Joshua Finished Well at The Age of 110
July 15, 2022
Commentary
Realizing that further words would be fruitless, Joshua solemnly renewed the covenant (vv.25-26). The covenant between Israel and God was that the people would worship and obey the Lord alone. Their purpose was to be a holy nation that would influence the rest of the world for God. The conquest of Canaan was a means to achieve this purpose, but Israel became preoccupied with the land and lost sight of the Lord God. The same can happen in our life. We can spend so much time on the means that we forget to finish well. Religious traditions can be helpful or hurtful depending on how we use them.
The book ends with three burials, the first being Joshua’s. He died at the age of 110 and was buried with honor in the town he had carved out of the wilderness, which was a part of the inheritance he claimed (vv. 29-30). There is no record of any great memorial built for him. There were ten memorial stones placed in the land during Joshua’s lifetime, and they were all memorials to God and what God did. The second burial was that of Joseph. His bones had been brought up out of bondage and carried through the wilderness, and finally he rested in the land that Jacob had purchased (v. 32). The third burial is that of Eleazar the high priest, the son of Aaron, the former high priest of Israel (v. 33).
No greater tribute could be paid to this man, Joshua, than that he was simply called “the servant of the Lord” (v. 29). His influence lived on (v. 31). His lifestyle had demonstrated his great leadership abilities, and the message his life told had a lasting impact on his generation and the generation that followed. Joshua’s epitaph was not written on a marble gravestone. It was engraved on the hearts and lives of people who had submitted themselves to his leadership.
Application
The desire of my life is that I may finish well and bring glory to my Lord and Saviour.
Joshua 24:25– 33 (NET)
25 That day Joshua drew up an agreement for the people, and he established rules and regulations for them in Shechem. 26 Joshua wrote these words in the Law Scroll of God. He then took a large stone and set it up there under the oak tree near the Lord’s sanctuary. 27 Joshua said to all the people, “Look, this stone will be a witness against us, for it has heard everything the Lord said to us. It will be a witness against you if you deny your God.” 28 When Joshua dismissed the people, they went to their allotted portions of land.
29 After all this Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s servant, died at the age of 110. 30 They buried him in his allotted territory in Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 31 Israel worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua’s lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel.
32 The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the part of the field that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of money. So it became the inheritance of the tribe of Joseph.
33 Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him in Gibeah in the hill country of Ephraim, where his son Phinehas had been assigned land.