Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joshua 24:13
And I have given you a land for which ye did not labor, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.
13. cities which ye built not ] All this happened as Jehovah had promised, Deu 6:10.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jos 24:13
And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour.
The inheritance of the past
The substance of these closing words of the old Hebrew chief amounted to this: they had had vastly more done for them than they had done or could have done for themselves. They were not the sole nor the chief architects of their own fortunes. At this stage in the fortunes of their national life the prescient eye of Joshua saw the resulting perils from the disposition among them to forget their past history and to magnify the personal element in their present gains and security. There is but one step between the temper of boastfulness and the decadence and demoralisation of a nations life. Modesty, simplicity, self-knowledge, and a devout recognition of its profound indebtedness to the past–these are among the prime elements of national wealth and prosperity. And Joshuas was that warning voice whose authority and experience and disinterested patriotism, as with all similar men in all countries and times, served as the organ of the national conscience. It served to remind them that a nation is not the growth of a day, that the highest blessings of life are unattainable by our own unaided efforts, that manifold are the forces which are working in the world to produce the life of each one of us, and that it is as inaccurate as it is ungrateful and boastful to impute to ourselves the chief or the largest share in the production of all the good of life that we enjoy. I have given you a land for which ye did not labour. To every age and period, as it reviews its successes and takes stock of its gains and advances, may be addressed these words of Joshua, with deep truth and significance. The conditions of life amid which we live to-day constitute veritably the promised land of the many generations of English and Scottish life that have preceded us. In whatever way we turn we have much to make us grateful for our progress, and to inspire us with a deep sense of that providence whose guiding spirit is a fact as real and sacred of British history as ever it was of Hebrew history. In regard to the political and social troubles of the present–and they are both many and serious–and in regard to the conditions of our human life to-day, whose frequent difficulty and harshness sometimes makes us fretful and discontented, I do not know anything which better tends to smooth out these wrinkles of impatient discontent, and to inspire us with a feeling of our large and solid improvement in life, than to take up, for example, the history of our own country, say some three or four centuries ago, and fixing your reading and your attention mainly upon the social condition of the people; upon the state of our commerce and all the peaceful arts; upon the measure of personal freedom in matters of State or of religion which was then possessed; upon the character of the public health and the amount of disease and the averages of mortality in all ranks; upon the degree of comfort which people had in their dwelling-houses; upon the general level of morality and decency which the habits of society evinced–to contrast all this with what requires no special course of reading, the public and private life of society to-day in our land, its means of intelligence, its measure of liberty, and all the other distinguishing qualities of our civilisation to-day. Civilisation, in which word is comprehended art and science and religion, and refinement of manner and speech, and the increase of material comfort, and the spread of intelligence, and all things which beautify or sanctify our human life and character, is no mere production of some one age or country to which now and then some little measure of improvement is added at irregular and incalculable intervals, but is the long, unbroken movement of ascensional life going right back in its origins, into the dim, impenetrable beginnings of human life and society. What is the utmost that we to-day have done or can do set against the mighty sum of the worlds historical and prehistorical life! We find the sense of enormous indebtedness in regard, for example, to our religious possessions. The text reminds us of how that thousands of years ago an Eastern people were feeling their way to religious truths and ideas which, passing subsequently through the higher medium and expression of Christianity, absolutely rule a vast part of the worlds life to-day. We are debtors both to the barbarian and the Greek, to the Gentile and to the Jew. In regard to the more restricted life of our own country and nation, we are the sum and product of a large variety and infusion of forces. And in the social order of our life there are few of us who need to be reminded of how much that controls our lives to-day dates back to the far and almost-forgotten past. Our constitutional liberties have been things of slow accretion. And again, m the shape and character of our strictly personal life it is no less true that we have entered upon possessions for which we did not labour. There is one inheritance at least which is every mans birthright, the accumulated experience of his race and ancestry. The life, the conduct, the temper, the traditions of our ancestry live in us. When we speak of a man as coming from a good stock or a bad stock the phrase is significant of how considerable is that element of character and tendency for which we did not labour. We are not altogether the children of a day. We have taken a good many centuries in making. Let me urge upon you the duty which these considerations bring before us of maintaining an intelligent sympathy with the past, as an essential condition of rightly understanding and controlling the present. It is by liberally using the vast stores of accunmlated experience that we have inherited; it is by tracking our social troubles to their roots in antecedent conditions; it is by following the line of dogmatic and Church history to the periods of germination and birth, that we shall be the most effectively armed to meet the difficulties and to discharge the duties which every generation has, in Gods name, to manfully overcome or fulfil. Let us not shrink from them. Again, these considerations suggest to us the virtue and grace of humility. I have given you a land for which ye did not labour. We are not our own, wrote the apostle; we have been bought with a price. We are ourselves but the last link in the interminable procession of the human race. The true lesson of history and of religion is to make us feel how slight and insignificant is our best work in comparison with the mighty whole. It is to inspire us with the salutary and humbling feeling that our life is being guided by an infinite power and wisdom, who can dispense with any one of us, but who is indispensable to us. And once more: these considerations should guide us in our duties as regards that unknown future which is ever lying in front of us. What we shall be is being determined by what we are to-day. What the national life will be a century hence is, in no small measure, dependent upon the quality and policy of the national life to-day. Labour, then, in modest, self-forgetting devotion to the will of God and His abiding truths, so that the future of the worlds life may be happier and wiser and purer for our lives. Labour as men who, by the most absolute of necessities, will have to give an account of their stewardship of life. Finally, take stock of your own lives, of all that you have passed through, of all the blessings that have crowned your days, of the perils from which you have escaped, of the temptations you have resisted, of the vast stores of life in which you have found your noblest nutriment; and say how much of it originated in your own independent resources and volitions, and how much of it came from sources far above and beyond any power of yours. (J. Vickery.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Cities which you built not. See Poole “Jos 11:12“.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
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 promised them as well as what follows; see De 6:10,
of the vineyards and oliveyards, which ye planted not, do ye eat; thus far an account is given of the many mercies they had been and were favoured with, and thus far are the words of the Lord by Joshua; next follow the use and improvement Joshua made of them.
