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In Joshua 23
● understand that this chapter appears to be the beginning of Joshua’s farewell to the people of Israel, his final effort to help God’s people to fare well, continuing to flourish because they remember “to keep and to do” (6) and to know “it is the Lord your God who has fought for you” (3),
● notice how “the Lord your God” (3, 3, 5, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 13, 15, 15, 16) piles up in the chapter, indicating the centrality of the covenant relationship that existed between the Lord and his people, a covenant that must be enacted,
● see the reciprocal enactment of covenant in the people’s need “to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses” (6), all the while recognizing that it is the Lord who still presently fights for them as promised (10),
● register the importance of separateness, the utter centrality of the choice not to “mix” (7) with the nations or to “make mention … swear … serve … bow down” (7) in response to their gods,
● notice how doing (6) and loving (11) seem strongly tied to one another, with love being the means of persevering in the doing,
● reckon with the consequences of mixing (7) and associating (12) with the people around them (perhaps even more importantly among them) as those people will become “a snare … a trap … a whip … and thorns” (13), costing them their God-provided “good ground” (13) and “good land” (15, 16), and
● ponder what it means to “transgress the covenant” (16).
Thank you,

Randy Tumlinson