The people at Shechem give Joshua the answer he asked for. They promise to serve the LORD, and he tells them to their faces that they cannot. This Joshua 24 summary and study guide covers the covenant he finally made with them, and the three graves the book closes over.
Table of Contents
Setting the Stage
Shechem was the first place in Canaan Abraham ever stopped. God appeared to him there, promised the land to his descendants, and Abraham built an altar on the spot (Genesis 12:6-7). His grandson Jacob later bought a field at the same town (Genesis 33:18-20), and before going up to Bethel he made everyone in his household hand over their foreign gods and buried them under an oak by Shechem (Genesis 35:1-4).
Centuries later Israel stood in that valley to hear the law read aloud (Joshua 8:30-35). Now the fighting is over, the land is divided, the tribes have gone home, and Joshua is dying. He calls the nation back to the one place in Canaan where their own family had already buried its idols once.
Comprehensive Joshua 24 Summary
Joshua calls every tribe of Israel to Shechem and stands them before God. Then he speaks, and the words are God’s own: your ancestors lived east of the Euphrates and served other gods, and I took Abraham out of there. God’s account runs from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob, down into Egypt, out through the sea, past Balak and Balaam, across the Jordan, and into a country of cities Israel never built and vineyards Israel never planted. Every verb in it belongs to God, and none of Israel’s failures appear in it anywhere.
Because of all that, Joshua says, fear the LORD and serve him honestly, and throw out the gods your ancestors carried. If that seems a bad bargain, choose today which gods you want instead. He gives his own answer before anyone else can: he and his household will serve the LORD.
The people answer that they will too, and list the same history back to him. Joshua refuses the answer. They cannot serve the LORD, he tells them, because God is holy and jealous and will not treat a broken covenant as nothing.
They insist. So Joshua makes them witnesses against themselves, then tells them to put away the foreign gods still among them and turn their hearts to God. They promise a third time, and this time they add that they will obey his voice.
Joshua makes the covenant, writes it in the book of the law, and sets a great stone under the oak as a witness that heard everything said. He sends everyone home.
Then he dies at a hundred and ten and is buried in his own land. Joseph’s bones, carried up out of Egypt, are buried at Shechem. Eleazar the priest dies and is buried on ground that had been given to his son Phinehas.
One Word Summary
- Choose: the whole chapter turns on one command in verse 15.
- Covenant: the ceremony has terms, witnesses, a written record and a stone.
- Witness: first the people, then a stone.
In One Sentence
Joshua gathers Israel at Shechem, rehearses what God has done since Abraham, tells them to throw out their idols and choose whom they will serve, refuses their first easy promise, binds them to a covenant marked by a stone, and then dies, and the book buries him, Joseph and Eleazar in the land.
Theme of Joshua 24
Joshua 24 is about undivided loyalty to God, asked for on the ground of what God has already done. The demand comes second and not first: twelve verses of God’s own record stand before the first command. Two ideas run alongside that one.
A covenant here is a binding transaction with terms, witnesses and a written record rather than a warm feeling. And a promise is not yet obedience, which is why Joshua keeps pressing until the people name what they will actually do. The chapter then closes over three graves in the land God promised.
Joshua 24 Outline
- Joshua 24:1: Joshua gathers every tribe of Israel to Shechem with their elders, heads, judges and officers.
- Joshua 24:2-4: God begins speaking in his own voice, going back to Terah beyond the Euphrates and tracing the family through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau into Egypt.
- Joshua 24:5-7: God recounts the exodus, from Moses and Aaron and the plagues to the sea closing over the Egyptians and the long years in the wilderness.
- Joshua 24:8-10: God recounts the victory over the Amorites east of the Jordan, and Balak hiring Balaam to curse Israel only for the curse to come back as a blessing.
- Joshua 24:11-13: God recounts the crossing into Canaan, Jericho and the seven nations, the hornet, and a land of cities and vineyards Israel never worked for.
- Joshua 24:14-15: Joshua commands them to fear the LORD and throw out their idols, sets the choice before them, and answers first for his own household.