z “in qua”, V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“ And I gave you a land for which you did not labour, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them. From vineyards and oliveyards, which you did not plant, you eat.”
This was a reminder of the specific promises that it would be so (Deu 6:10-11). Land already prepared for sowing, cities already built, for living in, and vineyards and oliveyards already planted, for eating from.
So ends the preamble that describes what the Great Deliverer has done for them, and what He has given them. Now will follow his requirements as was normal in a suzerainty treaty of that time. It is noteworthy that what we call the ten commandments (Exo 20:1-17); The Book of Deuteronomy; and this passage here are all more or less based on the pattern of Hittite suzerainty treaties, which began with the name and titles of the Suzerain, a preamble declaring what the Suzerain had done for the people (they called their conquest a deliverance), followed with details as to his requirements and the necessity for rejecting his enemies, the writing down of the treaty to be read periodically, and often ending with blessings and cursings.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jos 24:13 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.
Ver. 13. And cities which ye built not. ] For Hazor only was burnt, Jos 11:13 and the rest inhabited by them.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
And I: Jos 21:45
cities: Jos 11:13, Deu 6:10-12, Deu 8:7, Pro 13:22
Reciprocal: 2Ch 20:7 – gavest Psa 105:44 – gave
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The Consecration of the People
Jos 24:13-28
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The time comes sooner, or later, when we must all lay down the yoke which we have been wearing for God. We cannot always serve, no matter how faithful we may have been, nor how successfully we may have wrought our task.
Joshua had been a valiant leader, and he had been faithful in all things. Now, at the end of his days he saw fit to gather all Israel together that they might present themselves before God. When they were all assembled he said, “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 Nahor: and they served other gods.”
As we recount, step by step, the events of the time which led up to the present moment when Joshua stood before them, let us remember that it is God who is speaking and that Joshua is only His mouthpiece.
1. God’s statement concerning Abraham. Joshua reminded the gathered elders, the heads, and the judges of Israel that God had taken their father Abraham from the other side of the flood, that He had led him through all the land of Canaan, that He had multiplied his seed, and that He had given him Isaac.
If you will observe these words carefully, you will see how God shows that it was He who had done these things.
We might ask if Abraham did not leave on his own volition, if he did not pass through the land of Canaan of his own choice, and if he was not the father of his own son, even of Isaac. From the human viewpoint we may see a great deal of Abraham’s self-assertiveness, yet, we must fully recognize that Abraham was walking by faith in obedience to the command of God. When he went out of Ur of the Chaldees, he went not knowing whither he went.
The fact of God’s leadership is, perhaps, more plainly seen in the statement, “[I] gave him Isaac.” We remember that Isaac was the son of Abraham’s old age and of Sarah’s old age. He was the son of promise begotten under the miraculous power of God.
2. God’s statement concerning Isaac, Jacob, and Esau. God says that it was He who gave two sons to Isaac. He says it was He who gave Esau Mount Seir to possess it. It was He who led Jacob and his children down into Egypt.
Beloved, we need to recognize God’s hand in all that we are, and all that we do. It is not in a man to order his own steps.
3. God’s statement concerning Moses and Aaron and the plagues. The Lord positively states that HE sent Moses and Aaron, that HE plagued Egypt, that HE brought Israel out from the land of bondage, that HE put darkness between His people and; the Egyptians, that HE brought the sea upon them and covered them, that HE brought them into the land of the Amorites.
