_JOSHUA'S LAST APPEAL._
JOSHUA xxiv.
It was at Shechem that Joshua's last meeting with the people took
place. The Septuagint makes it Shiloh in one verse (ver. 1), but
Shechem in another (ver. 25); but there is no sufficient reason for
rejecting the common reading. Joshua might feel that a meeting which
was not connected with the ordinary business of the sanctuary, but
which was more for a personal purpose, a solemn leave-taking on his
part from the people, might be held better at Shechem. There was much
to recommend that place. It lay a few miles to the north-west of
Shiloh, and was not only distinguished (as we have already said) as
Abraham's first resting-place in the country, and the scene of the
earliest of the promises given in it to him; but likewise as the place
where, between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, the blessings and curses of
the law had been read out soon after Joshua entered the land, and the
solemn assent of the people given to them. And whereas it is said
(ver. 26) that the great stone set up as a witness was "by the
sanctuary of the Lord," this stone may have been placed at Shiloh
after the meeting, because there it would be more fully in the
observation of the people as they came up to the annual festivals (see
1 Sam. i. 7, 9). Shechem was therefore the scene of Joshua's farewell
address. Possibly it was delivered close to the well of Jacob and the
tomb of Joseph; at the very place where, many centuries later, the New
Testament Joshua sat wearied with His journey, and unfolded the riches
of Divine grace to the woman of Samaria.
1. In the record of Joshua's speech contained in the twenty-fourth
chapter, he begins by rehearsing the history of the nation. He has an
excellent reason for beginning with the revered name of Abraham,
because Abraham had been conspicuous for that very grace, loyalty to
Jehovah, which he is bent on impressing on them. Abraham had made a
solemn choice in religion. He had deliberately broken with one kind of
worship, and accepted another. His fathers had been idolaters, and he
had been brought up an idolater. But Abraham renounced idolatry for
ever. He did this at a great sacrifice, and what Joshua entreated of
the people was, that they would be as thorough and as firm as he was
in their repudiation of idolatry. The rehearsal of the history is
given in the words of God to remind them that the whole history of
Israel had been planned and ordered by Him. He had been among them
from first to last; He had been with them through all the lives of the
patriarchs; it was He that had delivered them from Egypt by Moses and
Aaron, that had buried the Egyptians under the waters of the sea, that
had driven the Amorites out of the eastern provinces, had turned the
curse of Balaam into a blessing, had dispossessed the seven nations,
and had settled the Israelites in their pleasant and peaceful abodes.
We mark in this rehearsal the well-known features of the national
history, as they were always represented; the frank recognition of the
supernatural, with no indication of myth or legend, with nothing of
the mist or glamour in which the legend is commonly enveloped. And,
seeing that God had done all this for them, the inference was that He
was entitled to their heartiest loyalty and obedience. "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 flood, and
in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord." It seems strange that at that very
time the people needed to be called to put away other gods. But this
only shows how destitute of foundation the common impression is, that
from and after the departure from Egypt the whole host of Israel were
inclined to the law as it had been given by Moses. There was still a
great amount of idolatry among them, and a strong tendency towards it.
They were not a wholly reformed or converted people. This Joshua knew
right well; he knew that there was a suppressed fire among them liable
to burst into a conflagration; hence his aggressive attitude, and his
effort to foster an aggressive spirit in them; he must bind them over
by every consideration to renounce wholly all recognition of other
gods, and to make Jehovah the one only object of their worship. Never
was a good man more in earnest, or more thoroughly persuaded that all
that made for a nation's welfare was involved in the course which he
pressed upon them.
2. But Joshua did not urge this merely on the strength of his own
conviction. He must enlist their reason on his side; and for this
cause he now called on them deliberately to weigh the claims of other
gods and the advantages of other modes of worship, and choose that
which must be pronounced the best. There were four claimants to be
considered: (1) Jehovah; (2) the Chaldæan gods worshipped by their
ancestors; (3) the gods of the Egyptians; and (4) the gods of the
Amorites among whom they dwelt. Make your choice between these, said
Joshua, if you are dissatisfied with Jehovah. But could there be any
reasonable choice between these gods and Jehovah? It is often useful,
when we hesitate as to a course, to set down the various reasons for
and against,--it may be the reasons of our judgment against the
reasons of our feelings; for often this course enables us to see how
utterly the one outweighs the other. May it not be useful for us to do
as Joshua urged Israel to do?
