Bible Commentaries
Joshua 24

Verses 1-33

XXIII

BRIEF REVIEW; RETURN OF WARRIORS OF THE TWO AND A HALF TRIBES

Joshua 22-24

We commence this discussion at Joshua 22, and there are several things that I wish to discuss in this section. First Theme: Brief review Joshua 13-21, enough to make it clear what part of the territory was yet unoccupied, as well as one or two other little things.

Second Theme: The return of the warriors of the two and a half tribes whose territory lay east of the Jordan.

Third Theme: Joshua’s first address.

Fourth Theme: Joshua’s final address, Joshua 24:1-28.

Fifth Theme: The renewal of the covenant and its witness.

Sixth Theme: Completing the records, as was done in the Pentateuch by Moses.

Seventh Theme: The death and burial of Joshua, the burial of the bones of Joseph and the death and burial of Eleazar. That part of Joshua 24, just as a part of Deuteronomy as a connecting link, was inserted by the later historians, and you will see that not only here but it reopens in the next book. Now those are the several themes that I shall discuss. In the preceding section on the division of the land, Joshua 13-21 inclusive, you will notice that on account of Joshua’s age the Almighty instructed him to divide the land on the west side of the Jordan as it had been divided on the east side of the Jordan, and yet the record states that much land yet remained to be possessed.

Now, in the part of the territory where they had not been fully subjugated, their enemies were the Geshuri, very different from the Geshurites that we shall learn about directly. They occupied the Arabian desert from the river of Egypt where it went into the Mediterranean Sea clear on up almost to Kadesh-barnea, until it touched the Philistine country. Now, that tribe of the Canaanites west of the Jordan inhabiting that territory, while it had been divided, had not been brought into complete subjugation. Their territory came up to the narrow strip on the Mediterranean Sea, the five towns of the Philistines that were not completely occupied, then going further up by the Mediterranean Sea were the Phoenicians, the chief towns of which were Tyre and Sidon, and they were not completely conquered. So that what remained to be conquered on the west were the Phoenicians and the Philistines.

Now, when it comes to the northern border, a strip of country commencing in the mountains of Lebanon and including the entrance into Hamath, a stretch clear across into the mountains of Gilead, where was the half tribe of Manasseh, that strip had not been completely subjugated. So that on three sides, the Geshuri on the south; on the west, the Philistines and Phoenicians; on the north, the strip including a number of small kingdoms, particularly the kingdom of Maachi, and one other that the half tribe of Manasseh had not overcome were not subjugated. Now, without going into an elaborate detail, I determined to give you an idea of the country, so that you could see that on the three borders, south, west, and stretching clear across the north, there was unpossessed territory.

The next thing to explain in that section is that the section closes in Joshua 21:43-45, by stating that every promise that God had made to them had been literally fulfilled and that they had been put in possession of the land and that no enemy was able to stand before them and that they had rest. The point is, to reconcile that with those facts that I have just stated, that on the north, on the west and on the south are portions of territory that have not been occupied. How, then, is the conclusion of that section true? You will find by carefully noting Exodus 23:29-30, and Deuteronomy 7:22, that God had forewarned them that he would not put them in possession of all this territory in one year. It would have been a destruction of the population before any other population could move in and keep the land from going to waste, therefore, in making the promise to put them in possession that promise was modified. "I will not drive out the enemy the first year, lest the land should go to waste, but I will drive them out little by little, year after year." That explains the apparent discrepancy between the two statements.

The next thought that I wish to bring out is that in the beginning God had appointed Joshua to make the general conquest of the land where it required all Israel to be held together in one army, the main battles to be fought and the enemy to be defeated, so that they would not take the open field. Then Joshua’s part must end, and the details of driving out the remnants of the people devolved upon each tribe, which God clearly foretold, as you will see in Numbers 33:55, and Joshua restates it in Joshua 23:11-13. God designedly left a portion of the inhabitants for each tribe, in its tribal capacity, to grapple with and assured them that if they were sluggish in completing that, then he would preserve these remnants alive to be a thorn in their flesh; as a test of their character. So that they understood that these remnants would rise in punishment, as you will see illustrated when you come to the book of Judges. So all of the statements have been taken together and scripture compared with scripture. Some of the greatest sermons that have ever been published are on those remnants of nations, God permitting them to remain to try the tribes. Generally the sermons preached on that make this scriptural application, viz.: that after regeneration there remain remnants of the fleshly nature to be overcome by sanctification, and if a man does not cultivate sanctification these remnants will rise up and conquer him and bring him into temporary captivity at least. It is a fine spiritual application.

