Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders
of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they
presented themselves before God.
Renewal of the Covenant at the National Assembly in Shechem. - V. 1. Joshua
brought his public ministry to a close, as Moses had done before him, with a solemn
renewal of the covenant with the Lord. For this solemn act he did not choose Shiloh,
the site of the national sanctuary, as some MSS of the LXX read, but Shechem, a
place which was sanctified as no other was for such a purpose as this by the most
sacred reminiscences from the times of the patriarchs. He therefore summoned all the
tribes of Israel, in their representatives (their elders, etc., as in Josh 23:2), to
Shechem, not merely because it was at Shechem, i.e., on Gerizim and Ebal, that the
solemn establishment of the law in the land of Canaan, to which the renewal of the
covenant, as a repetition of the essential kernel of that solemn ceremony, was now to
be appended, had first taken place, but still more because it was here that Abraham
received the first promise from God after his migration into Canaan, and built an altar
at the time (Gen 12:6-7); and most of all, as Hengstenberg has pointed out (Diss. ii. p.
12), because Jacob settled here on his return from Mesopotamia, and it was here that
he purified his house from the strange gods, burying all their idols under the oak (Gen
33:19; 35:2,4).
As Jacob selected Shechem for the sanctification of his house, because this place was
already consecrated by Abraham as a sanctuary of God, so Joshua chose the same
place for the renewal of the covenant, because this act involved a practical
renunciation on the part of Israel of all idolatry. Joshua expressly states this in v. 23,
and reference is also made to it in the account in v. 26. "The exhortation to be faithful
to the Lord, and to purify themselves from all idolatry, could not fail to make a deep
impression, in the place where the honoured patriarch had done the very same things
to which his descendants were exhorted here. The example preached more loudly in
this spot than in any other" ( Hengstenberg ). "And they placed themselves before
God." From the expression "before God," it by no means follows that the ark had
been brought to Shechem, or, as Knobel supposes, that an altar was erected there, any
http://207.44.232.113/~bible/comment/ot/k&d/josh/jos142.html (1 of 2) [13/08/2004 01:19:42 p.m.]