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Joshua 24:25–28
“So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem” (Josh. 24:25).
Among his final acts as the leader of Israel, Joshua takes additional steps to encourage the people in their adherence to God’s covenant. By doing so, he makes it “a statute and an ordinance” for Israel, a rule by which they are to live.
First, as is traditional in Old Testament covenant-making, he performs a cutting ritual. The language of verse 25—“Joshua made a covenant”—literally means “Joshua cut a covenant.” In other words, animal carcasses are cut apart to symbolize acceptance of the covenant sanctions. When God made His covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15), He symbolically passed through pieces of animal carcasses, indicating His agreement to allow Himself to be similarly ripped asunder (destroyed) should He violate the covenant terms. We are not told how this cutting ritual is conducted, but it seems unlikely that the people pass through the animal pieces, for Joshua already has declared them unable to keep the covenant (24:19). Perhaps it is performed as a reminder of the wonder that God would bind Himself so.
Joshua then writes the covenant down in the form of a treaty document and includes it in “the Book of the Law of God.” Matthew Henry associates this book with the official copy of the Mosaic Law. “There it was written, that their obligation to religion by the divine precept, and that by their own promise, might remain on record together,” he writes in his commentary on Joshua.
Finally, Joshua calls an additional, mute witness to the covenant agreement. He already has cited the people as witnesses of their pledge of covenant faithfulness. Now he sets up a large stone under one of the oaks at Shechem and declares that it “ ‘has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.’ ” Using Joshua as His mouthpiece, God has recounted all His great acts of redemption for Israel. The people have heard this testimony—and so, in a figurative sense, has the stone. If they live as if the testimony of God is not true, the “faithfulness” of the mindless stone will be a witness against them. It will not deny God, and they should be just as steadfast.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Like the Israelites, we have a record of God’s covenant faithfulness—the Bible. How faithless we prove ourselves to be when we follow our sinful impulses, for by doing so we live as if God does not exist. Make time in your schedule to read and study the Word of God, that you might remember God’s redemptive acts and live in light of them.
for further study
- Ecclesiastes 1:9–11
- Lamentations 3:19–24
- 1 Corinthians 11:23–24
- 2 Peter 3:1–2