Joshua 24:2

RELATES GOD'S BENEFITS. (Jos 24:2-13)

Joshua said unto all the people--His address briefly recapitulated the principal proofs of the divine goodness to Israel from the call of Abraham to their happy establishment in the land of promise; it showed them that they were indebted for their national existence as well as their peculiar privileges, not to any merits of their own, but to the free grace of God.

Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood--The Euphrates, namely, at Ur.

Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor--(see Gen 11:27). Though Terah had three sons, Nahor only is mentioned with Abraham, as the Israelites were descended from him on the mother's side through Rebekah and her nieces, Leah and Rachel.

served other gods--conjoining, like Laban, the traditional knowledge of the true God with the domestic use of material images (Gen 31:19, Gen 31:34).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Jos 24:2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, [even] Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.

Ver. 2. And Joshua said unto all the people.] Besides what he had said to them in the former chapter; so solicitous was he of the public welfare after his decease also. Cicero saith that this was his chiefest care: we are sure it was good Joshua’s.

Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood,] i.e., Of the river Euphrates, that ancient river. And this was the ancient manner of speaking to the people, by giving them a historical narrative of what God had done for them and their forefathers, that mercy might enforce to duty; since divine blessings are binders, and men’s offences are increased by their obligations. See the like method made use of by those admirable preachers, David, {Psa 78:1-72} Stephen, {Act 7:2-53} and Paul. {Act 13:17-41}

And they served other gods.] Even Abraham as well as the rest, {a} till God gave him a call out of his own country, till he had "called him to his foot," {Isa 41:2} that is, to follow him and his direction, to obey him without solicitation.

{a} Some of the Rabbis say that Terah got his living by making and selling of images.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jos 24:2. Joshua said unto all the people — To the elders, by whom it was to be imparted to all the rest, and to as many of the people as came thither. He spake to them in God’s name, and as from him, in the language of a prophet. Thus saith the Lord — Jehovah, the great God, and the God of Israel, whom you are peculiarly bound to hear. This is an argument that he uttered all that follows by the divine inspiration and impulse. Indeed he was no less the prophet than the political head of the nation. Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood — Or, the river, namely, Euphrates, so called by way of eminence. They served other gods — That is, both Abraham and Nahor were no less idolaters than the rest of mankind. This is said to prevent their vain boasting in their worthy ancestors, and to assure them that whatsoever good was in, or had been done by their progenitors, was wholly from God’s free grace, and not for their own merit or righteousness.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24:2 Terah: See Gen 11:27-32.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Euphrates in Mesopotamia, Gen. 11:26.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 2. On the other side of the flood] The river Euphrates.

They served other gods.] Probably Abraham as well as Terah his father was an idolater, till he received the call of God to leave that land. See on Ge 11:31; Ge 12:1. And for the rest of the history referred to here, see the notes on the parallel passages in the margin.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. Your fathers dwelt on the other side, etc He begins his address by referring to their gratuitous adoption by which God had anticipated any application on their part, so that they could not boast of any peculiar excellence or merit. For God had bound them to himself by a closer tie, having, while they were no better than others, gathered them together to be his peculiar people, from no respect to anything but his mere good pleasure. Moreover, to make it clearly appear that there was nothing in which they could glory, he leads them back to their origin, and reminds them how their fathers had dwelt in Chaldea, worshipping idols in common with others, and differing in nothing from the great body of their countrymen. Hence it is inferred that Abraham, when he was plunged in idolatry, was raised up, as it were, from the lowest deep.

The Jews, indeed, to give a false dignity to their race, fabulously relate that Abraham became an exile from his country because he refused to acknowledge the Chaldean fire as God. But if we attend to the words of the inspired writer, we shall see that he is no more exempted from the guilt of the popular idolatry than Terah and Nachor. For why is it said that the fathers of the people served strange gods, and that Abraham was rescued from the country, but just to show how the free mercy of God was displayed in their very origin? Had Abraham been unlike the rest of his countrymen, his own piety would distinguish him. The opposite, however, is expressly mentioned to show that he had no peculiar excellence of his own which could diminish the grace bestowed upon him, and that therefore his posterity behooved to acknowledge that when he was lost, he was raised up from death unto life.