If we set down the reasons for making God, God in Christ, the supreme
object of our worship, against those in favour of the world, how
infinitely will the one scale outweigh the other! In the choice of a
master, it is reasonable for a servant to consider which has the
greatest claim upon him; which is intrinsically the most worthy to be
served; which will bring him the greatest advantages; which will give
him most inward satisfaction and peace; which will exercise the best
influence on his character, and which comes recommended most by old
servants whose testimony ought to weigh with him. If these are the
grounds of a reasonable choice in the case of a servant engaging with
a master, how much more in reference to the Master of our spirits!
Nothing can be plainer than that the Israelites in Joshua's time had
every conceivable reason for choosing their fathers' God as the
supreme object of their worship, and that any other course would have
been alike the guiltiest and the silliest that could have been taken.
Are the reasons a whit less powerful why every one of us should devote
heart and life and mind and soul to the service of Him who gave
Himself for us, and has loved us with an everlasting love?
3. But Joshua is fully prepared to add example to precept. Whatever
you do in this matter, my mind is made up, my course is clear--"as for
me and my house, we will serve Jehovah." He reminds us of a general
exhorting his troops to mount the deadly breach and dash into the
enemy's citadel. Strong and urgent are his appeals; but stronger and
more telling is his act when, facing the danger right in front, he
rushes on, determined that, whatever others may do, he will not flinch
from his duty. It is the old Joshua back again, the Joshua that alone
with Caleb stood faithful amid the treachery of the spies, that has
been loyal to God all his life, and now in the decrepitude of old age
is still prepared to stand alone rather than dishonour the living God.
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." He was happy in
being able to associate his house with himself as sharing his
convictions and his purpose. He owed this, in all likelihood, to his
own firm and intrepid attitude throughout his life. His house saw how
consistently and constantly he recognised the supreme claims of
Jehovah. Not less clearly did they see how constantly he experienced
the blessedness of his choice.
4. Convinced by his arguments, moved by his eloquence, and carried
along by the magnetism of his example, the people respond with
enthusiasm, deprecate the very thought of forsaking Jehovah to serve
other gods, and recognise most cordially the claims he has placed them
under, by delivering them from Egypt, preserving them in the
wilderness, and driving out the Amorites from their land. After this
an ordinary leader would have felt quite at ease, and would have
thanked God that his appeal had met with such a response, and that
such demonstration had been given of the loyalty of the people. But
Joshua knew something of their fickle temper. He may have called to
mind the extraordinary enthusiasm of their fathers when the tabernacle
was in preparation; the singular readiness with which they had
contributed their most valued treasures, and the grievous change they
underwent after the return of the spies. Even an enthusiastic burst
like this is not to be trusted. He must go deeper; he must try to
induce them to think more earnestly of the matter, and not trust to
the feeling of the moment.
5. Hence he draws a somewhat dark picture of Jehovah's character. He
dwells on those attributes which are least agreeable to the natural
man, His holiness, His jealousy, and His inexorable opposition to sin.
When he says, "He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins,"
he cannot mean that God is not a God of forgiveness. He cannot wish to
contradict the first part of that gracious memorial which God gave to
Moses: "The Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, longsuffering
and abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin." His object is to emphasize the clause, "and
that will by no means clear the guilty." Evidently he means that the
sin of idolatry is one that God cannot pass over, cannot fail to
punish, until, probably through terrible judgments, the authors of it
are brought to contrition, and humble themselves in the dust before
him. "Ye cannot serve the Lord," said Joshua; "take care how you
undertake what is beyond your strength!" Perhaps he wished to impress
on them the need of Divine strength for so difficult a duty. Certainly
he did not change their purpose, but only drew from them a more
resolute expression. "Nay; but we will serve the Lord. And Joshua
said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have
chosen the Lord to serve Him. And they said, We are witnesses."
6. And now Joshua comes to a point which had doubtless been in his
mind all the time, but which he had been waiting for a favourable
opportunity to bring forward. He had pledged the people to an absolute
and unreserved service of God, and now he demands a practical proof of
their sincerity. He knows quite well that they have "strange gods"
among them. Teraphim, images, or ornaments having a reference to the
pagan gods, he knows that they possess. And he does not speak as if
this were a rare thing, confined to a very few. He speaks as if it
were a common practice, generally prevalent. Again we see how far from
the mark we are when we think of the whole nation as cordially
following the religion of Moses, in the sense of renouncing all other
gods. Minor forms of idolatry, minor recognitions of the gods of the
Chaldæans and the Egyptians and the Amorites, were prevalent even yet.
Probably Joshua called to mind the scene that had occurred at that
very place hundreds of years before, when Jacob, rebuked by God, and
obliged to remove from Shechem, called on his household: "Put away the
strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your
garments.... And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were
in the land, and all the ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob
hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." Alas! that, centuries
later, it was necessary for Joshua in the same place to issue the same
order,--Put away the gods which are among you, and serve ye the Lord.
