Joshua 23

Today’s Passage: Joshua 23

Joshua is old now, and the wars are behind him. He gathers all Israel, its elders and leaders and judges and officers, and he tells them what their own eyes have seen: it was the LORD their God who fought for them. He reminds them that God will keep pushing out the nations that remain, and he charges them to be very strong to keep everything written in the Book of the Law, turning neither to the right nor the left, and to hold fast to the LORD as they have done. He warns them not to mix with the surviving nations or serve their gods. Then he sets the great evidence before them, that not one good promise the LORD made has failed, and he warns just as plainly that if they turn and cling to those nations, the same faithful God will bring the harm He threatened, until they perish from the good land.

As you read, hold this: The LORD kept every good promise He made, so His people are to hold fast to Him alone and refuse the pull of every other god.

Joshua 23:1–5 (BSB)

¹ A long time after the LORD had given Israel rest from all the enemies around them, when Joshua was old and well along in years, ² he summoned all Israel, including its elders, leaders, judges, and officers. “I am old and well along in years,” he said, ³ “and you have seen everything that the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake, because it was the LORD your God who fought for you. ⁴ See, I have allotted as an inheritance to your tribes these remaining nations, including all the nations I have already cut off, from the Jordan westward to the Great Sea. ⁵ The LORD your God will push them out of your way and drive them out before you, so that you can take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you.

Joshua begins with his own frailty, which is an honest place for an old man to begin. I am old and well along in years. But he does not want the people leaning on him, and so he turns their eyes at once to the One who did the real fighting. You have seen everything that the LORD your God has done, he says, because it was the LORD your God who fought for you. Every victory Israel could name was worked by God’s own hand, and Joshua will not let them forget it. Even the land not yet fully taken is spoken of as certain, for the LORD your God will push them out of your way, just as He promised. The work that remains rests on the same faithfulness that carried them this far.

Joshua 23:6–8 (BSB)

⁶ Be very strong, then, so that you can keep and obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, not turning aside from it to the right or to the left. ⁷ So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸ Instead, you shall hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day.

Here is the heart of Joshua’s charge, and it echoes the very words God once spoke to him at the Jordan: be very strong. But notice where the strength is aimed. It is not strength for the sword now but strength to obey, to keep everything written in the Book of the Law without turning aside to the right or the left. The danger has changed shape. The old enemies are beaten; the new enemy is the slow drift of the heart toward other gods. So Joshua sets before them a clear line. Do not call on those names, do not serve them, do not bow. Instead, hold fast (דָּבַק) dabaq, pronounced dah-BAHK. Strong's H1692, to cling, to cleave, to stick to. The word means to cling, to stick, to be glued to something and not come loose. It is the word used in Genesis when a man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife, the two becoming one. To hold fast to the LORD is to be bound to Him with that kind of nearness, close as a garment against the skin. And it is exactly the word Joshua will use again in the next breath, but turned the other way: the danger is that Israel would cling to the nations instead. The heart will cling to something. The only question is what. Joshua pleads with them to keep clinging to the LORD, the way they have done to this day. to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day. The whole of faithfulness gathers into that one image, a hand that will not let go.

Joshua 23:9–11 (BSB)

⁹ The LORD has driven out great and powerful nations before you, and to this day no one can stand against you. ¹⁰ One of you can put a thousand to flight, because the LORD your God fights for you, just as He promised. ¹¹ Therefore watch yourselves carefully, that you love the LORD your God.

Joshua returns to the evidence. Great and powerful nations, the kind that should have swallowed a wandering people whole, were driven out before them, and no one could stand. One of you can put a thousand to flight, he says, and then he names the reason plainly: because the LORD your God fights for you, just as He promised. The math never made sense on paper; it only made sense because God was in it. And out of all that mercy Joshua draws not pride but watchfulness. Therefore watch yourselves carefully, that you love the LORD your God. The love he calls for is not a soft feeling but a guarded, tended thing, watched over like a fire you refuse to let go out. A people so carried should give their hearts to no one else.

Joshua 23:12–13 (BSB)

¹² For if you turn away and cling to the rest of these nations that remain among you, and if you intermarry and associate with them, ¹³ know for sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.

Now the warning comes, and it turns on that same word. If you cling to the rest of these nations, Joshua says, the very clinging that was meant for the LORD spent instead on the peoples around them. The concern here is not blood but worship. To bind themselves to those nations, to marry into their households and take up their ways, would be to open the door to their gods, and that is the snare Joshua dreads. He is honest about the cost. The nations left standing would no longer be pushed back but would become a snare and a trap, a scourge in the sides and thorns in the eyes, until the people perish from the good land God had given them. It is a hard word, but a father’s hard word, spoken so his children might never have to live it.

Joshua 23:14 (BSB)

¹⁴ Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and soul that not one of the good promises the LORD your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed.

This is the center of the whole farewell, and Joshua puts his own death right beside it. Today I am going the way of all the earth. He is dying, and he wants the people to weigh what he says as the settled testimony of a man at the end of a long life. And here it is: not one of the good promises the LORD your God made to you has failed. He says it, and then he says it again, as if once were not enough. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed. Joshua had watched God’s word land, promise after promise, over decades, and he could find no exception anywhere. Every good thing the LORD had said, He had done. This is the ground under everything else Joshua asks. A God with that record can be trusted, and clung to, without reserve.

Joshua 23:15–16 (BSB)

¹⁵ But just as every good thing the LORD your God promised you has come to pass, likewise the LORD will bring upon you the calamity He has threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you. ¹⁶ If you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from this good land He has given you.”

Joshua ends by taking the same faithfulness he has just praised and turning it toward the warning. The God who kept every good promise is the very God who will keep His warnings too. Just as every good thing has come to pass, likewise the LORD will bring the calamity He has threatened if they abandon Him. The same steadiness that made the blessing sure makes the warning sure. And Joshua names the one sin that would trigger it, the sin his whole speech has circled: to transgress the covenant, to go and serve other gods and bow down to them. That is the line that must not be crossed. God’s faithfulness is not a thing to presume upon but a thing to hold fast to, for the LORD who is true to bless is just as true to His word of judgment.