Joshua 23:1-16
A long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, 2 Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years. 3 And you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. 4 Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5 The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight. And you shall possess their land, just as the Lord your God promised you. 6 Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, 7 that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, 8 but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day.[1]
There is something poignant about the last public words of important people, particularly if they are a charge to their successors. In American history we can think of George Washington’s farewell to the Continental Army or Douglas MacArthur ‘s address to Congress, “An old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
The Bible records many of these moving last public charges. The last few verses of Genesis record Joseph’s dying words he reminds his family of God’s past blessing and of his promised future work on their behalf. He says, “I’m about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…. God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place” (Genesis 50:24-25).
We could recall Moses’ farewell, recorded in the final chapters of Deuteronomy. They contain the so-called “Song of Moses” and Moses’ final blessing on the tribes. The apostle John devotes chapters 13 through 17 of his Gospel to the last words of the Lord Jesus Christ on the night in which he was betrayed.
The book of Acts records Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders at a stopover on his final trip to Jerusalem:
25 And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.[2]
The ending of the book of Joshua is like this. A long period of time has passed since the events of the previous chapter. At the end of the conquest, Joshua was probably about 90 years of age. At the time of his death, recorded in Joshua 24:29, he was 110. So there is a 20-to-25-year interval between Joshua chapter 22 and 23, and Joshua, knowing that he was soon to pass from the scene, wanted to give a final charge to the leaders of Israel.
Actually, he gave two charges. The last chapter of the book contains a charge to the entire assembly of Israel gathered at Shechem. Chapter 23, which we are studying today, contains a charge to the nation’s chiefs: Israel’s elders, leaders, judges, and officials. Caleb would have been there, and Phineas, son of Eleazar the high priest. So would the officers who had fought with Joshua through the various campaigns.
Most of the men would have been mere youths during the war. But they would all be grown now. They would have families. All would have risen to positions of important leadership in the nation. What was Joshua to say on such an auspicious occasion? What would he emphasize to these new leaders as he passed the torch to them?
WORKS OF GOD
The first thing Joshua mentions is a reminder of what God had previously done for the people. His reminder has three parts: the military victories, the partitioning of the land at God’s direction, and the completion of the settlement (some of which was still future though Joshua regarded it as certain). He says:
I am now old and well advanced in years. 3 And you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. 4 Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5 The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight. And you shall possess their land, just as the Lord your God promised you.
It was logical and theologically correct for Joshua to remind the people of these things. It’s natural that Joshua should have spoken of the Lord’s past actions on behalf of Israel. But it’s also unnatural in that we do not naturally think this way ourselves. On the contrary, we naturally separate ourselves from God’s actions.
First, we separate ourselves from God’s faithful actions by making our faith a matter of subjective feelings, as if what matters is how we feel about religion rather than knowing and acting upon what God has done. We won’t admit this to ourselves, of course, and we believe that God actually has done great acts of redemption for us in the past. But often this becomes less important to us than how we feel now, and we begin to act on our feelings rather than upon what we know of God and his ways.
Joshua did not want the people to do that. In time they would be attracted to the world and its ways, to the religious practices and morals of the surrounding demonic cultures. At that time, these ways would seem “good” to Israel, and the pleasures of sin would “feel” desirable. They were not to defect from proper worship of God for that reason, because they knew certain things about God. He had acted for them powerfully in their deliverance from Egypt and in the conquest of the land and had thereby shown himself to be the one true God. The Israelite leaders were to ground their feelings on the knowledge of God, rather than to ground the knowledge of God upon their feelings.
Second, we tend separate ourselves from God’s historical acts by thinking of faith as a “leap” over evidence. As Jim Boice explained in his commentary:
The Danish philosopher and churchman Søren Kierkegaard was the fountain of this way of thinking, having spoken of the “leap of faith,” and many churchmen have picked it up since, thinking that somehow it saves us from the embarrassment of sound Christian apologetics. It does nothing of the sort. It is true that the “leap of faith” abandons apologetics, but it also launches Christianity upon a boundless sea where many have been shipwrecked. The Bible knows nothing of this “leap of faith.” It says, “Look at what God has done for you in history. Remember his acts. Reason about these things, and build upon them.” The Bible does not abandon evidence. It builds faith on reason, and understanding on faith.[3]
OUR OBLIGATIONS
The second theme in Joshua’s charge to the leaders of Israel as he passed the torch of leadership to them was their obligation. It was not enough to know that God had acted for them in the past. It was also necessary for them to order their lives in certain ways because of God’s actions. Joshua gave two requirements.
The first requirement was obedience. Obedience is a natural emphasis for a soldier like Joshua to make, particularly since it had been the charge given to him by God at the very start of the military campaigns. But there was more to it than that. Obedience is a duty incumbent upon all God’s people. The words Joshua uses in this charge are an echo of what he had been told to do earlier, and or a deliberate reference to them.
At the beginning, God had appeared to Joshua to assure him that he would be with him as he had been with Moses. Joshua was to be careful to obey all that Moses had written. God said, “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:6-8).
Joshua instructs the leaders, “6 Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, 7 that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, 8 but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day.”
Notice there is a connection between the demand to obey God’s commands and the previously stated fact that God had done great things on the people’s behalf. We find this same connection at the beginning of the 10 commandments. It is because God had brought the people out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, that they were to have no other gods before him. There is a connection between God’s giving Israel the land and the obedience required.
Notice also there is a continuing appeal to the written Law of God given through Moses. This is a crucial standard. It’s not simply that the people of Israel were urged to live upright, moral, consistent, and productive lives. That is what people try to do today, apart from God’s written standard in scripture, but it does not work. Joshua did not give an unspecific appeal to an undefined moral code. He charged the leaders with “all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses” (v. 6).
