682 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And I sent the hornet before you,.... Of which [See comments on Exodus 23:28]; which drave them out from before you, [even] the two kings of the Amorites; who were Sihon and Og, and not only them, and the Amorites under them, but the other nations, Hivites, Hittites, c. [but] not with thy sword, nor with thy bow but by insects of the Lord's...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And I have given you a land for which you did not labour,.... Or, in which (z), by manuring and cultivating it, by dunging, and ploughing, and sowing: and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; neither built the houses in them, nor the walls and fortifications about them; in which now they dwelt safely, and at ease, and which had been...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now therefore fear the Lord,.... Since he has done such great and good things, fear the Lord and his goodness, fear him for his goodness sake; nothing so influences fear, or a reverential affection for God, as a sense of his goodness; this engages men sensible of it to fear the Lord, that is, to worship him both internally and externally in the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,.... Irksome and troublesome, a burden, a weariness, and not a pleasure and delight: choose you this day whom you will serve; say if you have found a better master, and whose service will be more pleasant and profitable: whether the gods your fathers served, that [were] on the other side of the flood;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the people answered and said,.... To Joshua, upon his proposal to them, the option he gave them to serve the Lord or idols, and which was only done to try them: God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; they speak with the utmost abhorrence of idolatry, as a thing far from their hearts and thoughts, as the most...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For the Lord our God, he [it is] that brought us up and our fathers, out of the land of Egypt,.... When Pharaoh, the king of it, refused to let them go, yet he wrought such wonders in it and inflicted such plagues on it, as obliged Pharaoh and his people to dismiss them: from the house of bondage: where they were held in the greatest thraldom and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord drave out from before us all the people,.... The seven nations of the land of Canaan: even the Amorites which dwelt in the land; the strongest and most populous of the nations, Amos 2:9, or especially the Amorites, so Vatablus; or "with the Amorites", as others; those that lived on the other side Jordan, over whom Sihon and Og...
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...