Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Day 5: Joshua's Farewell -- Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Reading

Historical Context

Joshua’s farewell unfolds in two speeches – one to the leaders of Israel (Joshua 23) and one to the entire assembly gathered at Shechem (Joshua 24) – and together they form a covenant-renewal ceremony that mirrors both the form of ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties and the pattern established by Moses in Deuteronomy. The text opens with the same phrase used in Joshua 13:1: Joshua is “old and well advanced in years” (zaqen ba bayyamim). The repetition is not accidental. The book began with an old leader stepping down and a new one stepping up. It ends the same way – except now there is no successor named. Joshua will die, and no single leader will replace him. The question of what comes next is left ominously open.

Joshua 23 is the private address to Israel’s elders, judges, heads, and officers. Its tone is measured, its warnings specific. Joshua rehearses what God has done – “the LORD your God is he who has fought for you” (23:3) – and then delivers a series of conditional warnings. The “if” clauses are devastating in their clarity: “If you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them… know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you” (23:12–13). The Hebrew yada te’d’u (“know for certain,” an emphatic infinitive absolute construction) demands attention. This is not a possibility. It is a certainty. Covenant blessing is conditional on covenant faithfulness. The land was given by grace, but it can be lost by disobedience. The God who drove out the nations can turn them into “a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes” (23:13).

Joshua 24 shifts the scene to Shechem – a location saturated with covenantal memory. It was at Shechem that God first appeared to Abraham in Canaan and promised, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). It was at Shechem that Jacob buried the foreign gods of his household under the oak (Genesis 35:4). It was between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, near Shechem, that Joshua had earlier read the blessings and curses of the law (Joshua 8:30–35). The choice of location is deliberate. The covenant will be renewed where the covenant began.

The structure of Joshua 24:2–13 follows the classic Hittite suzerainty treaty form: a historical prologue recounting the suzerain’s beneficent acts on behalf of the vassal. God speaks in the first person through Joshua – “I took your father Abraham… I gave him Isaac… I sent Moses and Aaron… I plagued Egypt… I brought you to the land of the Amorites” – listing twenty-two acts of divine initiative across the span from Abraham to the conquest. The pronoun anokhi (“I”) echoes throughout the recital. The effect is cumulative and overwhelming: at every stage of Israel’s history, it was God who acted. The conquest was not Israel’s achievement. It was God’s gift. “I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant” (Joshua 24:13). The sheer weight of unearned blessing is the ground on which the demand for allegiance stands.

Then comes the demand. The Hebrew ve’attah yir’u et-YHWH ve’ivdu oto betamim uve’emet (“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth”) uses tamim (“wholeness,” “completeness,” “integrity”) and emet (“truth,” “faithfulness”) – two words that describe worship that is undivided and honest. Joshua then names the alternatives with startling specificity: the gods your fathers served “beyond the River” (be’ever hanahar, the Euphrates – the ancestral gods of Mesopotamia) or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now dwell. He does not pretend the alternatives do not exist. He names them. He gives them a geography. And then he declares his own choice: va’anokhi u-veiti na’avod et-YHWH – “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” The personal pronoun anokhi (“I myself”) is emphatic. Joshua does not command the nation. He leads by personal declaration. The household (bayit) is the unit of decision.

Christ in This Day

Joshua’s farewell at Shechem is the Old Testament’s most concentrated demand for undivided allegiance, and it anticipates the demand that Christ himself makes of every person who hears the gospel. Jesus sharpens the either/or with the same clarity Joshua used: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). The logic is identical. Joshua named the alternatives – the gods beyond the River, the gods of Canaan – and demanded a choice. Jesus names the alternatives – God and money, in that particular instance – and declares neutrality impossible. The stone at Shechem and the cross at Calvary stand as the same kind of witness: a fixed point in history where the demand was made and the choice recorded.

Paul translates Joshua’s demand into the language of the new covenant: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). The confession Kyrios Iesous (“Jesus is Lord”) is the New Testament equivalent of na’avod et-YHWH (“we will serve the LORD”). It is a public, personal, household-level declaration of allegiance that excludes every rival. And just as Joshua grounded his demand in the recital of God’s saving acts – from Abraham through the conquest – Paul grounds the confession in the resurrection. The historical prologue of Joshua 24 finds its fulfillment in the kerygma of the early church: God acted in history, Christ died and rose, and now the demand is made – confess and believe. The pattern is the same. The scope is universal.