It seems almost an incredible and monstrous thing, that while Noah was yet alive, idolatry had not only spread everywhere over the world, but even penetrated into the family of Shem, in which at least, a purer religion ought to have flourished. How insane and indomitable human infatuation is in this respect, is proved by the fact that the holy Patriarch, on whom the divine blessing had been specially bestowed, was unable to curb his posterity, and prevent them from abandoning the true God, and prostituting themselves to superstition.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

2. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel] The title is significant. It recurs in Jos_24:23. Joshua recalls to the minds of the people the mercies of God as displayed in five great events:—

(i) The Call of Abraham;

(ii) The Deliverance from Egypt;

(iii) The Defeat of the Amorites on the east of the Jordan, and the frustration of the machinations of Balaam;

(iv) The Passage of the Jordan and Capture of Jericho;

(v) The Victories over all the nations of Canaan.

on the other side of the flood] Or better, on the other side of the river, i.e. the Euphrates, in Ur of the Chaldees, and then in Haran (Gen_11:28; Gen_11:31). “Biçond the flood,” Wyclif.

Terah] The ancestor, through Abram, Nahor, and Haran, of the great families of the Ishmaelites, Israelites, Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites (Gen_11:24-32). With his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, he went in a north-westerly direction from Ur “into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there” (Gen_11:31), and at Haran he died at the age of 205 years (Gen_11:32).

and they served other gods] The objects of nature, especially the heavenly bodies, were in those far-back times invested with a “glory” and a “freshness” which has long since “passed away” from the earth. They seemed to be instinct with a divinity which exercised an almost irresistible fascination over their first beholders. The sight of the “sun when it shined, and of the moon walking in brightness,” was a temptation as potent to them as to us it is inconceivable. “Their heart was secretly enticed, and their mouth kissed their hand” (Job_31:26-27). There was also another form of idolatry, though less universal in its influence. “There were giants on the earth in those days;” giants, if not actually, yet by their colossal strength and awful majesty; the Pharaohs and Nimrods, whose form we still trace on the ornaments of Egypt and Assyria in their gigantic proportions, the mighty hunters, the royal priests, the deified men. From the control of these powers, before which all meaner men bowed down, from the long ancestral prepossessions of ‘country and kindred and father’s house,’ the first worshippers of One who was above all alike, had painfully to disentangle themselves.” Stanley’s Jewish Church, Jos_1:15-16. Of the worship of “images,” or “Teraphim,” we have traces in Gen_31:19; Gen_31:30; Gen_31:34. Tradition asserts that Terah was a maker of idols, and that Abraham was persecuted in Ur of the Chaldees for refusing to take part in idolatries.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Joshua said unto all the people,.... Then present, or to all Israel by their representatives:

thus saith the Lord God of Israel; he spoke to them in the name of the Lord, as the prophet did, being himself a prophet, and at this time under a divine impulse, and spirit of prophecy. According to an Arabic writer (w): the Angel of God appeared in the form of a man, and with a loud voice delivered the following, though they are expressed by him in a different manner; perhaps he mean, the Captain of the Lord's host, Jos 15:13; and which is not unlikely:

your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time; on the offer side the, river Euphrates; so the Targum,"beyond Perat;''i.e. Euphrates; in Mesopotamia and Chaldea; meaning not the remotest of their ancestors, Noah and Shem, but the more near, and who are expressly named:

even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; the Israelites sprung from Terah, in the line of Abraham, on the father's side, and from him in the line of Nachor on the mother's side, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, being of Nachor's family:

and they served other gods; besides the true God, strange gods, which were no gods: "idols"; the idols of the people, as the Targum; so did Terah, Abraham, and Nachor; See Gill on Gen 11:26; See Gill on Gen 11:28; See Gill on Gen 12:1.

