Joshua 24:1-28--The Covenant Renewed at Shechem

Joshua 24:1-28
New International Version

The Covenant Renewed at Shechem
24 Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.

5 “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. 6 When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. 7 But they cried to the LORD for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

8 “‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. 9 When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. 10 But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

11 “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. 12 I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. 13 So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.”

19 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the LORD.”

22 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.”

24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.”

25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. 26 And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD.

27 “See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”

28 Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to their own inheritance.

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The people are gathered together to renew their covenant with the LORD at Shechem.  God has Joshua retell the history of Israel from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Moses and Aaron and the victories that the LORD had won for His people over the Egyptians, the Moabites, King Bashan and King Og, the people of Jericho, Ai, and Bethel, and all the Canaanites people and kings that came to war against Israel in the Southern Campaign and the Northern Campaign.  In all this the LORD was faithful to give the Land to Israel that they did not fight for, for He won the battles for them.  They ate of the vineyards and olive groves that they did not plant, and they lived in cities that they did not build, all because the LORD was faithful to keep His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yes, the people were to love the LORD their God and serve Him only as part of the conditional covenant that was given to Moses that we call the Law.  To fear the LORD is to obey Him, so starting in verse 14, Joshua gives the people a charge to choose to serve the LORD, or, if they choose instead to choose publicly and corporately that they were going to return to the false gods of where Abram came from, or the gods of Egypt or the gods of the Canaanites.  The people swear they will fear the LORD and serve Him only, but this is a promise they will not keep.

To be certain, Joshua says to all those gathered there together that they are all witnesses against each other.  They have renewed the covenant together and anyone who breaks the covenant by worshiping other gods has broken covenant with the LORD and the whole nation may be held to account for it because the whole nation swore together with one voice that they would worship the LORD and serve Him only (as the Law required).  They replied with "We are witnesses," meaning they understood both the blessings of the Law and the curses of the Law followed naturally with the oath that they had just sworn for themselves and all their neighbors.

Talk is cheap though, so Joshua knows that there are those with idols living among the people, and he calls them to action at this very moment if they are really serious about the vow they just made.  If they really commit to worshiping the LORD and serving Him only, then they will destroy all other "gods" (idols) that are in their possession so that they will yield their hearts only to the LORD, the God of Israel.  The people again swear they will do this, but we see no indication that they immediately obey, and we will see the nation struggle with idolatry for most of the rest of the Old Testament (at least until after the time of the Exile).

As the people renew the covenant with everything that is written in the book of the Law, Joshua raises up a stone of witness that we call an Ebenezer so that the people would look at that large stone and remember the covenant that they made.  The Ebenezer may have even had all the words of the covenant that they sword to written on it.  It would stand for generations as a witness against the people who would break the covenant over, and over, and over again, but God would be faithful to keep His covenant, even when the Israelites were not faithful to keep the Law.  That is why we need Jesus, the only One who could be the perfect Law-Keeper, so that He could give us His righteousness and the blessings of the Law including the eternal life that only He can give us, and our unrighteousness, sin, death, guilt, shame, and the curses of the Law could all be imputed onto Him.  " God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.."  (2 Corinthians 5:21).  God already knew when the Israelites took this oath that they couldn't keep it and that He Himself would need to bear the punishment for them breaking this covenant.  He had already determined to do so before the beginning of time...before what we read in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 that both start off with "In the beginning."

After Joshua renewed the covenant with the people and the LORD one last time, he dismissed all of them back to their inheritance.  There is but one more small portion of text left that we'll look at tomorrow, but it leads us into the book of Judges quite well.  Joseph is dead and his bones will be buried.  Joshua will die and he will be buried and Eleazer the high priest will die and he will be buried.  While Phineas the son of Eleazer remains and has zeal for the LORD, there is no leader like Joseph or Moses or Joshua to rise up and lead the people to make sure they keep the covenant.  All the people that we've kept an eye on to ask if this is one that the LORD promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden, the one that would crush the head of the serpent, sinned and died because they too were sinners.  They were unable to save themselves, so they certainly could not save others.  How then is God ultimately going to fulfil His covenant when we need someone better than Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb, and Eleazer combined?  We'll get to that as we study more of the books of History and the books of Prophecy.  Even though the people are in the Land, that is not the end for them, for we know there is a better Land and a better Rest that all those who are the people of His covenant will be a part of forever and ever when the kingdom of our God and of His Christ are established, and He, that is Jesus, will reign forever and ever (see Revelation 21 and 22).  Until then, we will see Israel continue to do battle both externally with the wicked enemies of God that wish to draw them into idolatry, witchcraft and all kinds of evil and they will also battle internally with their own sin nature because even all these external forces cannot make them sin if they don't already desire to do so.  We are in the same position today living in a perverse culture with all kinds of opportunity to sin, but each of us when we do sin cannot blame anyone other than ourselves, for when we sin it is because we were led away by our own sinful desires.  Even if all the "Canaanites" around us were destroyed, we would still be inventors of all kinds of evil ourselves because by nature our hearts are naturally inclined to rebel against the LORD...that is the consequence of the Fall recorded in Genesis 3 and that is why all things need to be made new and all of us need to be "born again" as Jesus talks about in John 3.