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Threatenings and Promises.

your God.

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(12) Else if ye do in any a Ex. 23.33; Num. this good land which the LORD your

33. 55: Deut. 7.

16.

wise go back, and cleave unto the
remnant of these nations, even these
that remain among you, and shall
make marriages with them, and go in
unto them, and they to you: (13) know
for a certainty that the LORD your God
will no more drive out any of these
nations from before you; but they
shall be snares and traps unto you, b ch. 21. 45.
and scourges in your sides, and thorns
in your eyes, until ye perish from off
this good land which the LORD your
God hath given you.

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Gen. 11. 31;
Judith 5. 6, 7.

(14) And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof. (15) Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things, until he have destroyed you from off a Gen. 21. 2.

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(12, 13) If ye ... make marriages with them the Lord your God will no more drive out. The common-sense of this warning is manifest. The God of Israel cannot treat as His enemies those whom Israel has united with itself, unless He also makes war on Israel. It was a long time before Israel learned the lesson how to live in the world without being of the world. It was not learnt until after the Babylonish captivity, and when learnt, it soon developed into a Pharisaical exclusiveness, which produced the very opposite effect to that which the law was intended to have.

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(14) Ye know .. that not one thing hath failed. These words, as well as the similar statement in chap. xxi. 43-45, show that though the conquest of Canaan by Joshua was in one way a limited conquest, yet it fully satisfied the hopes of Israel for the time: i.e., that they understood the Divine promises in that sense in which we see them to have been actually fulfilled.

(15) As all good things are come upon you so shall... all evil things.-Comp. Deut. viii. 19, 20, and xxx. 17, 18, and xxviii. throughout.

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The above exhortations are upon matters that lie within the province of the ruler. The law must be forgotten if the magistrates will not enforce it. Marriages and treaties and public worship are matters under the control of the law. What the rulers will not tolerate, the people will find it hard to maintain.

(16) The resemblance between this verse and an exhortation in Deuteronomy should be noticed, chap. xi. 16, 17, "Take heed to yourselves, lest. . ye turn aside and serve other grds and worship them; and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you. perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you."

and ye

God hath given you. (16) When ye have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you.

CHAPTER XXIV.-(1) 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.

(2) And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, "Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor and they served other gods. (3) And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.

XXIV.

.--At

(b) JOSHUA'S LAST CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE. (1, 2) Joshua gathered all the tribes. the former address the rulers alone appear to have been present; on this occasion all Israel was gathered. And what is spoken is addressed to the people in the hearing of the rulers. In the speech that now follows Joshua briefly recapitulates the national history; he had not thought this necessary for the rulers. To them he had said, "Ye know;" but "the people" embraced many persons of but little thought and education, whom it was necessary to inform and remind and instruct, even as to the leading events of their national history. The simple lesson which Joshua's words are intended to enforce is the duty of serving Jehovah, and serving Him alone. It is the first great lesson of the old covenant. "I am Jehovah, thy God; thou shalt have no other gods beside Me." The ark of this covenant had brought them over Jordan into the promised land.

(2) Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood. The flood, i.e., the river- probably Euphrates, though it may be Jordan, or both. Flood in our English Bible has been used for river in several places: e.g., Job. xxii. 16, "whose foundation was overflown with a flood," i.e., a river; Psalm lxvi. 6, 'He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood (the river, i.e., Jordan) on foot ;" Matt. vii. 25, 27, "The rain descended, and the floods (i.e., the rivers) came."

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They served other gods.-They, i.e., Terah, Abraham, and Nachor.

(3) The flood-i.e., the river, as in verse 2; and so also in verse 15.

He Recounts God's Benefits

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a

JOSHUA, XXIV.

c Gen. 46. 6.

d Ex. 3. 10.

e Ex. 12. 37.

(4) And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and a Gen. 25. 26. Esau and I gave unto 'Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. (5) I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I Gen. 36. 8. plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out. (6) And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea. (7) And when they cried unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season. (8) And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan; and they fought with you and I gave them into your hand, that ye 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 hsent and called Balaam the son of Beorg Num. 21. 33. to curse you: (10) but I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still so I delivered you out of his hand. (11) And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, 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 hand. (12) And I sent

Ex. 14. 9.

h Num. 22.5; Deut.