- Joshua 24:16-18: The people refuse the other gods and give their reasons, every one of them drawn from what God had done.
- Joshua 24:19-20: Joshua tells them they cannot serve the LORD, and says what will follow if they turn away.
- Joshua 24:21-24: The people answer twice more; Joshua makes them witnesses against themselves and tells them to put the foreign gods away.
- Joshua 24:25-28: Joshua makes the covenant, writes it down, sets up the stone as a witness, and sends the people home.
- Joshua 24:29-31: Joshua dies at a hundred and ten, is buried at Timnath-serah, and Israel serves the LORD as long as his generation lasts.
- Joshua 24:32: Joseph’s bones are buried at Shechem in the ground Jacob had bought.
- Joshua 24:33: Eleazar the priest dies and is buried in the hill country of Ephraim.
The Covenant at Shechem
The ceremony in verses 14 to 28 is a legal transaction, and the chapter records every part of one.
The Parts of the Covenant
| Part of the covenant | What the chapter says |
|---|---|
| Parties | The LORD, and Israel represented by its elders, heads, judges and officers (24:1) |
| Terms | Fear the LORD, serve him in sincerity and in truth, put away the foreign gods, obey his voice (24:14, 23, 24) |
| Consequence stated | Only the bad one: if they forsake him he will turn and consume them, after having done them good (24:20) |
| Witnesses | The people against themselves (24:22), and the stone (24:27) |
| Written record | Joshua wrote the words in the book of the law of God (24:26) |
| Sign | A great stone set up under the oak by the sanctuary (24:26) |
Joshua makes the people testify against themselves before he will write anything down.
“Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.”
Joshua 24:22
You have chosen the LORD yourselves, Joshua tells them, so if you ever go back on this, nobody has to accuse you but you. Then he adds a second witness that cannot forget.
“Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.”
Joshua 24:27
Joshua speaks of the stone as though it had listened to everything said that day, and says it will still be standing there if they ever claim they never agreed to any of this.
Observations from Joshua 24
God is the one speaking, and the verbs are his (Joshua 24:2-13)
Joshua opens by saying that this is what the LORD God of Israel says, and then God talks about himself in the first person for twelve verses. He took Abraham, he gave Isaac, he sent Moses and Aaron, he plagued Egypt, he brought them out, he destroyed the Amorites, he would not listen to Balaam, he sent the hornet, he gave them the land. Israel appears in it almost entirely as the people God did these things for. The command that follows in verse 14 rests on that record, not on anything Israel had managed.
The record leaves out everything Israel did wrong (Joshua 24:2-13)
There is no golden calf here, no refusal at Kadesh, no complaining in the wilderness, no Achan. God’s own summary of forty years covers the wandering in a single clause and moves on. Many Bible teachers connect this to God’s later promise that he would remember his people’s sin no more (Jeremiah 31:34), and it may well be why the account reads as it does. The God asking Israel for undivided loyalty is the God who did not read their record back to them first.
Joshua says to them what Jacob said on the same ground (Joshua 24:23)
Jacob’s order to his household at Shechem was “Put away the strange gods that are among you” (Genesis 35:2), and he buried them under an oak there. Joshua’s order to the nation is “the strange gods which are among you” (Joshua 24:23), and he sets his stone under an oak at Shechem too.
Many Bible teachers take it to be the same tree; what Scripture states plainly is that the words match and the town matches. Israel is being asked at the end of the book to do the thing their own father did at the beginning.
The people answer three times, and only the third answer mentions obeying (Joshua 24:16-18, 21, 24)
Their first answer is a refusal of the alternative and a list of what God had done. Their second is four words of insistence. The third is the one Joshua stops at.
“The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.”
Joshua 24:24
We will serve our God, they say, and we will do what he tells us. Joshua kept pressing until the promise included the part that costs something.
