Joshua 23:4-14

4 Behold, I have allotted to you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Yarden, with all the nations that I have cut off, even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun

5 The LORD your God, he will thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the LORD your God spoke to you.

6 Therefore be you very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moshe, that you not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left;

7 that you not come among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear [by them], neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves to them;

8 but cleave to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day.

9 For the LORD has driven out from before you great nations and strong: but as for you, no man has stood before you to this day.

10 One man of you shall chase a thousand; for the LORD your God, he it is who fights for you, as he spoke to you.

11 Take good heed therefore to yourselves, that you love the LORD your God.

12 Else if you do at all go back, and cleave to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you;

13 know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

14 Behold, this day I am going the way of all the eretz: and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you; all are happen to you, not one thing has failed of it

Joshua 23:4-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOSHUA 23

Joshua being old, convenes the states of Israel a little before his death, Jos 23:1,2; and in his address to them observes what God had done for them, and would do, Jos 23:3-5; and exhorts them to keep the commandments of God, and cleave to him, and not to mix with the Gentiles, and join with them in idolatrous practices, and then it would be well with them, Jos 23:6-11; but otherwise should they join with them, and depart from the Lord, who had so faithfully and punctually performed every good thing he had promised them, they might expect all evils and calamities, utter ruin and destruction, to befall them, Jos 23:12-16.