23. 4.

i Ex. 23. 28; Deut. 7.20.

(9) Warred against Israel.-The sending for Balaam was a distinct act of hostility. Whether Balak himself ever led an army against Israel we are not informed. In the war with the Midianites, Balaam was slain; and there may have been Moabites allied and acting with the Midianites in the war Num. xxxi.

in

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(12) The hornet.-There appears no reason for taking this word in any other than a literal sense. possibility of what is recorded here has been abundantly illustrated by events reported in our own times. The two kings of the Amorites. Apparently, but not necessarily, Sihon and Og are intended. There were kings of the Amorites on both sides of Jordan.

(14) Fear the Lord.-It should be remembered throughout the whole of this passage that Lord stands for JEHOVAH, the covenant God of Israel.

(15) The Amorites.-Here used generically for the inhabitants of Canaan,

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.-For Joshua himself the service of Jehovah on earth was nearly over. He pledges his

before the Tribes.

the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. (13) And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.

(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 flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. (15) And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, 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, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed: (18) and the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.

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(19) And Joshua said unto the people,

"house to the same service. What is known of his family? It is a singular fact that no descendant of the great conqueror, no member of his household, is named in the Bible. In the genealogies of Ephraim in 1 Chron. vii., Joshua's name is the last in his own line (ver. 27: “Non his son, Jehoshuah his son"). I cannot but regard the silence of Scripture under this head as profoundly significant. It is one more analogy between the Joshua of the Old Testament and his great Antitype in the Gospel: "whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end" (Heb. iii. 6). The house of Joshua embraces all the faithful servants of the Lord.

(16) God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods.-The feelings of the people are naturally shocked by the bare mention of apostasy. They will not forsake Jehovah on any account. But their answer only betrayed their want of intelligence. They missed the point of Joshua's argument, as may be seen by his reply.

(19) And Joshua said the Lord: for he is

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Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an a ch. 23. 15. holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. (20) If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, "then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.

(21) And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD.

(22) And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. (23) Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel. (24) And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.

(25) So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. (26) And Joshua wrote these words in the

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as Witness of the Covenant.

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 unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, ch. 19. 50; Juds. lest ye deny your God. (28) So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.

2.9.

B. C. cir. 1426.

Heb., prolonged their days after

Joshua.

Jehovah will not consent to be served as one God among many: the very thing which Israel was doing at the moment, which they meant to do, and did do, with rare intervals, down to the Babylonish captivity, when the evil spirit of (literal) idolatry was expelled for evermore. Israel always maintained the worship of Jehovah (except in very evil times) as the national Deity, but did not abstain from the recognition and partial worship of other national deities of whom they were afraid, and whom they thought it necessary to propitiate. Therefore Joshua's argument is perfectly intelligible, and was entirely necessary for those times.

(21) Nay; but we will serve the Lord.-Being brought to the point, no other answer was possible. If they must give up Jehovah or the idols, the idols must go first.

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(22, 23) Ye are witnesses that ye have chosen you the Lord Now therefore put away the strange gods. This was the practical conclusion to which Joshua desired that they should come. But we do not read that they did anything in obedience to these words. We read of no images being buried or burned, as in the days of Jacob by David (Gen. xxxv. 4; 2 Sam. v. 21). There is only a verbal promise: "The Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey."

(25) Šo Joshua made a covenant-i.e., a covenant that idolatry should not be tolerated in Israel, or suffered to exist. We read of similar covenants in the reign of Asa (2 Chron. xv. 12, 13), in the reign of Joash, by Jehoiada (2 Chron. xxiii. 16), and of Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 31, 32).

(26) And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God.-Primarily 66 these words" appear to refer to the transaction just recorded. But it must be observed that this is also the second signature among the sacred writers of the

(29) And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. (30) And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount 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 that 'overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.

