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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Joshua 24:15-28

Never was any treaty carried on with better management, nor brought to a better issue, than this of Joshua with the people, to engage them to serve God. The manner of his dealing with them shows him to have been in earnest, and that his heart was much upon it, to leave them under all possible obligations to cleave to him, particularly the obligation of a choice and of a covenant. I. Would it be any obligation upon them if they made the service of God their choice?--he here puts them to their... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Joshua 24:29-33

This book, which began with triumphs, here ends with funerals, by which all the glory of man is stained. We have here 1. The burial of Joseph, Josh. 24:32. He died about 200 years before in Egypt, but gave commandment concerning his bones, that they should not rest in their grave until Israel had rest in the land of promise; now therefore the children of Israel, who had brought this coffin full of bones with them out of Egypt, carried it along with them in all their marches through the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:16

And the people answered and said ,.... To Joshua, upon his proposal to them, the option he gave them to serve the Lord or idols, and which was only done to try them: God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods ; they speak with the utmost abhorrence of idolatry, as a thing far from their hearts and thoughts, as the most abominable and execrable that could be thought or spoken of; to forsake the word, and worship, and ordinances of God, and serve the idols of the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:17

For the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers, out of the land of Egypt ,.... When Pharaoh, the king of it, refused to let them go, yet he wrought such wonders in it and inflicted such plagues on it, as obliged Pharaoh and his people to dismiss them: from the house of bondage : where they were held in the greatest thraldom and slavery, and their lives made bitter and miserable: and which did those great signs in our sight ; meaning the wonders and marvellous... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:18

And the Lord drave out from before us all the people ,.... The seven nations of the land of Canaan: even the Amorites which dwelt in the land ; the strongest and most populous of the nations, Amos 2:9 , or especially the Amorites, so Vatablus; or "with the Amorites", as others; those that lived on the other side Jordan, over whom Sihon and Og reigned: therefore will we also serve the Lord : as well as Joshua and his house, for the reasons before given, because he had done such... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:19

And Joshua said unto the people ,.... To their heads and representatives now assembled together, and who had returned to him the preceding answer: ye cannot serve the Lord ; which he said not to discourage or deter them from serving the Lord, since it was his principal view, through the whole of this conversation with them, to engage them in it, but to observe to them their own inability and insufficiency of themselves to perform service acceptable to God; and therefore it became them to... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:20

If you forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods ,.... Joshua knew the proneness of this people to idolatry, and therefore expresses his jealousy of them, that they would not be able to continue in the service of God, and would be apt to be carried away after idols; and therefore, to make them the more cautious and watchful, he represents to them the danger they were in, and what would befall them should they forsake the Lord they now promised to serve, and follow after other gods, which... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:21

And the people said unto Joshua, nay ,.... We will not serve strange gods: but we will serve the Lord ; according to his revealed will, and him only. read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:22

And Joshua said unto the people ,.... In reply to their answer and resolution: ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen you the Lord God to serve him ; that is, should they, after this choice of him, which they had so publicly declared, desert his service, and go into idolatry, their testimony would rise up against them, and they would, be self-condemned: and they said, we are witnesses ; should we ever apostatize from the Lord and his worship, we are content to... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Joshua 24:23

Now therefore put away, said he ,.... Which last words are rightly supplied, for they are the words of Joshua: the strange gods which are among you ; not their private notions and secret sentiments that some of them had imbibed in favour of idols, and the worship of them, as Ben Gersom thinks; but, as the Targum expresses it,"the idols of the Gentiles;'either such as they had brought out of Egypt, or had found among the plunder of the Canaanites, and had secretly retained; or, as... read more

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