35 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joshua said unto the people,.... To their heads and representatives now assembled together, and who had returned to him the preceding answer: ye cannot serve the Lord; which he said not to discourage or deter them from serving the Lord, since it was his principal view, through the whole of this conversation with them, to engage them in it, but...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
If you forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods,.... Joshua knew the proneness of this people to idolatry, and therefore expresses his jealousy of them, that they would not be able to continue in the service of God, and would be apt to be carried away after idols; and therefore, to make them the more cautious and watchful, he represents to them...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the people said unto Joshua, nay,.... We will not serve strange gods: but we will serve the Lord; according to his revealed will, and him only.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joshua said unto the people,.... In reply to their answer and resolution: ye [are] witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen you the Lord God to serve him; that is, should they, after this choice of him, which they had so publicly declared, desert his service, and go into idolatry, their testimony would rise up against them, and they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now therefore put away, [said he],.... Which last words are rightly supplied, for they are the words of Joshua: the strange gods which [are] among you; not their private notions and secret sentiments that some of them had imbibed in favour of idols, and the worship of them, as Ben Gersom thinks; but, as the Targum expresses it, "the idols of the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the people said unto Joshua,.... A third time, that as by the mouth of two or three witnesses everything is confirmed, so by three testimonies of the same persons: the Lord our God will we serve; as they had before declared, and to which they add: and his voice will we obey; or his word, as the Targum, not only his word of command, but his...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day,.... Proposing to them what was most eligible, and their duty to do, and they agreeing to it, this formally constituted a covenant, of which they selves were both parties and witnesses: and set statute and an ordinance in Shechem; either made this covenant to have the nature of a statute and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joshua wrote these words,.... Which had passed between him and the people: in the book of the law of God; written by Moses, and which he ordered to be put in the side of the ark, and that being now present, the book could be easily taken out, and these words inserted in it, Deuteronomy 31:26; and took a great stone: on which also might be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joshua said unto all the people,.... The chief of them now gathered together, and who represented the whole body: behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; of the covenant now made, and the agreement entered into, as the heap of stones were between Jacob and Laban, Genesis 31:45; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. Dismissed them, and took his final leave and farewell of them, dying soon after; upon which they returned to the possessions and inheritances assigned by lot to the several tribes, of which they were the heads and princes.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it came to pass, after these things,.... Some little time after, very probably the same year: that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, [being] an hundred and ten years old; he wanted ten years of Moses his predecessor, Deuteronomy 34:7, and just the age of Joseph, Genesis 50:22, from whom he sprung, being of the tribe of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they buried him in the border of his inheritance,.... In a field belonging to his estate; for they buried not in towns and cities in those times. The Greek version adds, "and they put into the tomb, in which he was buried, the stone knives with which he circumcised the children of Israel at Gilgal, when he brought them out of Egypt;'' and an...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the children of Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua,.... Without going into idolatrous practices: and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua; that lived a few years longer than he; some of them that came young out of Egypt, and were now elderly men; and some of them doubtless were of the court of the seventy elders; these...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt,.... At the request, and by the order of Joseph, Genesis 50:25; which were punctually observed by the children of Israel under the direction and command of Moses, and therefore is ascribed to him, as here to them, Exodus 13:19; buried they in Shechem; not in the city,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Eleazar the son of Aaron died,.... Very probably in a short time after Joshua; and, according to the Samaritan Chronicle (i), he died as Joshua did, gathered the chief men of the children of Israel a little before his death, and enjoined them strict obedience to the commands of God, and took his leave of them, and then stripped himself of his...