Yehoshua 23 - Summary
(Text) - And after a number of years following God had given Bnei Yisrael peace from their surrounding enemies and Yehoshua aged in years (and was approaching death). Yehoshua called too the leaders of the Jewish people and told them: I have grown old. You can see all that God has done for you to remove your enemies. And I have set forth for you (through the lottery - Rashi) the rest of the lands that are to be conquered, and God will help drive out your enemies from those lands. You should just be strong and keep all of the laws in Moshe’s Torah, not to stray from them at all. You should not assimilate with any of the Canaanite nations that remain and not worship their gods. Rather, you should continue to cling to God, as you have done up until now. And then God will remove the other nations from before you - one of you will chase away thousands. Just be careful to love God, for if you fall back to sin and instead cleave to the other nations that remain, and assimilate with them then God will no longer help you to attain more Land or drive out any more of the nations, and instead these nations will be like thorns in your sides and will drive you out of this Land that God has given to you. Now I am going to go in “the way of the land” (ie: I am going to die) and you should know: not one of the good things that was promised to you from God has failed to manifest itself. It all came true. And just as God has brought all of the good upon you, so too will he bring the bad upon you until you are driven from the land, in response to your breaking the covenant you made with God and in response to your worshiping other gods. Then God will become angry with you and drive you quickly out of the good Land that he has given to you.
Posted in Chapter 23, Summaries, Yehoshua - Joshua by Yaakov Ellis on June 11, 2007 |
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