The people were promised God’s favor and blessing if they continue to live by that perfect standard. It is the same today. It’s the same standard. That standard has been amplified over the centuries during which the Bible was written. In the very next chapter we find that “Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God” (Joshua 24:26). It is possible that this means at this point the book of Joshua was added to the Canon as an authoritative revelation from God for his people (although the work was edited at a later time). The standard is the same in all of the books of scripture and it is our standard today. That makes Joshua’s charge contemporary and relevant for us today.
The second requirement in Joshua’s charge to the leaders is the obligation to love the God who had blessed them so abundantly. “11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God,” Joshua said. But what did he mean by “love”? We find that answer in the previous chapter, when he gave his charge to the 2 1/2 tribes departing to their lands on the far side of the Jordan river. There he said, “5 Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”[4]
As we noted last week, that is a reference to Deuteronomy 6:5, the verse Jesus called the greatest of all the commandments. It is the definition of what love for God means. Love means walking in God’s ways, obeying God’s commands, holding fast to God, and serving God with all one’s heart and soul. Obeying God and loving God go together. Do not say you love God if you are not obeying his commands in scripture. That would be hypocrisy. If you love God, you will keep his commands. When you fail to do so, you repent and ask the Holy Spirit for the power he provides to obey. As you repent and trust, you will find yourself coming to love God more and more.
FAMILY OF GOD
The third section of Joshua’s sermon deals with a new problem, the intermarrying of Jews with the pagans of the land. Joshua says, “12 For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, 13 know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.”
Up to this point in their history, intermarriages with pagans have not posed a great problem. When wandering in the wilderness, they had little opportunity for significant contact with pagan cultures. Over the past two or three decades that Israel has been settling into their land, Joshua had seen foreshadowing of the enormous problems to come. This was not a problem of racial or ethnic intermarriage, of course, any more than such things are forbidden today.
A mixed race had come up out of Egypt, and Moses himself had married a Cushite, an Ethiopian. Rahab was incorporated into Israel. The Gibeonites were incorporated into Israel. There is nothing in this warning that devolves into an argument for “racial purity,” whatever that actually is. No, the problem was what we would call the marrying of a believer with an unbeliever. The unbelieving pagans of the land were demonic idol worshippers and exceedingly morally corrupt. That is why God had ordered Israel to destroy them. Joshua knew the Jewish men might marry surviving women from these corrupt Canaanite nations and be drawn away to their demonic practices.
Of course, that is exactly what happened. This becomes the sad history of Israel from this point onward. All through the time of the judges and into the time of the kings, Israel fell away from God through just this path. Even after the Babylonian captivity and dispersion, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, this is the chief problem. Nehemiah in particular ends on this sad note. It is not hard to see Satan’s hand in these temptations.
Just as dictators inevitably try to weaken family ties, knowing that if they destroy families, they make the winning of people’s total allegiance to this state much easier. The devil knows that if he can destroy the family structure, he can destroy any effective influence of believers on this world. More specifically, however, Satan desired to destroy the line of the coming Messiah who would crush his head and undo his work. The enemy still desires to do as much damage to God’s people as he possibly can.
That means Joshua’s warnings were not only for the people of Israel in the land of Israel. They are warnings for us also. Paul gives the same warning to the congregation of Corinth: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God….”[5]
DECISION TIME
The last point of Joshua’s sermon to Israel’s new leaders was the need to choose. They had to decide to obey and serve God and not allow themselves or their people to drift into eventual disobedience. This challenge will become even more pointed when Joshua addresses the entire nation. But the idea begins here in chapter 23.
14 “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed. 15 But just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the Lord your God has given you, 16 if you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.”
This statement is the theme of the book of Deuteronomy and of the covenant renewal ceremony enacted by Joshua on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim in obedience to Moses ‘s earlier command. If the people obey, there will be many blessings. If they disobey, there will be judgment. They must choose. As far as God’s conditional promises are concerned, their response alone will make the difference. That is the Covenant of Works. The COW demands to be fed perfect obedience!
Does that mean the Covenant of Works is bad? No! It is, after all, the revelation of God’s perfect moral character. That is why God never presents a choice as if both sides of the alternative are equal. What strikes us in these last words of Joshua is his fourfold repetition of the word “good.” Twice he speaks of the “good promises the Lord your God gave you” (23:14, 15), and twice he speaks of the “good land he has given” (23:15, 16).
That is the point, you see. We are to follow and obey God not merely because he is the true God and we should follow him, though that is obvious. It is not even because God’s way is the best way, though that is also important. The best of a number of options is not in itself necessarily a “good” way. No, we are urged to follow God because God really is good and because his way really is a good way.
Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 69:16 speaks of the goodness of God’s love.
Psalm 84:11 affirms, “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”
Psalm 100:5 declares, “The Lord is good and his love endures forever.”
In Psalm 103:5 David affirms, “[He] satisfies your desires with good things.”
Psalm 119:39 asserts that all God’s “laws are good.”
Nahum 1:7 observes, “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.”
In John 10:11, Jesus called himself “the good shepherd.”
Romans 7:12 argues, “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.”
Romans 8:28 says that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 12:2 admonishes us “to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
James 1:17 declares, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”[6]
The problem with the Covenant of Works is NOT that it is not good, the problem is that WE are not good! “…both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.’” [7] We require a perfect Substitute who is the very definition of “good” with the power to re-create our goodness lost in Adam’s original sin.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [8]
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jos 23:1–8.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ac 20:24–32.
[3] James Montgomery Boice, Joshua (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 124–125.
[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jos 22:5.
[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 6:14–16.
[6] James Montgomery Boice, Joshua (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 128–129.
[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 3:9–11.
[8] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 5:17–21.
