Joshua 23:4

Divided unto you by lot. Literally, caused to fall, the lot being of necessity understood. These nations that remain. Israel had therefore not driven them out. This, however, need not of necessity be imputed to them as a sin. For, as we have seen, the conquest was to be gradual. No doubt there was enough to be done in consolidating the conquests already made, in settling the tribes in their possessions, to occupy all the days of Joshua, and even possibly a longer period. At least we may he sure that, as long as Joshua lived, the heathen settlements were kept distinct from the Israelitish community, that intermarriages were not allowed, nor rights of citizenship granted to any but the Gibeonites. Cut off. Joshua's speech here exactly agrees with the statements in Joshua 6:21 ; Joshua 8:26 ; Joshua 10:28-41 ; Joshua 11:11 , Joshua 11:14 , Joshua 11:21 . Here at least, if Joshua's speech and the history were taken from two different sources, neither of them precisely accurate, the first postulate of the destructive criticism, we might have expected some slight discrepancy. But Joshua uses a word which implies total extermination, a feature, be it observed, of the campaigns of Moses and Joshua only, and not of the later Israelitish history. Westward . Literally, the going down of the sun.