The second theme is the return of the warriors of the two and a half tribes whose territory lay east of the Jordan. That proves that the conquest of Joshua was over, and the army broken up. Joshua assembled these tribes and passed on them the highest commendations that a general ever gave to soldiers. He said that they had not failed in any particular in doing what Moses required and what they had promised. There was not a blot on their record. Following that commendation, which is as superb as anything I know of in literature, he then exhorts them that on their return to their old home they be as faithful in the future as they had been in the past. Then he gives them a benediction and a blessing is pronounced on them, and in that benediction he says, "You go home; you go with great spoils and many riches, your part of the conquest which has taken place." And so they are dismissed, and this is the first item of the return of the tribes. The next thought is that when these armies got to the river Jordan they erected on the mountains near the Jordan a very great and very conspicuous altar, an altar to be seen, as your text says. You can even see it now, at least the site of it and the ruins of it, and you see it a long way off.

Now, when the nine and a half tribes heard of the erection of that altar, they misconstrued its intent and came rushing together to make war on the two and a half tribes. But before they declared war, somebody had sense enough to suggest the sending of an ambassador to find out about this, and so they selected a high priest and a deputation from the nine and a half tribes, and they went over and interviewed the two and a half tribes, and interviewed them very sternly. They thought that the altar was the altar for burnt offerings and that it was intended to be a line of separation between the two and a half tribes and the nine and a half tribes, and that the two and a half tribes would worship idols there and not the true God; that it meant revolt from the central place of worship and the high priest makes an accusation.

The two and a half tribes turn them down very easily. They say, "Brethren, this is not an altar of burnt offerings. This is an altar of witness and the meaning is that, as long as that hill stands and that altar stands, it is a pledge that the tribes east of the Jordan are bound up with the tribes west of the Jordan in unity of worship, and the unity of the tribes is to be preserved." I imagine that that deputation looked foolish. Just before you go to war on people, read David Crockett, who said: "Be sure you are right, and then go ahead." Stop long enough to be sure you have heard the right of it. If we consider the truth of a thing, it will from much dissension free us. So I think that the two and a half tribes came out way ahead of that high priest as well as upon the fidelity of their service. The two and a half tribes made the name of that altar "Ed." That means witness, not burnt offerings, "witness," like Jacob’s Mizpah, the meaning of which is the same thing: "The Lord witness between me and thee." Somehow I was always charmed with that incident, viz.: the going home of those tribes and their fidelity to the unity of Israel and the true worship of God.

Now we come to the third theme. It is presented in Joshua 23. Joshua calls the people together, it doesn’t say where, but presumably at Shiloh, and delivers them an address bearing upon this point, viz.: The duty that devolved upon them in their several tribal capacities to conquer the remnants: "Now while I was your general, I represented the whole nation; I commanded the army of the whole nation. You will bear witness that God stood by me; that he gave us victory every time; that no nation was able to stand before us. Now that public general part is ended, and your particular part remains to be done." It is in that connection that he tells us that if they are sluggish about driving out these remnants, God would retain them and preserve them as thorns in their sides In that connection he reminds them of the reason that God commanded the extirpation of the Canaanites, viz.: they were idolaters, they were outrageous sinners. Now says Joshua, "If you do as they did, God will do to you as he did to them. If you turn away from the true God and you lapse into the idolatrous ways of these nations, and that can be brought about by your intermarriage and your treaties with them, if you do that, he will sponge you off the map as he sponged them off the map for a like offense, and you will go into captivity." Now, you can see that presumably it was at Shiloh, and the purpose of this assembly is quite distinct from the purpose of the one next to be considered.

So now we come to Joshua 24, the last part. Now he commands all Israel to come together again and the place this time is Shechem, not Shiloh. Why should it be Shechem? Considering the objects that he had in view in calling them together, why was Shechem the appropriate place?

First, Shechem was the place where Abraham halted when he got to this land, and he built an altar and received from God the promises of the land; it was to be given to him and his children. When God sent him out, he went, not knowing whither he went, but here at Shechem God outlines to him that this very territory is to belong to him and his children. That was the first altar and the first promise considering the possession of the land.

The second thing is that when Jacob returned from Mesopotamia, he stopped at Shechem and built an altar and there was a renewal of the promises to him, and he there freed his family from idolatry. You remember that one of his wives carried away the teraphim of Laban and Jacob made his wife bury these things under an old tree.

