Joshua 24

Today’s Passage: Joshua 24

This is the last chapter of the book. Joshua, now very old, gathers all the tribes to Shechem and speaks to them in the LORD’s own voice, retelling the whole long story of grace: how God took Abraham from beyond the River, gave him Isaac and Jacob, brought the people out of Egypt, carried them through the wilderness, and handed them a land they did not toil for and cities they did not build. On the strength of all that grace he calls them to fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth, to throw away every other god, and to make their choice plain. The people vow three times to serve the LORD, Joshua warns them soberly of what such a covenant means, and he sets up a great stone as a witness. Then the book closes with a burial ground: Joshua dies at a hundred and ten, Joseph’s bones are laid to rest at Shechem, and Eleazar the priest is buried in the hills.

As you read, hold this: The LORD has done everything and given a land they never earned; now His people must choose, this day and with their whole hearts, whom they will serve.

Joshua 24:1–4 (BSB)

¹ Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges, and officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. ² And Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your fathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods. ³ But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac, ⁴ and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau Mount Seir to possess, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

Joshua does not begin with a demand. He begins with a history, and the history begins on the far side of grace. Long ago your fathers worshiped other gods. That is where the family started, over the river, among idols, with nothing to recommend them. And then the story turns on a single word: But I took your father Abraham. The whole line of Israel exists because God reached across the Euphrates and took a man who was not looking for Him. I led him, I multiplied his descendants, I gave him Isaac. Before Israel ever chose (בָּחַר) bāchar, pronounced bah-KHAR. Strong's H977, to choose, select, fix the heart on one thing. It is the word for a deliberate, considered decision, not a mood or a drift. Scripture uses it most often of God choosing His people, and that order matters. Long before Joshua asks Israel to choose the LORD, the LORD has already chosen them, taking Abraham from beyond the River when he wanted nothing of God. When the call to choose finally reaches the people, it is never the first choice in the story. It is the answering choice, made by those who were chosen first. God, God chose Israel, and the choice ran all downhill from His free hand to theirs.

Joshua 24:5–7 (BSB)

⁵ Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and afterward I brought you out. ⁶ When I brought your fathers out of Egypt and you reached the Red Sea, the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. ⁷ So your fathers cried out to the LORD, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, over whom He brought the sea and engulfed them. Your very eyes saw what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

The story moves down into Egypt and out again, and still every strong verb belongs to God. I sent Moses and Aaron, I afflicted the Egyptians, I brought you out. At the sea, when the chariots came, the people cried out, but it was the LORD who put darkness between them and their enemies and brought the water down. Notice the tender shift in the middle of the verse: your very eyes saw what I did. The generation standing at Shechem was not there at the sea, yet God speaks to them as one people across the years, folding their fathers’ rescue into their own memory. The wilderness gets a single line, a long time swallowed in a phrase, because the point is not the length of the road but the faithfulness of the One who walked it with them.

Joshua 24:8–13 (BSB)

⁸ Later, I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan. They fought against you, but I delivered them into your hand, that you should possess their land when I destroyed them before you. ⁹ Then Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, set out to fight against Israel. He sent for Balaam son of Beor to curse you, ¹⁰ but I would not listen to Balaam. So he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you from his hand. ¹¹ After this, you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The people of Jericho fought against you, as did the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I delivered them into your hand. ¹² I sent the hornet ahead of you, and it drove out the two Amorite kings before you, but not by your own sword or bow. ¹³ So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities that you did not build, and now you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

Here the whole book they have just lived through is gathered into a few verses. The Amorites, Balak and Balaam, the crossing of the Jordan, Jericho, the seven nations, all of it delivered into their hand by the same hand that took Abraham. And then God says a thing meant to strip away every scrap of pride: it was not by your own sword or bow. The victories were real, the walls really fell, the enemies were really scattered, but the strength behind it was never theirs. The chapter’s most searching line comes last. I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities that you did not build, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. Everything they now enjoy came to them as a gift they did not earn. The house was already built, the vine already old, the well already dug. Grace has fingerprints on every wall of the life they are living.

Joshua 24:14–15 (BSB)

¹⁴ Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵ But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!”

Now, therefore. Everything turns on those two words. Because God has done all of this, freely, from beginning to end, there is a therefore, and the therefore is a call to worship. Fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth. Cast aside the old gods, the ones from beyond the River and the ones from Egypt, and serve the LORD alone. Then comes the great line that this chapter is remembered for, and it deserves to be heard slowly. If it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua does not manipulate them. He lays the choice bare and refuses to make it a soft one. There is no coasting, no middle ground where a person serves (עָבַד) ʿābad, pronounced ah-VAHD. Strong's H5647, to serve, work for, worship. To serve a master is to belong to him, to order your days around his will. This is the verb that rings through the whole passage, again and again: serve Him, serve the LORD, whom you will serve. It carries no idea of a casual admirer or an occasional visitor. To serve the LORD is to give Him your labor and your loyalty, to be His household and not your own. That is why Joshua sets it as a choice between masters. Everyone serves someone. The only question is whose the service will be. everyone and no one. You will serve something. Choose, and choose today. And before he waits for their answer, he plants his own flag: whatever the rest of you do, my household is decided. The old servant of the LORD, at the end of a lifetime, has one thing left to say, and it is that he and his have chosen the LORD.

