When Joshua was old, he summoned the leaders of the tribes of Israel, and he told them, “You have seen all that the Lord your God has done” (Joshua 23:1-3). In this instance, it was Yahweh the warrior that the people had seen, driving out their enemies before them: yet the verse applies in all the situations where we have witnessed what God has done. That is, our understanding of God does not simply depend on stories we have heard about events long ago; instead, we bear witness that we ourselves have seen God in action.

Interestingly, the application Joshua drew was this: “Therefore be very steadfast to observe and do all this is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor to the left” (23:6). The fact that we have all witnessed what God has done in the here and now does not give us the right to neglect the revelation that has been entrusted to us; rather, the sureness of what we have seen God do presses us toward obedience to the written word. We are to be people with a present-day personal experience of God’s presence, taught by the revelation that God has provided for our knowledge and action.

The fear Joshua expressed was this: in intermarrying with people who worshiped other gods, the faith of Israel would be at best diluted from its firm allegiance to Yahweh, or more likely deflected to share in the worship of other gods (23:7, 12-13). This seems odd to our contemporary culture, which believes that you should be able to fall in love with and marry whoever that happens to be; yet the history of Israel is littered with tales of how bad it went when the people turned aside from their loyalty to Yahweh.

So, Joshua concluded, it comes down to a choice. Go ahead and worship the gods of the Amorites, if that’s what you really want to do; “but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (24:15). And the people insisted that they, too, would be faithful servants of the Lord, with heartfelt single-minded obedience.

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Give us eyes to see your action in our present day, O Lord, in our lives and in our communities; and give us hearts of devotion, to read your word and follow it, that our piety may be formed by the scripture, given to us from ancient days: so that in all things we can be your people, loyal to you alone, forever.

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