Joshua 24:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Joshua 24:14
Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.
to turn off (literal or figurative) · conjunction + verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
gods
אֱלֹהִ֗ים'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
fathers
אֲבוֹתֵיכֶ֜ם'a.vo.tei.Khem
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
served
עָבְד֨וּ'a.ve.Du
H5647
to work (in any sense) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
side
בְּעֵ֤בֶרbe.'E.ver
H5676
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
flood
הַנָּהָר֙ha.na.Har
H5104
a stream (including the sea · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Egypt
וּבְמִצְרַ֔יִםu.ve.mitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · conjunction + preposition + proper noun, a place name
serve
וְעִבְד֖וּve.'iv.Du
H5647
to work (in any sense) · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 12:24 Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.
Deuteronomy 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to…
Genesis 35:2 Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change yo…
Joshua 24:23 Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.
2 Corinthians 1:12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grac…
Psalms 119:1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
Ezekiel 20:18 But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile y…
John 4:23-24 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to w…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joshua 24:1-14
Joshua thought he had taken his last farewell of Israel in the solemn charge he gave them in the foregoing chapter, when he said, I go the way of all the earth; but God graciously continuing his life longer than expected, and renewing his strength, he was desirous to improve it for the good of Israel. He did not say, "I have taken my leave of them once, and let that serve;" but, having yet a longer space given him, he summons them together again, that he might try what more he could do to engage them for God. Note, We must never think our work for God done till our life is done; and, if he lengthen out our days beyond what we thought, we must conclude it is because he has some further servic…
Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth--After having enumerated so many grounds for national gratitude, Joshua calls on them to declare, in a public and solemn manner, whether they will be faithful and obedient to the God of Israel. He avowed this to be his own unalterable resolution, and urged them, if they were sincere in making a similar avowal, "to put away the strange gods that were among them"--a requirement which seems to imply that some were suspected of a strong hankering for, or concealed practice of, the idolatry, whether in the form of Zabaism, the fire-worship of their Chaldean ancestors, or the grosser superstitions of the Canaanites.
Adam Clarke on Joshua 24:14
Fear the Lord - Reverence him as the sole object of your religious worship.
Serve him - Perform his will by obeying his commands.
In sincerity - Having your whole heart engaged in his worship.
And in truth - According to the directions he has given you in his infallible word.
Put away the gods, etc. - From this exhortation of Joshua we learn of what sort the gods were, to the worship of whom these Israelites were still attached.
1. Those which their fathers worshipped on the other side of the flood: i.e., the gods of the Chaldeans, fire, light, the sun.
2. Those of the Egyptians, Apis, Anubis, the ape, serpents, vegetables, etc.
3. Those of the Canaanites, Moabites, etc., Baal-peor or Priapu…
Therefore, what Joshua said to the people when he settled them in the holy land, the Scripture might also say now to us. The text reads as follows, "Now fear the Lord and worship him in sincerity and righteousness." And it will tell us, if we are being misled to worship idols, what follows, "Destroy the foreign gods which your fathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and worship the Lord."Then in the beginning when you were going to be instructed, it would have been rightly said to you, "And if you be unwilling to worship the Lord, choose this day whom you will worship, whether the gods your fathers worshiped in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites among whom you dwell on the land." And the catechist might have said to you, "But as for me and my house, we will worship the Lord because he is holy." He does not have any reason to say this to you now; for then you said, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods. For the Lord our God, he is God, who brought us and our fathers out of Egypt … and preserved us in all the way that we went." Moreover, in the agreements about religion long ago you gave your catechist this answer, "We also will worship the Lord, for he is our God." If, therefore, the one who breaks agreements with men is outside any truce and alien to safety, what must be said of those who by denying make null and void the agreements they made with God, and who run back to Satan, whom they renounced when they were baptized? Such a person must be told the words spoken by Eli to his sons, "If a man sins against a man, then they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?"
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Burial — The first burial we have an account of is that of Sarah (Gen. 23). The first commercial transaction recorded is that of the purchase of a burial-place, for which Abraham weighed to Ephron “four…
Flood — An event recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. (See DELUGE.) In Josh. 24:2, 3, 14, 15, the word “flood” (R.V., “river”) means the river Euphrates. In Ps. 66:6, this word refers to the river Jordan.
Idol — (1.) Heb. aven, “nothingness;” “vanity” (Isa. 66:3; 41:29; Deut. 32:21; 1 Kings 16:13; Ps. 31:6; Jer. 8:19, etc.). (2.) ‘Elil, “a thing of naught” (Ps. 97:7; Isa. 19:3); a word of contempt, used of…
Idolatry — Image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28). The forms of…
Joshua — Jehovah is his help, or Jehovah the Saviour. The son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, the successor of Moses as the leader of Israel. He is called Jehoshua in Num. 13:16 (A.V.), and Jesus in Acts…
Shechem — Shoulder. (1.) The son of Hamor the Hivite (Gen. 33:19; 34). (2.) A descendant of Manasseh (Num. 26:31; Josh. 17:2). (3.) A city in Samaria (Gen. 33:18), called also Sichem (12:6), Sychem (Acts…
Decision · Exhortations to — Exhortations to
Haran · .Idolatry in — .Idolatry in
Idolatry · The Jews: Practised, in Egypt — The Jews: Practised, in Egypt
Now therefore fear the Lord,.... Since he has done such great and good things, fear the Lord and his goodness, fear him for his goodness sake; nothing so influences fear, or a reverential affection for God, as a sense of his goodness; this engages men sensible of it to fear the Lord, that is, to worship him both internally and externally in the exercise of every grace, and in the performance of every duty:
and serve him in sincerity and in truth: in the uprightness of their souls, without hypocrisy and deceit, and according to the truth of his word, and of his mind and will revealed in it, without any mixture of superstition and will worship, or of the commands and inventions of men:
and p…
Joshua 24:1-14
1. 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.
1. Congregavit itaque [194] Josue omnes tribus Israel in Sichem, vocavitque seniores Israel, et capita ejus, judicesque ejus, ac praefectos ejus: steteruntque coram Deo.
2. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.
2. Dixitque Josue ad universum populum, Sic dicit Jehova Deus Israel, Trans fl…
Renewal of the Covenant at the National Assembly in Shechem. - Jos 24:1. 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 Jos 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 th…
Put away forever the idols: Israel had not yet broken with the old polytheistic traditions of Mesopotamia beyond the Euphrates River, and some Israelites had added to their supply of gods while living in Egypt.
Rashi on Joshua 24:11
The people of Yericho went to war against you. As did the Emorites, the Perezites etc.5Why were these nations involved in the battle of Yericho? All these seven nations are mentioned here because Yericho is on the border, and was the bolt and lock of Eretz Yisroel. Therefore, all these seven nations were gathered there, represented by their elite soldiers.
Sincerity · .Our service toward God — .Our service toward God
Truth · Serve God in — Serve God in
Zeal, Religious · EXEMPLIFIE — EXEMPLIFIE
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