Old Testament. The first is that of Moses, in Deut. xxxi. 9: "Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests," &c. The next signature after Joshua's is that of Samuel (1 Sam. x. 25): “Samuel told the people, the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in the [not a] book, and laid it up before the Lord." We have here a clue to the authorship of the Old Testament, and to the view of the writers who succeeded Moses in what they did. They did not look upon themselves as writers of distinct books, but as authorised to add their part to the book already written, to write what was assigned to them "in the book of the law of God." The unity of Holy Scripture is thus seen to have been an essential feature of the Bible from the very first.

(28-31) So Joshua let the people depart -This passage is recited in Judges ii. 6-9.

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(29) An hundred and ten years old.-The mention in verse 31 of elders that prolonged their days after Joshua" seems to suggest that Joshua's death was comparatively an early death.* Had he thought and laboured more for himself and less for Israel, he also might have prolonged his days. But, like his Antitype, he pleased not himself, and, like a good and faithful servant, he entered all the sooner into the joy of his Lord.

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(31) Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and of the elders that overlived Joshua.-It cannot surprise us that the personal influence of the man and of the events of his day was so difficult to efface. There was a primitive Church in Canaan as well as in the Roman Empire. The short duration of the one seems to have an analogy

in the case of the other.

* Yet Brugsch states that the Egyptians "addressed to the host of the holy gods the prayer to preserve and lengthen life, if possible, to the most perfect old age of 110 years." This may be a reminiscence of the life of Joseph, which reached this length (Gen. 1. 26).

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(32) The bones of Joseph, and also of his brethren, as appears by Acts vii. 16. The precedent set by Joseph is exceedingly likely to have been followed.

And it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.-It may be that this fact helped to fix the position of Ephraim and Manasseh in the centre of the country.

(33) And Eleazar the son of Aaron died."Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun," were the Moses and Aaron of this period. It is fitting that the Book of Joshua should close with the death of Eleazar, who was Joshua's appointed counsellor; for when Joshua was given as a shepherd to Israel, in answer to the prayer of Moses, Eleazar was also given to Joshua for a counsellor (Num. xxvii. 21). At Eleazar's word he was to go out and come in, "both he and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation." It is rather singular that nothing but this has been recorded of Eleazar's personal history. Everything stated about him in his lifetime

(33) And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.

is official. Not a word that he uttered has been preserved. A hill given him in mount Ephraim.—The inheritance of Phinehas as a priest would lie within the tribe of Judah (chap. xxi. 13, &c.) or Benjamin. This gift to Phinehas in Mount Ephraim, near the seat of government, seems to have been a special grant to him over and above his inheritance. But inasmuch as the tabernacle itself was at Shiloh, in Mount Ephraim, it was altogether suitable and natural that some place of abode should be assigned to the priests in that neighbourhood, where they were compelled to reside.

Although Phinehas himself was "zealous for his God," he lived to see the tribe of Benjamin nearly exterminated from Israel for repeating the sin of the Canaanites. (See Judges xx. 28.) We can hardly say that the people served Jehovah all the days of Phinehas. With Eleazar and Joshua the spirit of strict obedience to the law seems to have, in a great measure, passed away.

EXCURSUS TO
TO NOTES
NOTES ON JOSHUA.

THE DEFEAT OF THE FIVE KINGS AT GIBEON (Chap. x. 10-12).

It was not until I had an opportunity of verifying the course of the combatants on the large Ordnance Map with the sheets fitted together that I was able to form a clear and connected notion of the proceedings of that memorable day. It appears to me that the scene described is this:

When the five kings of the Amorites besieged Gibeon, the Gibeonites sent a hasty appeal to Joshua for help. Joshua replied by a night march from Gilgal, which brought the host of Israel to Gibeon at early dawn. The Amorite army was surprised, and speedily took to flight. Being attacked from the east, they naturally fled westward, and took the road to Beth-horon. An ancient road from Gibeon (El-Jib) still passes both the Beth-horons, first the upper (Beit❜ur El-Foka), then the lower (Beit'ur Et-Tahta). They are about two miles apart. The road then turns southward (the Beth-horons lie slightly to the northwest of Gibeon), and leads to the border of Philistia. Beth-horon the upper is 2,022 feet above the sea; Beth-horon the nether 1,310 feet above the sea; the points about Gibeon varying from 2,300 to 2,500 feet in height. But the road from Gibeon to Beth-horon appears at first to ascend slightly, and then to descend. From Beth-horon the upper there is a steep descent of nearly 600 feet in the first half mile, and from Bethhoron the nether a continuous slope towards Philistia. Ajalon (Yâlo), about five miles south-west of Bethhoron the nether, is only 940 feet above the Mediterranean. Azekah is not identified, but was probably somewhere near Amwâs. Makkedah is thought by Conder to be El-Mughâr, in Philistia, the only place in the district where there are caves. Ajalon and Gibeon are about nine miles apart in a straight line, due east and west of each other, and El-Mughâr (Makkedah) is about eighteen miles from Beth-horon the nether. These are the geographical data. Now as to what occurred.

