Vers. 26-28. All these things (n^i^n Q'13"nn are not merely the words spoken on both sides, but the whole ceremony of renewing the covenant) Joshua wrote in the law-book of God, i.e. he wrote them in a document which he placed in the law-book of Moses, and then set up a large stone, as a permanent memorial of what had taken place, on the spot where the meeting had been held, " under the oak that was in the sanctuary of Jehovah.'* As 5i^(?C3 neither means " at the sanctuary," nor near the sanctuaiT, nor " in the place where the sanctuary was set up;" the " sanctuary of Jehovah" cannot signify " the ark of the covenant, which had been brought from the tabernacle to Shechem, for the ceremony of renewing the covenant." Still less can we understand it as signifying the tabernacle itself, since this was not removed from place to place for particular sacred ceremonies; nor can it mean an altar, in which an oak could not possibly be said to stand; nor some other illegal sanctuary of Jehovah, since there were none in Israel at that time. The sanctuary of Jehovah under the oak at Shechem was nothing else than the holy place under the oak, where Abraham had formerly built an altar and worshipped the Lord, and where Jacob had purified his house from the strange gods, which he buried under this oak, or rather terebinth tree (Gen. xii. 6, 7, xxxv. 2, 4). This is the explanation adopted by Masius, J. D. Michaelis, and Hengstenherg (Diss. ii. p. 12). In ver. 27 Joshua explains to the people the meaning of the stone which he had set up. The stone would be a witness against the people if they should deny their God. As a momorial of what had taken place, the stone had heard all the words which the Lord had addressed to Israel, and could bear witness against the people, that they might not deny their God. " Deny your God^^ viz. in feeling, word, or deed. — Ver. 28. Joshua then dismissed the people, each one to his inheritance. He had done all that was in his power to establish the people in fidelity to the Lord.
Vers. 29-33. Death and Bueial of Joshua and Eleazar — With the renewal of the covenant Joshua had ended his vocation. He did not formally lay down his office, because there was no immediate successor who had been appointed by God. The ordinary rulers of the congregation were enough, when once they were settled in Canaan, viz. the elders as heads and judges of the nation, together with the high priest, who represented the nation in its relation to God, and could obtain for it the revelation of the will of God through the right of the Urim and Thummim. In order therefore to bring the history of Joshua and his times to a close, nothing further remained than to give an account of his death, with a short reference to the fruit of his labours, and to add certain other notices for which no suitable place had hitherto presented itself. — Vers. 29, 30. Soon after these events (vers. 1-28) Joshua died, at the age of 110, like his ancestor Joseph (Gen. 1. 26), and was buried in his hereditary possessions at Timnath-serah, upon the mountains of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash. Timnath-serah is still in existence (see at chap. xix. 50). Mount Gaash, however, has not been discovered. — Ver. 31. Joshua's labours had not remained without effect. During his own lifetime, and that of the elders who outlived him, and who had seen all that the Lord did for Israel, all Israel served the Lord. " The elders" are the rulers and leaders of the nation. The account of the burial of Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought with them from Egypt to Canaan (Ex. xiii. 19), is placed after the account of Joshua's death, because it could not have been introduced befare without interrupting the connected account of the labours of Joshua; and it would not do to pass it over without notice altogether, not only because the fact of their brincino; the bones with them had been mentioned in the book of Exodus, but also because the Israelites thereby fulfilled the promise given by their fathers to Joseph when he died. The burial of Joseph in the piece of field which Jacob had pui'chased at Shechem {vid. Gen. xxxiii. 19) had no doubt taken place immediately after the division of the land, when Joseph's descendants received Shechera and the field there for an inheritance. This piece of field, however, they chose for a burial-place for Joseph's bones, not only because Jacob had purchased it, but in all probability chiefly because Jacob had sanctified it for his descendants by building an altar there (Gen. xxxiii. 20). The death and burial of Eleazar, who stood by Joshua's side in the guidance of the nation, are mentioned last of all (ver. 33). "When Eleazar died, whether shortly before or shortly after Joshua, cannot be determined. He was buried at Gibeah of Phinehas, the place which was given to him upon the mountains of Ephraim, i.e. as his inheritance. Cnbeath Phinehas, i.e. hill of Phinehas, is apparently a proper name, like Gibeah of Saul (1 Sam. XV. 34r, etc.). The situation, however, is uncertain. According to Eusehius (Onoin. s. v. Ta^ad^), it was upon the mountains of Ephraim, in the tribe of Benjamin, and was at that time a place named Gabatha, the name also given to it hj Josephus (Ant. v. 1, 29), about twelve Roman miles from Eleutheropolis. This statement is certainly founded upon an error, at least so far as the immber twelve is concerned. It is a much more probable supposition, that it is the Levitical town Geba of Benjamin, on the north-east of Ramah (chap, xviii. 24), and the name Gibeah of Phinehas might be explained on the ground that this place had become the hereditary property of Phinehas, which would be perfectly reconcilable with its selection as one of the priests' cities. As the priests, for example, were not the sole possessors of the towns ceded to them in the possessions of the different tribes, the Israelites might have presented Phinehas with that portion of the city which was not occupied by the priests, and also with the field, as a reward for the services he had rendered to the congregation (Num. xxv. 7 sqq.), just as Caleb and Joshua had been specially considered; in which case Phinehas might dwell in his own hereditary possessions in a priests' city. The situation, "upon the mountains of Ephraim,** is not at variance with this view, as these mountains extended, according to Judg. iv. 5, etc., far into the territory of Benjamin (see at chap. xi. 21). The majority of commentators, down to Knobel, have thought the place intended to be a Gibeah in the tribe of Ephraim, namely the present Jeeb or Jibia, by the Wadj Jib, on the north of Guphna, towards Neapolis (Sichem: see Hob. Pal. iii. p. 80), though there is nothing whatever to favour this except the name.