(w) Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 35.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The other side of the flood - Better “On the other side of the river,” i. e. the Euphrates. See the marginal reference.

They served other gods - Possibly the “images,” or teraphim, which we find their ancestor Laban calling “his gods” (see the marginal reference); and of which it would seem that there were, as Joshua spoke, some secret devotees among the people Jos 24:14, Jos 24:25. It is not stated that Abraham himself was an idolater, though his fathers were. Jewish tradition asserts that Abraham while in Ur of the Chaldees was persecuted for his abhorrence of idolatry, and hence, was called away by God from his native land. The reference in the text to the original state of those who were the forefathers of the nation, is made to show that they were no better than others: God chose them not for their excellences but of His own mere motion.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Of the river. The Euphrates. (Challoner) --- Gods. Some think that Abraham himself was in his youth engaged in the worship of idols, (though this is denied by St. Augustine, City of God xvi. 13.; Theodoret, q. 18.; &c.; Worthington) as well as his father, &c., ver. 14., and Genesis xi. 31. Thare was the father of both Abraham and Nachor, (Genesis xi. 26,) unless (Haydock) the grandfather (Menochius) of Abraham was meant, who was also called Nachor, (Haydock) as well as Rebecca’s grandfather, Genesis xxiv. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Unto all the people, i.e. that people which were present, to wit, to the elders, &c., by whom it was to be imparted to all the rest, and to as many of the people as came thither.

The flood, or, the river, to wit, Euphrates, as all agree; so called by way of eminency.

They served other gods, i.e. both Abraham and Nahor were no less idolaters than the rest of mankind. This is said to prevent their vain boasting in their worthy ancestors, and to assure them that whatsoever good was in or had been done by their progenitors, was wholly born God’s free grace, and not for their own merit or righteousness, as the Jews were very apt to conceit.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. On the other side of the flood — Rather, the river; that is, the Euphrates. It was Ur in Chaldea, beyond the Euphrates, whence Abraham was called from an idolatrous family. Terah, with Abram his son, removed from Ur westerly to Haran, where he died aged two hundred and five years. Gen_11:29-32. That he was a maker of images is a mere legend.

[They served other gods — “It is not said distinctly of Abraham that he served other gods, on which account we agree with Knobel, who says: Whether, according to our author, Abraham also was originally an idolater, is rather to be denied than affirmed; comp. Gen_31:53. But dangerous even for him were the idolatrous surroundings; wherefore God took him and caused him to wander through Canaan.” — Fay. But a love and reverence for the teraphim seemed rooted in the descendants of Terah. See note on Jos_24:14.]

