Having assembled the leaders of the nation, Joshua presented them with two scenarios: Obey the Lord, and He will bless you and keep you in the land; disobey Him, and He will judge you and remove you from the land. These were the terms of the covenant God had made with Israel at Mount Sinai, which Moses had repeated on the Plains of Moab, and which Israel had reaffirmed at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.
Joshua’s emphasis was on possessing the land (v. 5) and enjoying its blessings (vv. 13, 15–16). While Israel had gained control of Canaan, there still remained territory to possess and pockets of resistance to overcome. (See 13:1–13; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12–13; 18:3; Judg. 1–2.) The task of the tribes wasn’t finished! The great danger, of course, was that the people of Israel would gradually change their attitudes toward the pagan nations around them and start accepting their ways and imitating them.
To counteract this danger, Joshua gave the people three strong motives for remaining a separated people and serving the Lord faithfully.
What the Lord did for Israel (vv. 3–4). From the day that Israel left Egypt, the Lord had fought for His people and delivered them from their enemies. He drowned the Egyptian army in the sea and then defeated the Amalekites who attacked the Jews soon after they left Egypt (Ex. 17). The Lord defeated all of Israel’s enemies as the nation marched toward Canaan, and He gave His people victory over the nations in the Promised Land.
This review of history reminded Israel of two great facts: Those Gentile nations were God’s enemies and therefore must be Israel’s enemies, and the same God who overcame the enemy in the past could help Israel overcome them in the future. God had never failed His people, and, if they would trust Him and obey His Word, He would help them completely conquer the land. “For the Lord your God is He who has fought for you” (Josh. 23: nkjv).
This is a good reminder to God’s people today. As we read the Bible and see what God did in the past for those who trusted Him, it encourages us to trust Him today and face all our enemies with courage and confidence. The Presbyterian missionary leader A. T. Pierson used to say that “history is His story,” and this is true. From age to age, God may change His methods; but His character never changes, and He can be trusted.
What the Lord said to Israel (vv. 5–10). The secret of Joshua’s success, and therefore the reason for Israel’s victories, was his devotion to the Word of God (vv. 6, 14; see 1:7–9, 13–18; 8:30–35; 11:12, 15; 24:26–27). He obeyed God’s commandments and believed God’s promises, and God worked on his behalf. But even more, his devotion to the Word of God enabled Joshua to get to know God better, to love Him, and to want to please Him. It isn’t enough to know the Word of God. We must also know the God of the Word and grow in our fellowship with Him.
God kept all His promises, and He had every right to expect Israel to keep all His commandments as well. Some of God’s promises are unconditional, but some of them are conditional and depend on our obedience for their fulfillment. Israel entered and conquered the land as the fulfillment of God’s promise, but their enjoyment of the land depended on their obedience to the law of the Lord. God would enable them to claim all their inheritance if they would obey Him with all their hearts.
The most important thing was that Israel remain a separated people and not be infected by the wickedness of the Gentile nations around them (23:7–8; see Ex. 34:10–17; Deut. 7:2–4). Joshua warned them that their disobedience would be a gradual thing. First they would associate with these nations in a familiar way; then they would start discussing their religious practices; and before long Israel would be worshipping the false gods of the enemy. The Jewish men would then start marrying women from these pagan nations, and the line of separation between God’s people and the world would be completely erased. Imagine the folly of worshipping the gods of the defeated enemy!
All of us feel the pressures of the world around us, trying to force us to conform (Rom. 12:1–21; 1 John 2:15–17), and it takes courage to defy the crowd and stay true to the Lord (Josh. 23:7). But it also takes love for the Lord and a desire to please Him (v. 8). The word translated “cleave” in verse 8 is used in Genesis 2: to describe a husband’s relationship to his wife. Israel was “married” to Jehovah at Mount Sinai (Jer. 2:1–3; Ezek. 16) and was expected to be a faithful spouse and cleave to the Lord (Deut. 4:4; 10:20; 11:22; 13:4). How tragic that she became an unfaithful wife, a prostitute, as she turned to the gods of other nations.
The promise in Joshua 23: is quoted from Deuteronomy 32:30, which shows how well Joshua knew the Word of God. (See also Lev. 26:7–8.) He meditated on God’s Word day and night (Josh. 1:8; Ps. 1:2) and hid it in his heart (Ps. 119:11).
What the Lord would do to Israel (vv. 11–16). The Word of God is like a two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12): If we obey it, God will bless and help us; if we disobey it, God will chasten us until we submit to Him. If we love the Lord (Josh. 23:11), we’ll want to obey Him and please Him, so the essential thing is that we cultivate a satisfying relationship with God.
Joshua reminded the people that God’s Word never fails, whether it’s the Word of promise for blessing or the Word of promise for chastening. Both are evidences of His love, for “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth” (Prov. 3:11–12; Heb. 12:6). Charles Spurgeon said, “God will not allow His children to sin successfully.”
Moses had warned Israel against compromising with the evil nations in the land (Ex. 23:20–33; 34:10–17; Deut. 7:12–26), and Joshua reaffirmed that warning (Josh. 23:13). If Israel began to mingle with these nations, two things would happen: God would remove His blessing, and Israel would be defeated; and these nations would bring distress and defeat to Israel. Joshua used vivid words like snares, traps, scourges, and thorns to impress the Jews with the suffering they would experience if they disobeyed the Lord. The final stroke of chastening would be Israel’s removal from their land to a land of exile. After all, if you want to live and worship like the Gentiles, then live with the Gentiles! This happened when God permitted Babylon to conquer Judah, destroy Jerusalem, and take thousands of the Jews into exile in Babylon.
Three times in this brief address Joshua called Canaan “this good land” (vv. 13, 15–16). When God called Moses at the burning bush, He promised to take Israel into a “good land” (Ex. 3:8), and Joshua and Caleb described Canaan as “a good land” after forty days of investigation (Num. 14:7). In his farewell message Moses used the phrase “good land” at least ten times (Deut. 1:25, 35; 3:25; 4:21–22; 6:18; 8:7, 10; 9:6; 11:17). The argument is obvious: Since God has given us such a good land, the least we can do is live to please Him.
Meditating on the goodness of God is a strong motivation for obedience. James connects the goodness of God with our resisting of temptation (James 1:13–17), and Nathan took the same approach when he confronted King David with his sins (2 Sam. 12:1–15). It was not his own badness but his father’s goodness that brought the prodigal son to repentance and then back home (Luke 15:17). “The goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Rom. 2: nkjv). The danger is that the material blessings from the Lord can so possess our hearts that we focus on the gifts and forget the Giver, and this leads to sin (Deut. 8).
Joshua’s three main admonitions in this address need to be heeded by God’s people today: Keep God’s Word (Josh. 23:6), cleave to the Lord (v. 8), and love the Lord (v. 11). Too many Christians have not only compromised with the enemy but also have capitulated to the enemy, and the Lord is not first in their lives.