The word the chapter presses on Israel becomes Joshua’s own title (Joshua 24:29)
Some form of the word serve appears seventeen times in these thirty-three verses, and almost every one of them is Joshua asking something of the people. Then he dies, and the narrator reaches for it once more, this time about him: “Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died.” The word Joshua had spent the chapter pressing on Israel is the word Scripture uses of him at his grave.
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Difficult Verses Explained
Why Does Joshua Say “Ye Cannot Serve the LORD”?
Joshua is refusing a promise made too quickly. He gives two reasons in verse 19, that God is holy and that God is jealous, and both aim at the same thing: God insists on being served alone, and there were foreign gods among the people at that very moment, as Joshua’s command in verse 23 shows.
The line that he “will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins” has to be read against the covenant Joshua is about to write down, which rests entirely on God’s mercy; it means the sins of God’s own covenant people meet his discipline rather than his indifference (compare Amos 3:2). What he does next shows his aim: they insist, and he writes the covenant.
What Is “the Hornet” God Sent in Joshua 24:12?
God had promised the hornet long before this, in Exodus 23:28 and Deuteronomy 7:20, as the thing that would clear the land ahead of Israel. Some take it plainly, as swarms of stinging insects, which in hot countries can reach the force of a plague; others read it as a picture of the terror that emptied cities before Israel arrived.
The verse settles its own point either way, since it ends by saying the two Amorite kings went “not with thy sword, nor with thy bow”, meaning Israel did not win that ground by fighting for it.
What Does “the Other Side of the Flood” Mean in Joshua 24:2?
It means the far side of the Euphrates River, not Noah’s flood. The King James uses “flood” here for the great river of Mesopotamia, where modern translations read “the River” or “beyond the Euphrates”. Verse 2 is telling Israel where Abraham’s family came from and what they were doing there: living east of that river, serving other gods.
Christ Connection
Joshua 24 is the chapter where the rest God promised is finally complete, the enemies subdued, the land divided, every tribe sent home to its own inheritance. Hebrews takes Joshua’s name, which in Greek is the same name as Jesus, and argues from it: “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day” (Hebrews 4:8). Had Joshua’s rest been the last one, God would have stopped speaking of another day. The chapter’s own ending admits as much, closing over three funerals instead of a victory.
Joshua’s hardest sentence points the same way. He told Israel to their faces that they could not serve the LORD, and the book of Judges proved him right within a generation. Scripture’s answer to that problem is a different covenant rather than a harder effort, one where God writes his law on the heart and remembers sin no more (Jeremiah 31:31-34), and the New Testament names Jesus as the mediator of it (Hebrews 8:6-12). The last grave in the chapter says the same thing more softly.
Joseph made Israel swear to carry his bones home because he believed a promise he never saw kept (Genesis 50:24-26), and Hebrews calls that faith (Hebrews 11:22). Joshua 24:32 is where his faith was answered, and Hebrews 11:39-40 still says of Joseph and everyone like him that they “received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us.” The bones reached Shechem; the thing they were waiting for came later, in Christ.
When, Where, and Why
- When: After the conquest and after the whole land had been divided among the tribes, near the end of Joshua’s life. Joshua 23:1 says a long time had passed since God gave Israel rest from its enemies, and Joshua dies in this chapter at a hundred and ten.
- Where: Shechem, in the valley between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, near the centre of the country. Abraham built his first altar in Canaan there, Jacob bought ground there, and Jacob buried his household’s foreign gods there. The chapter also names Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, where Joshua is buried, and the field Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, where Joseph’s bones are laid.
- Why: The book has spent twenty-three chapters proving that God kept every promise he made about the land, and states it outright in Joshua 21:45. This chapter asks the only question left. Now that Israel has everything God promised, will Israel keep its own side of the agreement? The book ends on a vow and three graves rather than on a victory, because the vow is what the next book will test.
Key Verses
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:15
If serving the LORD looks like a bad deal to you, Joshua says, then pick your god today, either the ones your ancestors served back in Mesopotamia or the ones belonging to the people whose land you are living on. This is the verse the chapter is remembered by, and its force comes from who answers first. Joshua does not wait to see which way the nation will go before committing his own household.
“Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.”
Joshua 24:23
Get rid of the foreign gods you still have, Joshua tells them, and turn your heart toward the God of Israel. The command reveals something the earlier verses only hinted at: there were idols physically among the people while they were promising loyalty, and Joshua would not let the promise stand until they were gone.
“And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.”
Joshua 24:31
Israel stayed faithful for as long as Joshua lived and for as long as the elders who outlived him lived, and those elders had seen for themselves everything God had done. That last clause is the load-bearing one. Faithfulness held while the people who remembered were still alive, and Judges 2:10 records what happened after them: another generation grew up “which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.”
Key Lessons from Joshua 24
- God lists everything he has done for Israel before he asks Israel for anything (Joshua 24:2-14).
- A choice put plainly is easier to answer honestly than a choice nobody names out loud (Joshua 24:15).
- Joshua commits his own household before he asks anyone else to commit theirs (Joshua 24:15).
- A promise that has not thrown anything out yet is still only a promise (Joshua 24:23).
- Faith that rests on remembering what God did can weaken in the generation that did not see it (Joshua 24:31).
To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Joshua 24.
Bible Study Questions
- Read Joshua 24:2-13 slowly. Who is the subject of nearly every action in those verses, and what does Israel actually do in them?
- Joshua’s command in verse 14 begins by pointing back at everything in verses 2 to 13. Why does the order of those two parts matter?
- What three sets of gods does Joshua name in verses 14 and 15, and where did each set come from?
- Why does Joshua refuse the people’s answer in verse 19, and what two things does he say about God to explain it?
- Compare the people’s answer in verse 18 with their answer in verse 24. What has been added?
- What does Joshua tell the people to do in verse 23, and what does that command show about what they were still holding on to?
- Why does Joshua call a stone a witness in verse 27, and who is it a witness against?
- Verse 31 says Israel served the LORD as long as the elders who had known God’s works were alive. What does that suggest about how faith is carried from one generation to the next?
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Main Message of Joshua 24?
Joshua 24 calls Israel to serve God alone, and it grounds that call in what God had already done for them. The chapter lets God recount his own dealings with Israel first, at length, before the first command, then presses Israel to make an open, binding choice and to throw out every rival god. It ends with a covenant, a stone, and Joshua’s death.
What Does “As for Me and My House, We Will Serve the LORD” Mean?
Joshua is committing himself and his own household to serve God alone, whatever the rest of the nation decides. The claim is exclusive rather than merely enthusiastic: he is not adding the LORD to a collection of gods, he is refusing the others. He also says it before the people answer, so his commitment does not depend on theirs.
Why Were Joseph’s Bones Buried at Shechem?
Joseph had put his descendants under oath to take his remains with them and bury them in the promised land (Genesis 50:24-26), and Moses carried them out of Egypt at the exodus (Exodus 13:19). Shechem was the natural resting place because Jacob had bought that ground years before, and it had fallen to Joseph’s descendants as their inheritance. Hebrews 11:22 treats Joseph’s instruction as an act of faith in a promise he did not live to see.
What Happened to Israel After Joshua Died?
Israel kept the covenant while Joshua’s generation lasted and then broke it. Judges 2:7 repeats Joshua 24:31 almost word for word, and then Judges 2:10-11 records that the elders who had seen God’s works died, a new generation grew up that did not know him, and Israel served the Baalim. The vow made at Shechem is what the book of Judges spends its length testing.
Joshua 24, The Full Text (KJV)
Read the full chapter below for reference.
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.
2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith 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.
3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.
4 And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.
5 I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out.
6 And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea.
7 And when they cried unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.
8 And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, that ye might possess their land; and I destroyed them from before you.
9 Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you:
10 But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.
11 And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.
12 And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.
13 And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.
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.
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;
17 For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:
18 And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.
19 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.
20 If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.
21 And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD.
22 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.
23 Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.
24 And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.
25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.
27 And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.
28 So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.
29 And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.
30 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash.
31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.
32 And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
33 And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.
