241 Then Joshua got all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; and he sent for the responsible men of Israel and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers; and they took their place before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: In the past your fathers, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, were living on the other side of the River: and they were worshipping other gods. 3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, guiding him through all the land of Canaan; I made his offspring great in number, and gave him Isaac. 4 And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: to Esau I gave Mount Seir, as his heritage; but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. 5 And I sent Moses and Aaron, troubling Egypt by all the signs I did among them: and after that I took you out. 6 I took your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the Red Sea; and the Egyptians came after your fathers to the Red Sea, with their war-carriages and their horsemen. 7 And at their cry, the Lord made it dark between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea go over them, covering them with its waters; your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt: then for a long time you were living in the waste land. 8 And I took you into the lands of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan; and they made war on you, and I gave them into your hands and you took their land; and I sent destruction on them before you. 9 Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, went up to war against Israel; and he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, to put a curse on you: 10 But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him. 11 Then you went over Jordan and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho made war on you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites: and I gave them up into your hands. 12 And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow. 13 And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting. 14 So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joshua 24:1-14
Commentary on Joshua 24:1-14
(Read Joshua 24:1-14)
We must never think our work for God done, till our life is done. If he lengthen out our days beyond what we expected, like those of Joshua, it is because he has some further service for us to do. He who aims at the same mind which was in Christ Jesus, will glory in bearing the last testimony to his Saviour's goodness, and in telling to all around, the obligations with which the unmerited goodness of God has bound him. The assembly came together in a solemn religious manner. Joshua spake to them in God's name, and as from him. His sermon consists of doctrine and application. The doctrinal part is a history of the great things God had done for his people, and for their fathers before them. The application of this history of God's mercies to them, is an exhortation to fear and serve God, in gratitude for his favour, and that it might be continued.