Perhaps, each one of us would do well to ponder God’s leading. As in the past, can we not see how He has gone before us? He has chosen the place for us to pitch our tents. He has sheltered us, protected us, provided for us, and led us.
The Lord will direct all your pathway,
Go where He leads;
He’ll never forsake, never leave you,
He’ll meet your needs.
He’ll be with your mouth, and will teach you
What you shall say;
He’ll crown all your labor with blessing,
Up, then, away.
I. UNADULTERATED GRACE (Jos 24:13)
God has now finished speaking of the olden time, and has come to the present moment in which Joshua speaks unto the people. God says, “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.”
Where is there a verse in the Bible more pregnant with the grace of God than this? They had entered into these riches, not through anything of their own worth, or because of anything they had done. It was all the gift of God.
1. “Ye did not labour.” We sing, “Not the labor of my hands can fulfill the law’s demands.” “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy Cross I cling.”
2. “Ye built not.” The houses they entered were there when they arrived. There is a house which we one day will enter, which we have not, and could not build. Our Lord has said, “I go to prepare a place for you.”
3. “Ye planted not.” The vineyards and oliveyards were already there in the land of Canaan when they entered. Nor were these to be despised, for it was a land of great vegetation and fruit.
It is still true that everything we eat is the gift of God. We may plant, and we may sow, and we may harvest, but it is God, and God alone, who gives the increase.
Let us bow the knee before Him, the Author and the Finisher of our faith. Let us acknowledge Him as the Giver of all good things. What do we have that He has not given us?
II. APPRECIATIVE SERVICE (Jos 24:14)
Joshua in the Spirit now says to Israel, “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.”
1. The appeal. “Therefore.” The word carries our minds back to all that God said about how He led Abraham, and multiplied him. How He sent Moses, and delivered Israel, and how He had brought them into the land, a good land.
Is there not another “therefore”? Have we not read, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God”? Surely the mercy of God is the Spirit’s reason, upon which He asks us in full consecration to present our bodies as living sacrifices-our reasonable, or rational service.
2. The method. “Serve Him in sincerity.” The word “sincerity” means without any mixture of hypocrisy. God does not care for the worship of the lips if the heart is far from Him. We might give Him all kinds of silver and gold, but that would not satisfy our God if we were giving our love to another,
3. In fear. Joshua said, “Now therefore fear the Lord.” To fear the Lord does not mean to be afraid of Him, but rather to be afraid to disobey Him. Therefore, the call is made, “Put away the gods which your fathers served * * and serve ye the Lord.”
Let us all seek to examine our own hearts: in the light of all that God has done for us, what are we doing for Him? In the light of all that He is giving us, what do we give back to Him? Even now we can hear Him say, “I gave My life for thee, what hast thou given for Me?”
III. A CALL TO CHOOSE (Jos 24:15)
We have before us now one of the outstanding verses of the Bible. It is one which most believers have memorized, at least, in part. “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.”
1. The responsibility of choice. Neither Joshua nor the Lord demanded that the Children of Israel should choose to serve the Lord. God did not take a whip and drive them to obedience. He rather said, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” This power of choice is given to every life. We are not Christians because we are forced so to be. We are Christians because we come to Him voluntarily. Moses had said before he died, “I have set before you life and death, * * therefore choose life.”
2. A good example. Joshua did not command them to choose God, but he did say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” He did, therefore, offer the strongest possible plea to them to follow the Lord in the way that he himself was fully persuaded to follow.
It is of little use for us to try to encourage others to do what we are unwilling to do. We must lead the way. We must show by our deeds as well as by our words that it is good to serve the Lord.
We might dwell at length on family Christianity. Joshua spoke for himself, and for his house. God give us more families where every member serves and loves the Saviour.
IV. A NOTE OF THANKSGIVING (Jos 24:16-18)
We are made to rejoice at the response of the people. They answered with one accord, and seemingly with all sincerity. “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods.” Their decision was made, and the reason for it is now given.
1. “The Lord our God, * * brought us * * out of the land of Egypt.” They are praising God for what He had done for them, acknowledging in this their former bondage, the days of their taskmasters, sorrows, and sighs. It was out of all this that God had brought them.
2. “The Lord our God, * * which did those great signs in our sight.” They had not forgotten the ten plagues. They had not forgotten the sight of the Egyptians being overthrown in the flood. They still remembered how everyone who looked up to the serpent was saved, and how the water was brought out of the flinty rock; how the quails were sent that they might have meat.
Would that we might all remember the wonderful signs and marvelous miracles which God has wrought before our eyes.
3. “The Lord our God, * * preserved us in all the way.” They did not think that it was their own wisdom or power that had kept them. They were kept in the hand of the Almighty. So it is that we have been kept. We should never speak of the perseverance of the saints, but rather of “their preservation.” Our security is in Him, not in ourselves.