When Joshua and his army were in pursuit of the Amorites from Gibeon towards the west, the sun was rising behind them. They presently saw-what we so often see in the early morning-the moon in front of them on the west, just setting in the valley of Ajalon, and the sun behind them over Gibeon on the east. It was the height of summer (as appears by the date of the passage of Jordan, and the commencement of the war, chaps. v., vi.), and in a little while the heat would prevent or greatly retard further operations. A sudden inspiration now seized Joshua, and he requested that the cool morning hours the best time for battle-might be prolonged. Let the sun remain in the east, and the moon in the west, until the discomfiture of the Amorite army was complete. 66 So the sun stood still in the one-half of the heavens "-in the eastern hemisphere-" and hasted not to go down about a whole day." It may be observed that the book which mentions the sun oftener than any other in the Old Testament describes his course thus: "The sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose" (Eccles. i. 5). Between his rising and setting nothing else is named. So the sun arose on Joshua and on Joshua's enemies. He arose,

47

and his course was then arrested. He was not permitted to go down, or to pass over to the western side of the heavens, until the enemies of Israel had disappeared. We may add that the sun's position in the east over Gibeon was the very best for Israel, and the worst possible for the Amorites. The pursuit being westward, whenever the flying Amorites attempted to turn and rally, the level or slant rays of the sun were full in their faces, and they could not see to fight, while their pursuers had the best possible view of them. Presently, in the descent of Beth-horon (not "the going down to Beth-horon," as in the English Version; but either in the steep descent from the upper to the lower town, or more probably in the long descent from the lower Beth-horon to Azekah, on the borders of Philistia), a storm of hail burst upon them, and followed them to the plain. "They were more that died with hailstones than they whom Israel slew with the sword." At length, after a flight of some five-and-twenty miles, the kings found shelter in the cave at Makkedah. Even then the pursuit was not ended. Under the shadow of the clouds that had obscured the heavens, while the sun made his way westward, the Israelites still hunted down their beaten foes, until the remnant found shelter in the fortresses. Then, in the afternoon, Joshua and his warriors returned to Makkedah, and unearthed the five kings to die. Even for the trained soldiers of the wilderness, that day's work must have been a severe trial. The night march from Gilgal to Gibeon, and the pursuit to Makkedah, cover forty miles of country, measured in a direct line. The time is some thirty-six hours, allowing for the miraculous prolongation of the day. But the whole story is consistent; and Makkedah was an admirable starting| point for the attack upon the fortresses which followed, and which occupied the Israelitish army during the remainder of the campaign.

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In Dean Stanley's account of the battle. the sun is made to stand still at noon-in the middle of the day. But the mid-day sun does not appear to be upon any place in particular; the morning and evening suns do. Gibeon and Ajalon are only about nine miles apart. To see the sun upon Gibeon and the moon upon Ajalon it must be early morning, and one must be between the two places. Five miles from Gibeon would soon be accomplished. If the battle began at daybreak, a single hour after sunrise would be sufficient to bring the pursuers and pursued to the required spot. The midst of heaven" (Hebrew, the one half of the heaven) does not seem to mean the meridian, but the one hemisphere as opposed to the other.

Again, Dean Stanley makes the hail come up from the westward. But the narrative says, "As they were in the going down of Beth-horon, the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah." All down the slope the hail followed them, for some seven or eight miles. It is much more natural for a storm of hail to come from the hills towards the plain than vice versa. Do not the hail and snow in Palestine more generally come from the north and east than from the sea?

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