Right there Jacob bought a particular section of land, setting a price, and that land he was to deed to Joseph, and the descendants of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh, and right at that place, as we learn later in this book, the bones of Joseph were buried. In the last chapter of Genesis Joseph tells them that he will die and he says, "Take my bones," and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him and we learn here that the bones of Joseph were buried -there, and so we learn from Stephen’s speech in Acts. There you have three reasons. Let us see if we cannot find another. When Joshua first brought the people over into the Promised Land after they had been circumcised and he kept the feast of the Passover, it was to this place that he brought them with Mount Ebal on one side and Mount Gerizirn on the other. He renewed the covenant there and there he built an altar of stone, and on the stones recorded the Pentateuch as a witness. Then we learn next from Ebal and Gerizirn were enunciated in turn a curse and a blessing of the covenant, and yet further we learn that there this copy of the covenant, prepared by Joshua, was set up so that the Pentateuch stood there and the altar of the renewal of the covenant stood there and the echoes of the blessings and curses, and the bones of Joseph were there, and the altar of Abraham was there, and the altar of Jacob was there. "So it was intensely appropriate that in his farewell address he should gather them where they had renewed the covenant on their first entrance into the Promised Land.

Now we come to the final address as it reviews their history. He reminded them that beyond the flood, that is, the Euphrates River (that is the meaning of Euphrates, the flood), in Ur of the Chaldees, their ancestor was Terah, an idolater, and that from that idolatrous country God called their immediate ancestor, Abraham, and brought him to this place and made him that promise. He then shows their history under Moses when God leads them out of Egypt and establishes with them his covenant at Mount Sinai, their wandering in the wilderness and that God conquered for them the tribes east of the Jordan, and God conquered for them the tribes west of the Jordan.

Now, upon these historical facts he makes an exhortation that is very thrilling. He shows if ever a nation in the world was under obligations to keep the covenant given at Sinai and renewed at Ebal and Gerizirn, that this people was under obligations to do it. And he urges them to be faithful, in all things, to their God and their religion. Having finished his exhortation, the people reply, and they say that they will do what he tells them to do. Then he said that they need not think, and you and I need not think, that it is an easy thing to live right in the sight of a jealous God. If you make a vow to do anything, you had better thoughtfully consider it. He having then cautioned them, they renewed their promise. Then he said, "Now we will renew the covenant itself." While the book doesn’t give the details of how the covenant was renewed, they renewed it just as before. There they built an altar; there were certain burnt offerings, certain sanctification and setting apart. Then there was the taking upon themselves the vows of the covenant. Now that having been done, Joshua makes that altar witness of the covenant. Then he completes the records just as Moses finished up the records of the Pentateuch and put them in the ark to be preserved. Joshua completes the record of this time and takes the Pentateuch out of the ark – and slips his record inside of the holy ark of the covenant of God, and all the history in connection with it as a witness.

Then follows an account, doubtless by Phinehas, the high priest. As Joshua had finished the last part of Deuteronomy, so here a record is made of Joshua’s death and his burial. There is a singular thing in the Alexandrian version of the Septuagint, which says that the knives with which the people had been circumcised were buried with Joshua. It may have been, I don’t know. Then follows the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, and that closes up the book. Now, this is a very brief discussion but it is sufficient, and in our next discussion we will take the period of the Judges, bearing in mind that a considerable part of the book of Judges overlaps the book of Joshua; that several things occurred before he died and before his final address was delivered.

QUESTIONS

1. Why was the land now divided?

2. What land yet in the hands of the enemy?

3. How was God’s promise literally fulfilled?

4. What was Joshua’s part in the conquest of the land?

5. What each tribe’s part after the general conquest?

6. If they proved sluggish in this then what?

7. What commendation pronounced upon them by Joshua?

8. What exhortation to them?

9. The benediction on them?

10. The altar on the Jordan:

(1) Describe it.

(2) How construed by the nine and one-half tribes, and why?

(3) What steps did they take?

(4) What the response?

(5) What the effect on the nine and one-half tribes?

(6) What name did they give the altar and what its meaning?

(7) What the value of embassy before war?

III. Joshua’s First Address about the Completion of the Conquest

11. Where assembled?

12. What duty does he point out to them?

13. What the penalty for their failure?

14. Where?

15. Why there? (Give seven reasons.)

16. Give brief analysis of this address of Joshua, and their reply.

17. Give an account of the renewal of the covenant.

18. What the witness?

19. Tell how Joshua completed the records.

20. Who wrote the account of Joshua’s death and burial?

21. The fulfilment of what prophecy made by Joseph recorded here?

22. What other death recorded here?

Verses 9-10

VIII

BALAAM: HIS IMPORTANT PROPHECIES, HIS CHARACTER, AND HIS BIBLE HISTORY

Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8; Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; Revelation 2:14

These scriptures give you a clue to both Balaam’s history and character: Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8, and especially Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; and, most important of all, Revelation 2:14. Anybody who attempts to discuss Balaam ought to be familiar with every one of these scriptures.