Joshua 24:16–18 (BSB)

¹⁶ The people replied, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! ¹⁷ For the LORD our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and performed these great signs before our eyes. He also protected us throughout our 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!”

The people answer well, and their answer is really a shorter echo of God’s own speech. They repeat the story back to Him. He brought us out of the house of slavery, He performed these signs before our eyes, He protected us on the journey, He drove out the nations. They have been listening. And so their vow is grounded where it should be, not in their own resolve but in what God has done. We too will serve the LORD, because He is our God. It is a good confession, warm and sincere, made in the glow of remembered rescue. But Joshua, who has watched this people for a lifetime, knows how easily a good confession can be spoken and how hard it is to keep. He will not let them make this vow lightly.

Joshua 24:19–20 (BSB)

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

This is a startling thing for a leader to say to a people who have just pledged their loyalty. You are not able to serve the LORD. Joshua is not trying to talk them out of it. He is trying to make sure they know what they are saying. The LORD is a holy God and a jealous God, and the text names Him so plainly: He will not simply wave away rebellion as though it did not matter. To covenant with a God like this is no small thing, and a vow made carelessly is worse than no vow at all. Joshua’s warning is a kindness dressed as a rebuke. He would rather they count the cost now than promise in the warmth of the moment and forsake Him in the cold of the years. Even after He has been good to you: the danger is not that God will fail them, but that they, having received everything, might still turn away.

Joshua 24:21–24 (BSB)

²¹ “No!” replied the people. “We will serve the LORD!” ²² Then Joshua told them, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.” “We are witnesses!” they said. ²³ “Now, therefore,” he said, “get rid of the foreign gods among you and incline your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.” ²⁴ So the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey His voice.”

Three times now the people have said it. We will serve the LORD. No, we will serve the LORD. We will serve the LORD our God and obey His voice. Joshua has pressed them hard, and they have not backed away, and so he seals it: you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD. Their own words will stand as testimony to the choice they made this day. And then, in the middle of the vows, comes the concrete command that shows whether any of it is real: get rid of the foreign gods among you and incline your hearts to the LORD. It turns out there were still idols tucked away in the tents, even now, even among a people singing God’s praises. A true choice for the LORD always has this hard edge. It does not only add Him to the shelf. It throws the other gods off it.

Joshua 24:25–28 (BSB)

²⁵ On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he established for them a statute and ordinance. ²⁶ 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 that was near the sanctuary of the LORD. ²⁷ And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone. It will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the LORD has spoken to us, and it will be a witness against you if you ever deny your God.” ²⁸ Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.

The choice is made permanent. Joshua cuts a covenant, writes the words in the Book of the Law, and sets up a great stone under the oak, the same kind of place where Jacob had once buried his household idols. The stone will stand there, silent and heavy, long after this day is over. You see this stone, Joshua says. It has heard all the words the LORD has spoken, and it will be a witness against you if you ever deny your God. It is a strange and beautiful thing, a stone called as a witness, but the point is plain. The choice was real, spoken aloud in a real place on a real day, and there will be a marker in the ground to prove it was made. Then, his work done, Joshua sends the people home, each to the inheritance the LORD had given him. The whole book has been moving toward this: a people settled in their land, and gathered once at Shechem to say whose they are.

Joshua 24:29–33 (BSB)

²⁹ Some time later, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110. ³⁰ And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ³¹ Israel had served the LORD throughout the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced all the works that the LORD had done for Israel. ³² And the bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver. So it became an inheritance for Joseph’s descendants. ³³ Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him at Gibeah, which had been given to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

The book ends where all faithful lives end, in the ground, and it ends with honor. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, dies at a hundred and ten. He is given the same title Moses carried, the servant of the LORD, and he is laid to rest in the very inheritance he had helped his people win. This is no defeat. It is a full life closing at its proper hour, a man who kept his own vow to the end. And the finest thing the book can say about him is said next: Israel served the LORD throughout the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him. His faithfulness held the people steady for a whole generation. Then two more burials seal the book. Joseph’s bones, carried out of Egypt centuries before on the strength of a promise that God would surely visit His people, are finally laid to rest at Shechem, in ground Jacob had bought long ago. And Eleazar the priest is buried in the hills. Three graves, three men who trusted God, all of them at rest at last in the land He gave. The promise made to Abraham beyond the River has come all the way home.