Week 11 Joshua
Joshua’s farewell speech begins on page 348 and runs for about 27-verses.
Soon he’ll be gone, and so he reminds Israel of their story. He begins with Abraham (page 16 in my bible) and selects some key events that bring the audience right up to page 348. Three hundred and thirty-two pages collapsed into eleven verses.
I notice two things about the condensed version.
First, Joshua misses a lot of detail. Included in the quite-a-bit-of-detail-missed is all of the negative history. For nine or ten weeks I’ve been reading numerous examples of Hebrew dereliction. Joshua skips all of them (for example, he just says that Israel lived in the desert for a long time – that’s it). That looks like a pretty intentional omission.
The second thing I notice is that Joshua’s very-positive-history leads up to a point in verse 14. The Lord has really benefited you all he says: therefore honor the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly.
That seems to be it. He’s promoting honoring and serving the Lord wholeheartedly. And it’s a pretty soft sell. No browbeating or haranguing or manipulating or hammering the way you’d think an OT guy might. He just lays out two options: serve the Lord alone. But…if you’re unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve.
Serve or don’t.
And Israel stands there at a junction with their choice to make.
Note: paraphrased quotes from Joshua 24:14 & 15 (New Living Translation)