Joshua 1:7

7. All the law The Torah, the body of moral, ceremonial, and political precepts given from Jehovah by the hand of Moses. The very conception of a moral agent involves the idea of a law. They who have not the written law are a law unto themselves. Their own conscience perceives the immutable distinction between right and wrong. In addition to this, God has added positive commands and prohibitions. These from the days of our first parents till the completion of the Torah, were of a fragmentary character; as, for example, the penalties against murder, adultery, and fornication, (Genesis 9:6; Genesis 38:24,) the Levirate law, (Genesis 38:8,) the distinctions of the clean and unclean beasts, (Genesis 8:20,) and the sacredness of the Sabbath, (Exodus 16:23-29.) The first revelation of the law in any thing like a perfect form is found in the Book of Deuteronomy at a period when the people, educated to freedom and national responsibility, were prepared to receive it, and carry it with them to the land of promise. In this present passage we are assured that it was written in the form of a book, and appealed to as of supreme authority. When we consider the reverence with which all subsequent generations of Hebrews have regarded this “book of the law” their jealous care lest it should be corrupted, counting the words and letters, and recording their number, indicating the middle word and the middle letter by peculiar signs the argument amounts to a certainty that we have in our Hebrew Bibles the very Torah which Joshua is here commanded to take as his authoritative guide. Add to these considerations the respect which Jesus Christ always pays to the law, which he came not to destroy but to fulfil, and we can reasonably demand no stronger proof of the authoritative character of the Torah as a rule of life for us in all things which are not manifestly ceremonial.

To the right… or to the left Perfect obedience is represented by a straight line, and a course of sin by a crooked way. Hence the terms right eousness, recti tude, up right ness, and, in matters of opinion, orthodox; while the word wrong is etymologically akin to wrung, twisted.

That thou mayest prosper Rather act wisely. Sin is the highest folly, virtue is the only true wisdom.