Who was Balaam? He was a descendant of Abraham, as much as the Israelites were. He was a Midianite and his home was near where the kinsmen of Abraham, Nahor and Laban, lived. They possessed from the days of Abraham a very considerable knowledge of the true God. He was not only a descendant of Abraham and possessed the knowledge of the true God through traditions handed down, as in the case of Job and Melchizedek, but he was a prophet of Jehovah. That is confirmed over and over again. Unfortunately he was also a soothsayer and a diviner, adding that himself to his prophetic office for the purpose of making money. People always approach soothsayers with fees.

His knowledge of the movements of the children of Israel could easily have been obtained and the book of Exodus expressly tells that that knowledge was diffused over the whole country. Such a poem as Jacob’s dying blessing on his children would circulate all over the Semitic tribes, and such an administration as that of Joseph would become known over all the whole world, such displays of power as the miracles in Egypt, the deliverance at the Red Sea and the giving of the law right contiguous to the territory of Balaam’s nation make it possible for him to learn all these mighty particulars. It is a great mistake to say that God held communication only with the descendants of Abraham. We see how he influenced people in Job’s time and how he influenced Melchizedek, and there is one remarkable declaration made in one of the prophets that I have not time to discuss, though I expect to preach a sermon on it some day, in which God claims that he not only brought Israel out of Egypt but the Philistines out of Caphtor and all peoples from the places they occupied (Amos 9:7). We are apt to get a very narrow view of God’s government of the human race when we attempt to confine it to the Jews only.

Next, we want to consider the sin of Balaam. First, it was from start to finish a sin against knowledge. He had great knowledge of Jehovah. It was a sin against revelation and a very vile sin in that it proceeded from his greed for money, loving the wages of unrighteousness. His sin reached its climax after he had failed to move Jehovah by divinations, and it was clear that Jehovah was determined to bless these people, when for a price paid in his hand be vilely suggested a means by which the people could be turned from God and brought to punishment. That was about as iniquitous a thing as the purchase of the ballots in the late prohibition election in Waco, for the wages of unrighteousness. His counsel was (Numbers 31:16) to seduce the people of Israel by bringing the Moabitish and Midianite evil women to tempt and get them through their lusts to attend idolatrous feasts.

In getting at the character of this man, we have fortunately some exceedingly valuable sermon literature. The greatest preachers of modern times have preached on Balaam, and in the cross lights of their sermons every young preacher ought to inform himself thoroughly on Balaam. The most famous one for quite a while was Bishop Butler’s sermon. When I was a boy, everybody read that sermon, and, as I recall it, the object was to show the self-deception which persuaded Balaam in every case that the sin he committed could be brought within the rules of conscience and revelation, so that he could say something at every point to show that he stood right, while all the time he was going wrong.

Then the great sermon by Cardinal Newman: "The dark shadow cast over a noble course by standing always on the ladder of advancement and by the suspense of a worldly ambition never satisfied." He saw in Balaam one of the most remarkable men of the world, high up on the ladder and the way to the top perfectly open but shaded by the dark shadow of his sin. Then Dr. Arnold’s sermon on Balaam, as I recall, the substance being the strange combination of the purest form of religious belief with action immeasurably below it. Next the great sermon by Spurgeon with seven texts. He takes the words in the Bible, "I have sinned," and Balaam is one of the seven men he discusses. Spurgeon preached Balaam as a double-minded man. He could see the right and yet his lower nature turned him constantly away from it, a struggle between the lower and higher nature. These four men were the greatest preachers in the world since Paul. I may modestly call attention to my own sermon on Balaam; that Balaam was not a double-minded man; that from the beginning this man had but one real mind, and that was greed and power, and he simply used the religious light as a stalking horse. No rebuff could stop him long. God might say, "You shall not go," and he would say, "Lord, hear me again and let me go." He might start and an angel would meet him and he might hear the rebuke of the dumb brute but he would still seek a way to bring about evil. I never saw a man with a mind more single than Balaam.

I want you to read about him in Keble’s "Christian Year." Keble conceives of Balaam as standing on the top of a mountain that looked over all those countries he is going to prophesy about and used this language:

O for a sculptor’s hand,

That thou might’st take thy stand

Thy wild hair floating in the eastern breeze,

Thy tranc’d yet open gaze

Fix’d on the desert haze,

As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant aeea.