With the death of Eleazar the high priest, the contemporary of Joshua, the times of Joshua came to a close, so that the account of
Tilli BOOK OF JOSHUA.
Eleazar's death formed a very fitting termination to the book. In some MSS. and editions of the Septuagint, there is an additional clause relating to the high priest Phinehas and the apostasy of the Israelites after Joshua's death; but this is merely taken from Judg. ii. 6, 11 sqq. and iii. 7, 12 sqq., and arbitrarily appended to the book of Joshua.
jHE book of Judges, headed Shophetim in the Hebrew Bibles, and Kpirat in the Alexandrian version, and called liber Judicum in the Yulgate, contains the history of the Israelitish theocracy for a period of about 350 years, from the death of Joshua to the death of Samson, or to the time of the prophet Samuel. It may be divided according to its contents into three parts: (1) an introduction (chap, i.-iii. 6); (2) the history of the several judges (chap. iii. 7-xvi. 31); and (3) a twofold appendix (chap, xvii.-xxi.). In the Introduction the prophetic author of the book first of all takes a general survey of those facts which exhibited most clearly the behaviour of the Israelites to the Canaanites who were left in the land after the death of Joshua, and closes his survey with the reproof of their behaviour by the angel of the Lord (chap, i. 1-ii. 5). He then describes in a general manner the attitude of Israel to the Lord its God and that of the Lord to His people during the time of the judges, and represents this period as a constant alternation of humiliation through hostile oppression, when the nation fell away from its God, and deliverance out of the power of its enemies by judges whom God raised up and endowed with the power of His Spirit, whenever the people returned to the Lord (chap. ii. 6-iii. 6). This is followed in the body of the work (chap. iii. 7-xvi. 31) by the history of the several oppressions of Israel on the part of foreign nations, with the deliverance effected by the judges who were raised up by God, and whose deeds are for the most part elaborately described in chronological order, and introduced by the standing formula, "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord," etc.; or, " And the children of Israel again did evil (added to do evil)," etc. They are arranged in six historical groups: (1) the oppression by the Mesopotamian king, Chushan-rishathaim, with the deliverance from this oppression through Othniel the judge (chap. iii. 7-11); (2) the oppression by the Moabitish king Eglon, with the deliverance effected through Ehud the judge (chap. iii. 12-30), and the victory achieved by Shamgar over the Philistines (chap. iii. 31); (3) the subjugation of Israel by the Canaanitish king Jabin, and the deliverance effected through the prophetess Deborah and Barak the judge (chap, iv.), with Deborah's song of victory (chap, v.); (4) the oppression by the Midianites, and the deliverance from these enemies through the judge Gideon, who was called to be the deliverer of Israel through an appearance of the angel of the Lord (chap, vi.-viii.), with the history of the three years' reign of his son Abimelech (chap, ix.), and brief notices of the two judges Tola and Jair (chap. x. 1-5); (5) the giving up of the Israelites into the power of the Ammonites and Philistines, and their deliverance from the Ammonitish oppression by Jephthah (chap. x. 6— xii. 7), with brief notices of the three judges Ihzan, Elon, and Abdon (chap. xii. 8—15); (6) the oppression by the Philistines, with the account of the life and deeds of Samson the judge, who began to deliver Israel out of the power of these foes (chap, xiii.-xvi.). To this there are added two appendices in chap, xvii.-xxi.: viz. (1) the account of the worship of images by the Ephraimite Micah, and the transportation of that worship by the Danites to Laish-Dan (chap. xvii. xviii.); and (2) the infamous conduct of the inhabitants of Gibeah, and the war of revenge which was waged by the congregation of Israel against the tribe of Benjamin as a punishment for the crime (chap, xix.-xxi.). Both these events occurred in the earliest part of the period of the judges, as we may gather, in the case of the first, from a comparison of chap, xviii. 1 with chap. i. 34, and in that of the second from a comparison of chap. XX. 28 with Josh. xxii. 13 and xxiv. 33; and they are merely placed at the end of the book in the form of appendices, because they could not well be introduced into the six complete historical tableaux; although, so far as the facts themselves are concerned, they are intimately connected with the contents and aim of the book of Judges, inasmuch as they depict the religious and moral circumstances of the times in the most striking manner in two pictures drawn from life. The relation in which the three parts stand to one another, therefore, is this: the introduction depicts the basis on which the deeds of the judges were founded, and the appendices furnish confirmatory eridence of the spirit of the acfe as manifested in those deeds. The whole book, however, is pen-aded and ruled by the idea distinctly expressed in the introduction (chap. ii. 1-3, 11-22), that the Lord left those Canaanites who had not been exterminated by Joshua still in the land, to prove to Israel through them whether it would obey His commandments, and that He chastised and punished His people through them for their disobedience and idolatiy; but that as soon as they recognised His chastening hand in the punishment, and returned to Him with penitence and implored His help, He had compassion upon them again in His gracious love, and helped them to victory over their foes, so that, notwithstanding the repeated acts of faithlessness on the part of His people, the Lord remained ever faithful in His deeds, and stedfastly maintained His covenant.