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All the people. (see note on Jos_23:2) The Lord God of Israel. Rather, Jehovah, the God of Israel. (see Exo_3:13) Until the vision to Moses, the God of Israel had no distinctive name. After that time Jehovah was the recognised name of the God of Israel, as Chemosh of the Moabites, Milcom of the Ammonites, Baal of the Phoenicians. Our translation, "the Lord," somewhat obscures this. Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood. Rather, of the river. Euphrates is meant, on the other side of which (see, however, note on last verse) lay Ur of the Chaldees. It is worthy of notice that there is no evidence of the growth of a myth in the narrative here. We have a simple abstract of the history given us in the Pentateuch, without the slightest addition, and certainly without the invention of any further miraculous details. All this goes to establish the position that we have here a simple unvarnished history of what occurred. The manufacture of prodigies, as every mythical history, down to the biographies of Dominic and Francis, tells us, is a process that cannot stand still. Each successive narrator deems it to be his duty to embellish his narrative with fresh marvels. Compare this with the historical abridgment before us, and we must at least acknowledge that we are in the presence of phenomena of a very different ruder. Professor Goldziher has argued, in his "Mythology among the Hebrews," that Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob are solar myths, such as we find in immense abundance in Cox"s "Aryan Mythology." Abraham (father of height)is the nightly sky. Sarah (princess) is the moon. Isaac (he shall laugh) is the smiling sunset or dawn. It would be difficult to find any history which, by an exercise of similar ingenuity, might not be resolved into myths. Napoleon Bonaparte, for instance, might be resolved into the rushing onset of the conqueror who was never defeated. The retreat from Moscow is a solar myth of the most obvious description. The battle of Bull"s Run is clearly so named from the cowardice displayed there by the sons of John Bull. It is remarked by Mr. Tomkins that Ur, the city of the moon god, lends itself most naturally to the fabricator of myths. There is only one objection to the theory, and that is the bricks, still in existence, stamped with the words Urn, which compel us to descend from this delightful cloud land of fancy to the more sober regions of solid and literal fact (see "Studies on the Times of Abraham," pp. 205-207). In old time. Literally, from everlasting, i.e. , from time immemorial, ap archv . The Rabbinic tradition has great probability in it, that Abraham was driven out of his native country for refusing to worship idols. It is difficult to understand his call otherwise. No doubt his great and pure soul had learned to abhor the idolatrous and cruel worship of his countrymen. By inward struggles, perhaps by the vague survival of the simpler and truer faith which has been held to underlie every polytheistic system, he had "reached a purer air," and learned to adore the One True God. His family were led to embrace his doctrines, and they left their native land with him. But Haran, with its star worship, was no resting place for him. So he journeyed on westward, leaving the society of men, and preserving himself from temptation by his nomad life. No wandering Bedouin, as some would have us believe (see Drew, "Scripture Lands," p. 18), but a prince, on equal terms with Abimelech and Pharaoh, and capable of overthrowing the mighty conqueror of Elam. Such an example might well be brought to the memory of his descendants, who were now to be sojourners in the land promised to their father. Guided by conscience alone, with every external influence against him, he had worshipped the true God in that land. No better argument could be offered to his descendants, when settled in that same land, and about to be bereft of that valuable support which they had derived from the life and influence of Joshua.

HOMILIES BY R. GLOVER Vers. 2, 3. Abraham the heathen.

"Your fathers... served other gods," is an incidental statement of the utmost value. It throws a light on Abraham"s antecedents in which we do not always see them, and enhances the significance of his abandonment of home and country, and his clear faith in a living God, in a degree which nothing else does. Observe first of all

I THE FACT THAT ABRAHAM WAS ORIGINALLY A HEATHEN. He was not merely born and bred an idolater, as we might have gathered from the story of Bachel"s teraphim, but was a pagan in exactly the same condition of belief as many in India or in China are today. Some, in later times especially, and indeed in all times, worshipped the true God, but employed an idol to assist their imagination of Him; that is, they simply sought ritualistic and sensuous aids to religious thought and feeling. But Abraham began life far lower down in the religious scale. His fathers served other gods; the deified powers of nature representing little more than the forces and tendencies of life. Primitive tradition had lost any brightness it ever had. The religious sentiment had lost that reverence and habit of attention which soon begins to perceive God and to feel that the God constantly appealing to it is one and the same. The worship of several deities is always a mark of a superstitious ingredient blending with faith. Terah"s family were in this condition. They were not only idolaters but polytheists without Bible or sacrament, promise, or law. Abraham was precisely in the same sort of spiritual circumstances, and had been taught the same sort of religious ideas, and trained in the same superstitions, as are found in all pagan lands today. Yet with advantages so slight, he became the spiritual father of the religious nation of antiquity type of all saintliness, of everything bright in faith and unquestioning in obedience. There is some reason to suppose that a god of vengeance was one of those deities most reverently regarded by his people; and yet he finds and worships a God of love! He, like all of us, had Christ, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He, unlike most of us, followed the Christ light within him. Following the Divine light, it grew ever clearer, and his vision became stronger to perceive and his heart to follow it. Amongst a multitude of silent deities, One spoke to him through his conscience, with more and more of frequency, and, in the devotee in which He was obeyed, with more and more of clearness, both in the comforts He whispered and the commands He enjoined, till gradually he felt there was but one great God, who governed all, and should receive the homage of all; who was the friendly refuge as well as the omnipotent Creator of men. Gradually his life began to revolve around this unseen Centre, and the outward aspect and inward purpose of his life stood out in palpable difference from that of his fellows. Doubtless he preached his deep conviction, gathered about him some kindred spirits; perhaps had to endure persecution; till at last he got a strong impression borne in upon his conscience that his path of duty and of spiritual wisdom was to leave his native land and seek a new home for what was a new faith amongst men. His coming to Ur of the Chaldees, and then to Canaan, may be compared with the expedition of the Pilgrim fathers. Like them he sought "freedom to worship God," and like them founded a great nation in doing so. In any view of his character, his decision, his devotion, the clearness of his faith, the promptness of his obedience, are marvellous. But they become much more so when we mark the fact that Joshua here brings out, that Abraham began his career in heathen darkness that the father of the faithful began life as a mere pagan. Observe