What a weed sin is, and how it is for ever reappearing! And
reappearing among ourselves too, in a different variety, but
essentially the same. For what honest and earnest heart does not feel
that there are idols and images among ourselves that interfere with
God's claims and God's glory as much as the teraphim and the ear-rings
of the Israelites did? The images of the Israelites were little
images, and it was probably at by-times and in retirement that they
made use of them; and so, it may not be on the leading occasions or in
the outstanding work of our lives that we are wont to dishonour God.
But who that knows himself but must think with humiliation of the
numberless occasions on which he indulges little whims or inclinations
without thinking of the will of God; the many little acts of his daily
life on which conscience is not brought to bear; the disengaged state
of his mind from that supreme controlling influence which would bear
on it if God were constantly recognised as his Master? And who does
not find that, despite his endeavour from time to time to be more
conscientious, the old habit, like a weed whose roots have only been
cut over, is ever showing itself alive?
7. And now comes the closing and clinching transaction of this meeting
at Shechem. Joshua enters into a formal covenant with the people; he
records their words in the book of the law of the Lord; he takes a
great stone and sets it up under an oak that was by the sanctuary of
the Lord; and he constitutes the stone a witness, as if it had heard
all that had been spoken by the Lord to them and by them to the Lord.
The covenant was a transaction invested with special solemnity among
all Eastern peoples, and especially among the Israelites. Many
instances had occurred in their history, of covenants with God, and of
other covenants, like that of Abraham with Abimelech, or that of
Jacob with Laban. The wanton violation of a covenant was held an act
of gross impiety, deserving the reprobation alike of God and man. When
Joshua got the people bound by a transaction of this sort, he seemed
to obtain a new guarantee for their fidelity; a new barrier was
erected against their lapsing into idolatry. It was natural for him to
expect that some good would come of it, and no doubt it contributed to
the happy result; "for Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua,
and all the days of the elders which overlived Joshua, and which had
known all the works of the Lord that He had done for Israel." And yet
it was but a temporary barrier against a flood which seemed ever to be
gathering strength unseen, and preparing for another fierce discharge
of its disastrous waters.
At the least, this meeting secured for Joshua a peaceful sunset, and
enabled him to sing his "Nunc dimittis." The evil which he dreaded
most was not at work as the current of life ebbed away from him; it
was his great privilege to look round him and see his people faithful
to their Lord. It does not appear that Joshua had any very
comprehensive or far-reaching aims with reference to the moral
training and development of the people. His idea of religion seems to
have been, a very simple loyalty to Jehovah, in opposition to the
perversions of idolatry. It is not even very plain whether or not he
was much impressed by the capacity of true religion to pervade all the
relations and engagements of men, and brighten and purify the whole
life. We are too prone to ascribe all the virtues to the good men of
the Old Testament, forgetting that of many virtues there was only a
progressive development, and that it is not reasonable to look for
excellence beyond the measure of the age. Joshua was a soldier, a
soldier of the Old Testament, a splendid man for his day, but not
beyond his day. As a soldier, his business was to conquer his enemies,
and to be loyal to his heavenly Master. It did not lie to him to
enforce the numberless bearings which the spirit of trust in God might
have on all the interests of life--on the family, on books, on
agriculture and commerce, or on the development of the humanities, and
the courtesies of society. Other men were raised up from time to time,
many other men, with commission from God to devote their energies to
such matters.
It is quite possible that, under Joshua, religion did not appear in
very close relation to many things that are lovely and of good report.
A celebrated English writer (Matthew Arnold) has asked whether, if
Virgil or Shakespeare had sailed in the _Mayflower_ with the puritan
fathers, they would have found themselves in congenial society. The
question is not a fair one, for it supposes that men whose destiny was
to fight as for very life, and for what was dearer than life, were of
the same mould with others who could devote themselves in peaceful
leisure to the amenities of literature. Joshua had doubtless much of
the ruggedness of the early soldier, and it is not fair to blame him
for want of sweetness and light. Very probably it was from him that
Deborah drew somewhat of her scorn, and Jael, the wife of Heber, of
her rugged courage. The whole Book of Judges is penetrated by his
spirit. He was not the apostle of charity or gentleness. He had one
virtue, but it was the supreme virtue--he honoured God. Wherever God's
claims were involved, he could see nothing, listen to nothing, care
for nothing, but that He should obtain His due. Wherever God's claims
were acknowledged and fulfilled, things were essentially right, and
other interests would come right. For his absolute and supreme loyalty
to his Lord he is entitled to our highest reverence. This loyalty is a
rare virtue, in the sublime proportions in which it appeared in him.
