Joshua 24:1

JOSHUA’S FAREWELL ADDRESS AT SHECHEM, Joshua 24:1-24.

1. All the tribes By their representatives. See Joshua 23:2, note. We have no means of determining the date of this transaction. Some suppose that a considerable period had elapsed after the speech recorded in the last chapter, when Joshua, seeing his life was unexpectedly prolonged, resolved on another farewell to his people of a more solemn and formal character. Others hold that there was but one assembly and but one address, begun, perhaps, at Shiloh, and concluded at Shechem, to which place the assembly adjourned for the renewal of the covenant. The Septuagint version has the assembly at Shiloh; but there are good reasons for regarding the Hebrew as the correct version. At Shechem Abraham built his first altar in Canaan. Genesis 12:7. Here Jacob had “sanctified” his family, and exhorted them to “put away the strange gods,” (Genesis 35:2-4;) and Joshua, following the command of Moses, had visited the same sanctuary to inscribe the law on a stone monument, and to exact an oath of allegiance to Jehovah with the impressive sanctions of the blessings and the curses. Joshua 8:30-35.

[ Presented themselves before God As the expression before God, or before Jehovah, frequently means before the Ark of the Covenant, many expositors have supposed that the Ark was brought from Shiloh to Shechem at this time. But Hengstenberg and Keil have abundantly shown that the words do not always imply the presence of the Ark. “If before Jehovah could only refer to the ceremonies at the sanctuary, Jehovah would be present only there, shut up in his holy place; an absurd idea, destructive of the divine omnipresence, and one which can never be found in the Holy Scriptures.” Hengstenberg. Rather does the expression mean that the assembly met as in the presence of God, whose holy name Joshua doubtless invoked. All present realized that the eye of Jehovah was upon them.]