II SOME LESSONS OF THIS FACT. For evidently it has many. We can only suggest them.

(1) A little grace and a little light go a long way when well used. How little had Abraham to begin with! But, using what he had, it grew more, and was enough to do more for him than light a thousand times as clear does for some of us today. A man who has light upon his next step of duty has really an "abundance of revelation." Do not go in for being omniscient, postponing all obedience until you get light on all truth. Use your little light well whatever it is, and so you will get more.

(2) Obedience is the mode of self enlightenment. "If any man will do God"s will, he shall know God"s doctrine." So says Christ. Doing duty is the way of discovering truth. Since the creation of the world there has been no other. Take this.

(3) All the sacraments are means of grace, not conditions of salvation. The Church has always been tempted to exaggerate the helpful into the essential, until it says, "Extra ecclesiam, nulia salus." Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, arguing with those who held the sacrament of circumcision essential to salvation, quotes Abraham as reaching all his spirituality and acceptance with God, "not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision," i.e. , not by sacraments, but without them altogether. Sacraments are aids. The mercy that gave them to be such will, in the absence of them through error or inadvertence, use some other way of enriching and enlightening the obedient heart.

(4) However sunk in superstition the heathen may be, they are capable of religion. The difference between the Christian and the heathen in the matter of spiritual advantages is not a difference between having all and having nothing, but between having more and having less. They have the Christian inward light movings of God"s spirit, lessons of God"s providence. God speaks to them, and "wakes their ear in the morning." They lack the testimony of God"s saints, their examples, the revelation of God"s highest law, a clear light on immortality; above all, the light which comes from the life and death of the Son of God light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." This fuller light would multiply vastly the number of the devout amongst them, and give a higher character to their devotion. But they may be saved, as we are taught explicitly both by Peter and by Paul, by a Saviour they feel and follow, though they do not know the story of His love.

(5) The heathen being thus capable of religion, and our higher advantages being influential to produce it, we ought to extend to them the full light of the Saviour"s glory. Our neglect of Christian missions grows from our despair of heathen men. We ought to think of the millions in heathen darkness as Abraham"s brethren, and capable of appreciating and responding to all that is true and gracious. If we rightly reverence them, we should not eat our morsel of the bread of life alone, but should share it with them. Let us seek to extend the knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and we shall yet behold many an Abraham rising up in heathen lands. G.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The people - To the elders, by whom it was to be imparted to all the rest, and to as many of the people as came thither. He spake to them in God's name, and as from him, in the language of a prophet, Thus saith the Lord. Jehovah, the great God, and the God of Israel, whom you are peculiarly engaged to hear. The flood - Or, the river, namely, Euphrates, so called by way of eminency. They served - That is, Both Abraham and Nahor were no less idolaters than the rest of mankind. This is said to prevent their vain boasting in their worthy ancestors, and to assure them that whatsoever good was in, or had been done by their progenitors, was wholly from God's free grace, and not for their own merit or righteousness.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.