When a man honours God in this way, he has something of the appearance
of a supernatural being, rising high above the fears and the
feebleness of poor humanity. He fills his fellows with a sort of awe.
Among the reformers, the puritans, and the covenanters such men were
often found. The best of them, indeed, were men of this type, and very
genuine men they were. They were not men whom the world loved; they
were too jealous of God's claims for that, and too severe on those who
refused them. And we have still the type of the fighting Christian.
But alas! it is a type subject to fearful degeneration. Loyalty to
human tradition is often substituted, unconsciously no doubt, for
loyalty to God. The sublime purity and nobility of the one passes into
the obstinacy, the self-righteousness, the self-assertion of the
other. When a man of the genuine type does appear, men are arrested,
astonished, as if by a supernatural apparition. The very rareness, the
eccentricity of the character, secures a respectful homage. And yet,
who can deny that it is the true representation of what every man
should be who says, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth"?
After a life of a hundred and ten years the hour comes when Joshua
must die. We have no record of the inner workings of his spirit, no
indication of his feelings in view of his sins, no hint as to the
source of his trust for forgiveness and acceptance. But we readily
think of him as the heir of the faith of his father Abraham, the heir
of the righteousness that is by faith, and as passing calmly into the
presence of his Judge, because, like Jacob, he has waited for His
salvation. He was well entitled to the highest honours that the nation
could bestow on his memory; for all owed to him their homes and their
rest. His name must ever be coupled with that of the greatest hero of
the nation: Moses led them out of the house of bondage; Joshua led
them into the house of rest. Sometimes, as we have already said, it
has been attempted to draw a sharp antithesis between Moses and
Joshua, the one as representing the law, and the other as representing
the gospel. The antithesis is more in word than in deed. Moses
represented both gospel and law, for he brought the people out of the
bondage of Egypt; he brought them to their marriage altar, and he
unfolded to the bride the law of her Divine husband's house. Joshua
conducted the bride to her home, and to the rest which she was to
enjoy there; but he was not less emphatic than Moses in insisting that
she must be an obedient wife, following the law of her husband. It
were difficult to say which of them was the more instructive type of
Christ, both in feeling and in act. The love of each for his people
was most intense, most self-denying; and neither of them, had he been
called on, would have hesitated to surrender his life for their sake.
* * * * *
It is probably a mere incidental arrangement that the book concludes
with a record of the burial of Joseph, and of the death and burial of
Eleazar, the son of Aaron. In point of time, we can hardly suppose
that the burial of Joseph in the field of his father Jacob in Shechem
was delayed till after the death of Joshua. It would be a most
suitable transaction after the division of the country, and especially
after the territory that contained the field had been assigned to
Ephraim, Joseph's son. It would be like a great doxology--a Te Deum
celebration of the fulfilment of the promise in which, so many
centuries before, Joseph had so nobly shown his trust.
But why did not Joseph's bones find their resting-place in the
time-honoured cave of Macpelah? Why was he not laid side by side with
his father, who would doubtless have liked right well that his beloved
son should be laid at his side? We can only say in regard to Joseph as
in regard to Rachel, that the right of burial in that tomb seems to
have been limited to the wife who was recognised by law, and to the
son who inherited the Messianic promise. The other members of the
family must have their resting-place elsewhere; moreover, there was
this benefit in Joseph having his burial-place at Shechem, that it was
in the very centre of the country, and near the spot where the tribes
were to assemble for the great annual festivals. For many a generation
the tomb of Joseph would be a memorable witness to the people; by it
the patriarch, though dead, would continue to testify to the
faithfulness of God; while he would point the hopes of the godly
people still onward to the future, when the last clause of the promise
to Abraham would be emphatically fulfilled, and that Seed would come
forth among them in whom all the families of the earth would be
blessed.
Was there a reason for recording the death of Eleazar? Certainly there
was a fitness in placing together the record of the death of Joshua
and the death of Eleazar. For Joshua was the successor of Moses, and
Eleazar was the successor of Aaron. The simultaneous mention of the
death of both is a significant indication that the generation to which
they belonged had now passed away. A second age after the departure
from Egypt had now slipped into the silent past. It was a token that
the duties and responsibilities of life had now come to a new
generation, and a silent warning to them to remember how
"Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day."
How short the life of a generation seems when we look back to these
distant days! How short the life of the individual when he realizes
that his journey is practically ended! How vain the expectation once
cherished of an indefinite future, when there would be ample time to
make up for all the neglects of earlier years! God give us all to know
the true meaning of that word, "the time is short," and "so teach us
to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom!"