In outline dim and vast

Their fearful shadows cast

The giant forms of empires on their way

To ruin: one by one

They tower and they are gone,

Yet in the Prophet’s soul the dreams of avarice stay.

That is a grand conception. If he just had the marble image of a man of that kind, before whose eyes, from his lofty mountain pedestal were sweeping the pageants of mighty empires and yet in whose eyes always stayed the dreams of avarice. The following has been sculptured on a rock:

No sun or star so bright

In all the world of light

That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:

He hears th’ Almighty’s word,

He sees the Angel’s sword,

Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

That comes nearer giving a true picture of Balaam. That shows you a man so earth bound in his heart’s desire, looking at low things and grovelling that no sun or star could lift his eye toward heaven. Not even God Almighty’s word could make him look up, without coercion of the human will.

Now, you are to understand that the first two prophecies of Balaam came to him when he was trying to work divinations on God. In those two he obeys as mechanically as a hypnotized person obeys the will of the hypnotist. He simply speaks under the coercive power of God. In these first two prophecies God tells him what to say, as if a mightier hand than his had dipped the pen in ink and moved his hand to write those lines.

At the end of the second one when he saw no divination could possibly avail against those people, the other prophecies came from the fact that the Spirit of the Lord comes on him just like the Spirit came on Saul, the king of Israel, and he prophesied as a really inspired man. In the first prophecy he shows, first, a people that God has blessed and will not curse; second, he is made to say, "Let me die the death of the righteous and let my, last end – at death and judgment – be like his." That shows God’s revelation to that people. The second prophecy shows why that is so: "God is not a man that he should repent." "It is not worth while to work any divination. He has marked out the future of this nation." Second, why is it that he will not regard iniquity in Jacob? For the purpose he has in view he will not impute their trespasses to them. The prophecy stops with this thought, that when you look at what this people have done and will do, you are not to say, "What Moses did, nor Joshua did, nor David," but you are to say, "What God hath wrought!"

The first time I ever heard Dr. Burleson address young preachers, and I was not even a Christian myself, he took that for his text. He commenced by saying, "That is a great theme for a preacher. Evidently these Jews had not accomplished all those things. They were continually rebelling and wanting to go back, and yet you see them come out of Egypt, cross the Sea, come to Sinai, organized, fed, clothed, the sun kept off by day and darkness by night, marvellous victories accomplished and you are to say, ’What God hath wrought!’ "

When the spiritual power comes on him he begins to look beyond anything he has ever done yet, to messianic days. There are few prophecies in the Bible more far-reaching than this last prophecy of Balaam. When he says of the Messiah, "I shall see him but not now," it is a long way off. "My case is gone, but verily a star" – the symbol of the star and sceptre carried out the thought of the power of the Messiah. So much did that prophecy impress the world that those Wise Men who came right from Balaam’s country when Jesus was born, remember this prophecy: "We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him."

He then looks all around and there are the nations before him from that mountain top, and he prophesies about Moab and Amalek and passes on beyond, approaching even to look to nations yet unborn. He looks to the Grecian Empire arising far away in the future, further than anybody but Daniel. He sees the ships of the Grecians coming and the destruction of Asshur and the destruction of Eber, his own people. Then we come to the antitypical references later.

If you want a comparison of this man, take Simon Magus who wanted to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit so as to make money. That is even better than Judas, though Judas comes in. Judas had knowledge, was inspired, worked miracles, and yet Judas never saw the true kingdom of God in the spirit of holiness, and because he could not bring about the kingdom of which he would be treasurer for fifteen dollars he sold the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the principal thoughts I wanted to add.

QUESTIONS

1. Who was Balaam?

2. How did he obtain his knowledge of God?

3. What was the sin of Balaam?

4. What was the climax of his sin?

5. What five sermons on Balaam are referred to? Give the line of thought in each.

6. Give Keble’s conception of Balaam.

7. What was the testimony sculptured on a rock?

8. Now give your own estimate of the character of Balaam.

9. How do you account for the first two prophecies?

10. How do you account for the other two?

11. In the first prophecy what does he show, what is he made to say and what does that show?

12. Give a brief analysis of the second prophecy.

13. Of what does the third prophecy consist?

14. Give the items of the fourth prophecy.

15. How did his messianic prophecy impress the world?

16. When was this prophecy concerning Amalek fulfilled? Ana. In the days of Saul. (I Sam. 15).

17. Who was Asshur and what was his relation to the Kenites?

18. What reference here to the Grecians?

19. Who was Eber?

20. With what two New Testament characters may we compare?