But the deepest Christological connection lies in the name itself. Joshua – Yehoshua – means “the LORD saves.” It is the same name that the angel commands Joseph to give to Mary’s son: “You shall call his name Jesus (Iesous, the Greek form of Yehoshua), for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The Joshua who led Israel into the promised land, distributed the inheritance, and called the people to covenant allegiance at Shechem is a type of the greater Joshua who leads his people into the eternal inheritance, distributes the gifts of the Spirit, and calls every nation to covenant allegiance at the foot of the cross. The author of Hebrews makes the typology explicit: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:8–9). Joshua’s rest was real but temporary. Jesus’ rest is real and permanent. The land Joshua gave could be lost. The rest Jesus gives endures forever.

Joshua dies at the end of the chapter, and the text records that “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the LORD had done for Israel” (Joshua 24:31). One generation. That is how long the allegiance lasted in its fullness. The book of Judges will tell the story of what happened when that generation passed. But the gospel tells a different story – of a Joshua who does not die and stay dead, whose priesthood does not pass to a successor, and whose covenant is not renewed at a stone monument but is written on the hearts of his people by the Holy Spirit. The stone at Shechem was a witness against Israel. The Spirit within is a witness for the people of Christ. And the question “choose this day whom you will serve” is answered not by human resolve alone but by the grace of the one whose name means “the LORD saves.”

Key Themes

Connections

Old Testament Roots

Joshua’s farewell parallels Moses’ farewell in Deuteronomy 29–30, including the same structure: historical prologue, covenant stipulations, blessings and curses, and a call to choose. Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 30:19 – “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life” – are the direct antecedent to Joshua’s demand at Shechem. The choice of Shechem connects to Abraham’s first altar in Canaan (Genesis 12:6–7), Jacob’s burial of foreign gods (Genesis 35:4), and the covenant ceremony of Joshua 8:30–35 between Ebal and Gerizim.

New Testament Echoes

Romans 10:9–10 translates Joshua’s demand into gospel terms: confess Jesus as Lord, believe God raised him from the dead. Matthew 6:24 echoes the impossibility of serving two masters. Acts 16:31 extends the household dimension: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Hebrews 4:8–9 explicitly names Joshua and declares that his rest was incomplete, pointing to the greater rest in Christ. Second Corinthians 6:2 compresses the urgency: “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Parallel Passages

First Kings 18:21 records Elijah’s Shechem-like challenge on Mount Carmel: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people’s silence in response to Elijah contrasts with their vocal enthusiasm at Shechem – a contrast that reveals how quickly allegiance can cool. Revelation 22:1–5 depicts the final fulfillment of the promised land, where God’s servants “will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” – the ultimate and irrevocable declaration of allegiance.

Reflection Questions

  1. Joshua rehearses God’s saving acts before demanding a choice. How does remembering what God has already done in your life shape your willingness to serve him today? What would your own “historical prologue” include?

  2. Joshua names the specific alternatives – the gods of Mesopotamia and the gods of Canaan. What are the specific, named alternatives that compete for your allegiance? The question is not whether other gods exist but whether other loyalties are functioning as gods.

  3. The stone at Shechem “has heard all the words of the LORD.” What would it mean to live as though a permanent, silent witness were recording your allegiance – not to condemn you but to hold you accountable to the commitment you have made?

Prayer

God of Shechem and Calvary, you have always demanded a choice. You named yourself to Abraham, freed your people from Egypt, fed them in the wilderness, toppled the walls of Jericho, and kept every word you spoke across the centuries. Now you stand before us in the person of your Son and say: choose. Forgive us for the times we have tried to serve two masters, when we divided our loyalty between your kingdom and the small gods of comfort, approval, and control. Forgive us for the times our allegiance lasted one generation – fervent at the altar, forgotten by the next morning. Write your covenant not on stone but on our hearts. Give us the resolve of Joshua, who led by personal declaration before he asked the nation to follow. Give us the endurance of a faith that outlasts the generation that first professed it. And thank you that the one whose name means “the LORD saves” did not merely call us to choose but died to make the choice possible – that our allegiance is sustained not by our own strength but by the grace of the greater Joshua, who lives and reigns and holds our inheritance secure forever. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord we choose to serve this day and every day. Amen.