as the Israelites who stood round their leader were in possession of all that God had ever promised them, so sure might they be that if they broke their promise to Him, they would forfeit their good land.

Our own great poet wrote that God is "just," and of our pleasant sins "makes whips to scourge us." These nations were to Israel just what our evil inclinations are to our souls. Our true Joshua, the Captain of our Salvation, has won the victory for us, and we have to keep the kingdom of God in our hearts for Him. But if we entertain and make friends, ever so little, with the Enemy of Holiness, we are falling into the snare, and by and by we shall feel the scourges and the thorns; and if we break our side of our covenant, "shall not God punish?"

LESSON XXI.

JOSHUA'S FAREWELL.

B.C. 1427.-JOSHUA xxiv. 1, 14—31, 33.

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.

*

*

*

[And Joshua rehearsed the mighty acts the LORD had done for them, and said, 1

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.

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.

And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;

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 :

And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites + The Euphrates.

The parents of Al raham.

which dwelt in the land therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.

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.

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.

And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD. 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.

Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.

And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.

So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

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.

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.

So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. 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.

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.

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.

*

*

*

*

*

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.

COMMENT.-Once more Joshua assembled the people round him, and this time it was at Shechem, where the Ten Commandments still stood on the plastered rock, and where he had rehearsed the blessings and the curses. The great object of this last meeting was to teach the people that they must not trifle with God. They would have liked to please their fancies with whatever kind of worship fell in their way, perhaps paying a little attention to the presiding spirit of mountain or valley, or joining in such idol festivals as were amusing and lively, and yet all the time professing to be the Lord's own people.

This Joshua warns them is folly. They must choose whether

* Law.

66

they like the old idolatry of Mesopotamia, whence Abram was called, or again the Amorite gods, the Baalim or sun-gods, and the Ashtaroth or moon-goddesses, or whether they will verily serve the Lord. Half and half they cannot be. Let them choose. "But as for me and my house," says the great old warrior, we will serve the Lord." His example and fervent speech evoked from all the answer that it was the Lord they would serve, for had He not done great things for them? Then, sadly, Joshua reminded them how hard, nay, impossible, it was to serve the Lord; to serve Him with other gods was no service at all, and the attempt was an iniquity He would not forgive. The Lord alone must be served, and in His own manner. Again the people promised, and Joshua bound them by the most solemn oaths, setting a stone up as a memorial under the oak, most probably the same tree under which Jacob buried the idols of Laban's household before joining his father's holy household.

This seems to have been the last public act of this great and holy man, who bore his Saviour's name and foreshowed His victories. He died and was buried at Timnath-serah, where a vast excavation in the rock has lately been discovered; and Eleazar the priest soon after died; but the effect of Joshua's example, in its noble faithfulness and simplicity, lasted throughout the generation which had grown up under him.

No one thought of picking and choosing his religion from what he in his own mind and heart thought suitable to his notions of God, or what excited or pleased his fancy. The Israelites believed what God told them through His Word and His priests, and they worshipped in the Sanctuary where He had set His name. Just in the same way we are bound to serve the Lord as He has taught by the Scripture and the Church, and with our whole hearts-for He is still a jealous God.

LESSON XXII.*

MICAH'S IDOLATRY.

B.C. 1406.-JUDGES xvii.; xviii. 1-10.

And there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son.

And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.

Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a moltent image: and they were in the house of Micah.

And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

And there was a young man out of Beth-lehem-judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there.

And the man departed out of the city from Beth-lehem-judah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed.

And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Beth-lehem-judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place.

And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in.

And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons.

And Micah consecrated the Levite; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

In those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel. And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, * Not for the younger readers.

Melted.

1 Little figures or charms.

men of valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who, when they came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there.

When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite: and they turned in thither, and said unto him, Who brought thee hither? and what makest thou in this place? and what hast thou here?

And he said unto them, Thus and thus dealeth Micah with me, and hath hired me, and I am his priest.

And they said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.

And the priest said unto them, Go in peace: before the LORD is your way wherein ye go.

Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man.

And they came unto their brethren to Zorah and Eshtaol: and their brethren said unto them, What say ye?

And they said, Arise, that we may go up against them: for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good and are ye still? be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land.

When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth.

COMMENT. The history here begun is taken from the later chapters of the Book of Judges, but it is plain that it was there added as a kind of note, or appendix, and that the events took place soon after the settlement of the land, in the lifetime of the generation who came in with Joshua.

It is a very important story, as showing from how small and apparently trifling a seed of disobedience a gigantic tree of evil may spring, casting its shadow over a whole land. The wilfulness of one obscure woman, who preferred her own way of worshipping to that which God had commanded, was the beginning of that sin which beguiled no less than ten of the tribes of Israel, and led to their utter and total ruin.

For it was a wilful act. It could not have been ignorance, for her abode was in Mount Ephraim, where Joshua spent his later years, and near at hand to the Sanctuary at Shiloh and the Ten Commandments engraven at Shechem; but she chose to shut her eyes to the command against serving God under the form