Joshua 24:18

20 If you shall forsake Jehovah, and serve a strange god, he will turn, and do you evil, and consume you, after he has done you good. 21 And the people answered him, By no means; but we will serve Jehovah. 22 And Joshua said unto the people, You are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen Jehovah, to serve him; and they said, (We are) witnesses. 23 Now therefore take away the strange gods which are in the midst of you, and incline your heart to Jehovah the God of Israel. 24 And the people answered, Jehovah our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. 25 Joshua therefore made a covenant with the people on that day; and held forth to them precept and judgment in Sichem. 26 Joshua wrote those words in the book of the law of God; he also brought a great stone, and placed it there beneath the oak which was in the sanctuary of Jehovah. 27 And Joshua said to all the people, Behold, that stone will be for a testimony to you, for it has heard all the words of Jehovah which he has spoken to us, and it will be for a testimony against you, lest perchance you lie against your God. 28 And Joshua sent back the people, every one to his own inheritance. 29 And these things having been done, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, died at the age of a hundred and ten years. 30 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Thimnat-serah, which is on mount Ephraim, to the north of mount Gaas.

24:15-28 It is essential that the service of God's people be performed with a willing mind. For LOVE is the only genuine principle whence all acceptable service of God can spring. The Father seeks only such to worship him, as worship him in spirit and in truth. The carnal mind of man is enmity against God, therefore, is not capable of such spiritual worship. Hence the necessity of being born again. But numbers rest in mere forms, as tasks imposed upon them. Joshua puts them to their choice; but not as if it were indifferent whether they served God or not. Choose you whom ye will serve, now the matter is laid plainly before you. He resolves to do this, whatever others did. Those that are bound for heaven, must be willing to swim against the stream. They must not do as the most do, but as the best do. And no one can behave himself as he ought in any station, who does not deeply consider his religious duties in family relations. The Israelites agree with Joshua, being influenced by the example of a man who had been so great a blessing to them; We also will serve the Lord. See how much good great men do, by their influence, if zealous in religion. Joshua brings them to express full purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord. They must come off from all confidence in their own sufficiency, else their purposes would be in vain. The service of God being made their deliberate choice, Joshua binds them to it by a solemn covenant. He set up a monument of it.

In this affecting manner Joshua took his last leave of them; if they perished, their blood would be upon their own heads. Though the house of God, the Lord's table, and even the walls and trees before which we have uttered our solemn purposes of serving him, would bear witness against us if we deny him, yet we may trust in him, that he will put his fear into our hearts, that we shall not depart from him. God alone can give grace, yet he blesses our endeavours to engage men to his service.

And the Lord drave out from before us all the people,.... The seven nations of the land of Canaan: even the Amorites which dwelt in the land; the strongest and most populous of the nations, Amos 2:9, or especially the Amorites, so Vatablus; or "with the Amorites", as others; those that lived on the other side Jordan, over whom Sihon and Og reigned: therefore will we also serve the Lord: as well as Joshua and his house, for the reasons before given, because he had done such great and good things for them: for he is our God: that has made and preserved us, and loaded us with his benefits, and is our covenant God, and therefore will we fear and serve him.

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.

Verse 18. - Therefore will we also serve the Lord. There is an ambiguity in our version which does not exist in the Hebrew. There is no "therefore," which only serves to obscure the sense, and which is borrowed from the Vulgate. The LXX., which has ἀλλὰ καί , gives the true sense. After the enumeration of the great things God Jehovah has done for them, the Israelites break off, and, referring to the declaration of Joshua in ver. 15, "but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah," reply, "we too will serve Jehovah, for He is our God." Joshua 24:18

The people responded to this appeal by declaring, with an expression of horror at idolatry, their hearty resolution to serve the Lord, who was their God, and had shown them such great mercies. The words, "that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," call to mind the words appended to the first commandment ( Exodus 20:2 ; Deuteronomy 5:6 ), which they hereby promise to observe. With the clause which follows, "who did those great signs in our sight," etc., they declare their assent to all that Joshua had called to their mind in Joshua 24:3-13 . "We also" ( Joshua 24:18 ), as well as thou and thy house ( Joshua 24:15 ).

9 . Yet destroyed I ] The pron. is emphatic: ‘Yet I (whom you thus requite) destroyed the Amorites, that mighty and seemingly invincible nation, from before you, and settled you in their land.’ Destroyed before (lit. from before ) you: the same expression in Joshua 24:8 —a passage belonging to the Hexateuchal narrator, commonly designated by the letter E: “And I brought you into the land of the Amorite, who dwelt beyond Jordan, and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand, and ye possessed their land, and I destroyed them from before you ”; cf. also Deuteronomy 2:21-22 . Amorite is the term used (1) in the passage just quoted, and frequently, of the peoples ruled by Sihon and Og, east of Jordan, conquered by the Israelites; (2) as a general designation of the pre-Israelitish population of the territory W. of Jordan, especially in the Hexateuchal writer ‘E,’ and in Deuteronomy (as Genesis 48:22 ; Deuteronomy 1:7 ; Deuteronomy 1:19-20 ; Joshua 24:15 ; Joshua 24:18 , and occasionally besides (as Jdg 1:34-35 ; Jdg 6:10 ; 2 Samuel 21:2 ): see, more fully, the writer’s Commentary on Deuteronomy , pp. 11–12. It is used here, evidently, in the second sense. like the height of the cedars &c.] A hyperbolical description of the stature and strength of the Amorites: cf. Numbers 13:32 ; Deuteronomy 1:28 (“a people greater and taller than we; cities great and fenced up to heaven”).

And Jehovah drove out from before us all the peoples, and the Amorites the inhabitants of the land: so therefore we will serve Jehovah, for he is our God. And Joshua said to the people, Ye cannot serve Jehovah, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake Jehovah, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good. And the people said to Joshua, No; but we will serve Jehovah. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you Jehovah, to serve him. And they said, [We are] witnesses. Now therefore put away the strange gods that are among you, and incline your heart unto Jehovah the God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, Jehovah our God will we serve, and to his voice will we hearken. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Jehovah. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us, for it hath heard all the words of Jehovah which he spoke unto us; and it shall be a witness against you, lest ye deny your God. And Joshua dismissed the people, every man to his inheritance.