4. “The Lord drave out from before us all the people.” Here would be a great opportunity for boasting. They could have said that they conquered Jericho, but they did not feel that way about it. They recognized that their victories were God’s, that they overcame because they were led In the train of the triumphs of the Most High.
V. THE WEAKNESS OF THE FLESH (Jos 24:19-21)
Joshua had heard all their words with evident rejoicing, and yet he continued to advise them.
1. He discovered to them what the flesh could not do. He said, “Ye cannot serve the Lord: for He is an holy God; He is a jealous God.”
Beloved, if we think that we of ourselves can serve God acceptably, we are altogether wrong. It is impossible for the flesh to please the Lord. The flesh is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and God is holy. If, therefore, we would, in our consecration, find ourselves acceptable, we must come confessing our sins, and our own weaknesses, and claim God’s healing and cleansing power.
2. A determined “Yes” and “No.” When the people said this, they were saying “Yes” to God, and “No” to every power that might turn them from Him. Beloved, there are many consecration meetings which are full of promises and halfhearted surrenders. None of these things please God. We must speak emphatically, positively, and with unmistakable sincerity. If we are going to yield to God with a great big “Yes” to all He asks of us, we must at the same time utter a great big “No” to every power of Satan and sin. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” The Word goes on to say that we must either serve “God or mammon.”
Let this day be the day of our choice, and of our decision, and may God grant that it will be the day in which we unreservedly yield to God.
VI. A PRACTICAL CONSECRATION (Jos 24:22-24)
1. We have before us an acknowledged witness. 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.”
We wonder if the young people realize that when they, in the quiet of their own room, tell God that all they are, and all they have, belongs to Him, that there they make a witness against themselves if, perchance, they break that vow. It is better never to have given ourselves to God, than to have publicly acclaimed Him Lord, and then turn to other gods.
2. A necessary aftermath. Since the people had sealed their witness, Joshua made this call, “Now therefore put away, * * the strange gods which are among you.” If we have given our life to the Master, we must put from us everything that is contrary to His will. Consecration of the lips and of the life must be followed by obedience. There are some who say, “I will go,” but they go not. They say, “I will do this,” but they do it not.
Let each one of us examine our hearts to see whether there is a sincere, unimpeachable desire in our religious profession. God grant that none of us may be professors until we are possessors.
When we do confess Christ and when we do affirm our allegiance and entire consecration, let us then put away all the evil from our lips and lives.
“The dearest idol we have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help us to tear it from its throne,
And follow only Thee.”
VII. THE STONE OF WITNESS (Jos 24:26-27)
When this wonderful time of consecration had passed, it was consummated by a setting up of a great stone. That day Joshua made a covenant with the people and set them a statute and an ordinance writing these words in the Book of the Law of God. This being done, Joshua took the stone and set it under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.
1. The stone set up. We do not know all that that stone may have had written upon it. We do know that it stood as a public declaration of the vow of Israel to serve the Lord.
In the church there is likewise a method by which our salvation and dedication are symbolized and publicly acclaimed. When we are baptized, we acclaim before the world that we are dead with Christ and risen with Him to walk in newness of life. If the Children of Israel sinned following their setting up of the stone of witness, their sin was doubly great. If believers sin after openly declaring their faith by their baptism, their sin is also doubly great. To Israel Joshua said of the stone of witness, “It shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.”
Let our baptism also be a witness unto us lest we deny our God. If we are tempted to go astray, and tempted to forget the Lord, let us immediately remember that hour when we acclaimed ourselves His own. Let us remember that other hour when upon the call of some “Joshua,” some evangelist, or pastor, we went to the front and openly dedicated ourselves unto Christ and His service. With this accomplished, Joshua let the people depart “every man unto his inheritance.”
AN ILLUSTRATION
Mrs. Howard Taylor said in an address at a convention of Student Volunteers at Toronto: “My cry had always been, ‘O God, anywhere in the world I will go for You, but not to China; don’t let it be China!’ But it was China, and for the first time in my life I left home, my father and mother, and sailed with other missionaries. But I was alone as far as my heart was concerned. There came a moment when we weighed anchor, and the great ship moved slowly over the Bay of Naples, the shores of Europe growing dim in the distance. I was standing alone clasping to my heart the first home letters,-I cannot tell you of the waves that overwhelmed my soul. Just then a sailor on the prow of the ship called to the captain on the bridge, ‘All is clear now, sir; all is clear.’ And the captain answered, “Full steam ahead!’ The words rang through my heart, and I looked up into His face and said to Him, ‘O Christ, all is clear now between my heart and Thee; all is clear now!” If you want to know something of the deeper joy of life you must go through a moment like that-Edward B. Bagby.