Josh 24:14-31 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
In the last lesson, Caleb at eighty-five asked Joshua: “Now therefore give me this hill country, of which the LORD spoke in that day” (Josh 14:12), and Joshua gave him Hebron.
When the land had been divided, the passage says: “Nothing failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Josh 21:45). Many days later, Joshua called for the elders, heads, judges and officers of Israel, and said to them: “I am old and well advanced in years” (Josh 23:2), and “Behold, today I am going the way of all the earth” (Josh 23:14).
After that, “Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem” (Josh 24:1). He spoke to all the people for the LORD, beginning with “Your fathers lived of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor. They served other gods” (Josh 24:2), and going on as far as “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you didn’t build” (Josh 24:13). This lesson reads what he said next.
14“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve the LORD.
15If it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
16The people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;
17for it is the LORD our God 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 in all the way in which we went, and among all the peoples through the middle of whom we passed.
18The LORD drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD; for he is our God.”
19Joshua said to the people, “You can’t serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins.
20If you forsake the LORD, and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and consume you, after he has done you good.”
21The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the LORD.”
22Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD yourselves, to serve him.” They said, “We are witnesses.”
23“Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.”
24The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God, and we will listen to his voice.”
25So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
26Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.
27Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the LORD’s words which he spoke to us. It shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God.”
28So Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.
29After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred ten years old.
30They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash.
31Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of the LORD, that he had worked for Israel.
Put away. Joshua said: “Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve the LORD” (v. 14).
Choose today. “If it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell” (v. 15). Joshua set the choice before the people, and then said what his own was: “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (v. 15).
Far be it from us. “The people answered, ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods’” (v. 16). They told over what the LORD had done for them: he brought them up out of the house of bondage in Egypt, did great signs in their sight, and preserved them on the way (v. 17). “Therefore we also will serve the LORD; for he is our God” (v. 18).
You can’t. “Joshua said to the people, ‘You can’t serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins’” (v. 19). The reason he gives is the ‘for’ in this very verse.
Witnesses. “The people said to Joshua, ‘No, but we will serve the LORD’” (v. 21). Joshua said: “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD yourselves, to serve him”; “They said, ‘We are witnesses’” (v. 22). Joshua said: “Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel” (v. 23). The people answered a third time: “We will serve the LORD our God, and we will listen to his voice” (v. 24).
A great stone. “So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem” (v. 25). He “wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD” (v. 26), and said: “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us” (v. 27).
One hundred ten years old. “After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred ten years old” (v. 29). “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of the LORD, that he had worked for Israel” (v. 31).
Another generation. The beginning of Judges writes this again: “The people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the LORD that he had worked for Israel” (Judg 2:7). Then it says: “After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel” (Judg 2:10).
Israel’s fathers had come to Shechem long before. When Abram came into Canaan, “Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh” (Gen 12:6), and the LORD appeared to him and said: “I will give this land to your offspring” (Gen 12:7).
Later, “Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you’” (Gen 35:2); they gave the foreign gods to Jacob, “and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem” (Gen 35:4).
Readers can see this: what Joshua said at Shechem, “Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you” (v. 23), Jacob had once said the same thing; and those foreign gods, that time, were hidden by Shechem.
Perhaps in your home you are the only one who believes; perhaps you long for your family to serve God with you; perhaps you and your family have gone different ways for a long time.
This lesson does not teach you how to get your family to make a choice. What it shows you is this: Joshua set the choice before everyone, “choose today whom you will serve” (v. 15), and then said his own first: ‘as for me.’ When the people said they would serve, he did not say yes for them; he told them, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD yourselves” (v. 22). A psalm says: “But it is good for me to come close to God” (Ps 73:28).
This week: Write down one small ‘as for me’ thing — a time each day, a habit to lay down, a person to visit — and do it this week. And pray for one person in your family, once a day; only pray, there is no need to try to persuade them.
Joshua brought the people into the land, and the passage says: “The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that he swore to their fathers” (Josh 21:44).
The letter to the Hebrews says: “For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day” (Heb 4:8); “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb 4:9); “For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his” (Heb 4:10). And then it says: “Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let’s hold tightly to our confession” (Heb 4:14).
Here these lines are simply read together: Joshua brought the people into the land; Hebrews says that this was not yet the last rest; and the letter goes on to speak of Jesus.
Scripture: World English Bible.