 Now Joshua himself speaks to Israel.⚜
15 📚And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, today choose 📖 whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But as for me and my household 📖, we will serve the LORD”.
16 📚And the people answered and said, “God forbid that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods. 17 📚For the LORD our God is the one who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us all along the way where we travelled and among all the people through whom we passed. 18 📚And the LORD drove out from before us all the people, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we too will serve the LORD; for he is our God”.
24:16-18 The people knew much of God’s Word and doings; they professed strongly their intention to be faithful to Him. Yet false gods were in their midst (v 23), and in heart they were a rebellious (v 19) people. In every generation some who profess to be God’s people are ignorant of the power of their sinful natures and easily think and say they will serve God (Ex 19:8; Jer 17:9).⚜
19 📚And Joshua said to the people, “You cannot 📖 serve the LORD, for he is a holy 📖 God, he is a jealous 📖 God. He will not forgive 📖 your transgressions or your sins. 20 📚If you forsake the LORD and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you harm and make an end of you, after the good he has done you”.
21 📚And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the LORD”.
22 📚And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD for yourselves, to serve him”. And they said, “We are witnesses”.
23 📚“Now therefore”, he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you and turn your heart to the LORD God of Israel”.
24:23 Verse 14.⚜
24 📚And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God, and obey his voice”.
24:24 Three times they insisted on this. But the people did not keep their word very long (Jud 2:6-13).⚜
25 📚So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and set before them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26 📚And 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.
27 📚And Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone will be a witness to us; for it has heard all the words of the LORD which he spoke to us; so it will be a witness to you, that you should not deny your God”.
24:25-27 Joshua made this occasion as solemn as possible to impress on the minds of the people the importance of obedience and faithfulness.⚜
28 📚So Joshua let the people depart, each one to his inheritance.
Death of Joshua
29 📚And it came about after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being a hundred and ten years old. 30 📚And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-Serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash. 31 📚And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and who knew all the deeds of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.
32 📚And in Shechem they buried the bones 📖 of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, in a plot of ground which Jacob bought 📖 from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of silver. And it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
33 📚And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that belonged to Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the hill country of Ephraim.