Joshua1chapter 1

Joshua 1:1-2

The book opens with a conjunction, so it reads as the next line of Deuteronomy 34 rather than a fresh start, and it gives Moses the same title that closes the Torah. Joshua carries a smaller one here, minister to Moses, the word used of him at Exodus 33:11 when he stayed in the tabernacle after Moses left it; he is called the servant of the Lord only once, at his own death in 24:29. Numbers 27:21 had set him under Eleazar and the Urim for counsel, against the face to face speech Moses had, and this verse has God speaking to him with nothing in between.

Joshua 1:3-4

the sole of your foot: The grant repeats Deuteronomy 11:24 nearly word for word, with tread and coast and the Euphrates in both. Israel reaches that eastern line only under David and Solomon, at 2 Samuel 8:3 and 1 Kings 4:21, and never holds it long. The same book says at 13:1 that there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed, so the border promised in this verse is wider than the conquest the book goes on to record. Clarke reads the grant as a limit touched later in the monarchy and no further, and Henry reads the remainder as pointing past the letter to the kingdom of the Messiah.

Joshua 1:5-6

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee is Deuteronomy 31:6 and 31:8 handed back to Joshua in the words Moses had used first to the people and then to him. Hebrews 13:5 carries the same promise to any believer and sets it against covetousness, which is where Henry takes it. The charge be strong and of a good courage occurs six times in the King James Bible and nowhere outside this handover: three from Moses at Deuteronomy 31:6, 31:7 and 31:23, and three in this chapter at verses 6, 9 and 18.

Joshua 1:7-8

Joshua is given one command about a book, and it sits between two orders to be brave. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left comes from Deuteronomy 5:32, and Joshua says the same words back to Israel in his own last charge at 23:6, so the phrase brackets the book at both ends. Meditate therein day and night occurs once in Scripture, and its nearest neighbour is Psalm 1:2, where the man who does it is a tree planted by water. Good success also occurs once in the King James Bible, here, and Barnes points out that the word behind prosper in verse 7 and the word behind success in verse 8 are two different words in the Hebrew.

Joshua 1:9

Three times in four verses Joshua is told to be strong, and the ground given is different each time: the inheritance at verse 6, the law at verse 7, and the presence of God here. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed repeats Deuteronomy 31:8, where Moses closed his charge with the same pair of words. After the first hard day of fighting Joshua says them to his captains at 10:25, so the man who needed telling is the one who later tells.

Joshua 1:10-11

Then Joshua commanded the officers: The officers are the shoterim, the same word used of the Israelite foremen under the Egyptian taskmasters at Exodus 5:14, and Clarke takes them here as heralds carrying orders through the camp rather than judges. Prepare you victuals occurs once in Scripture, and Barnes reads the order against Exodus 16:35, since the manna was to run until they came to an inhabited land and it stops four chapters later at 5:12. Whether these three days are the three days of 3:2, which follow the return of the spies in chapter 2, is disputed among the older commentators, some reading one span reported twice and others reading the three days the spies spend hidden in the hills as falling inside this count.

Joshua 1:12-15

Joshua holds the two and a half tribes to the terms Moses set at Numbers 32:20-22, that they cross armed in front of their brethren and go home only when the land is subdued. Their wives, children and cattle stay east of the river, so these men fight for ground they will never live on. Mighty men of valour occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and it runs on through Joshua and the books of Chronicles as the standard term for fighting strength. Rest is what verse 13 says they already have, and Hebrews 4:8 uses the Greek form of Joshua's name, printed Jesus in the King James, to argue that if he had given the rest no other day would have been spoken of afterward.

Joshua 1:16-18

The answer carries a condition inside it. Only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses rests their obedience on the promise God had already made at verse 5, and the death penalty they name for rebellion is their own proposal rather than an order given to them. The chapter closes with the people saying to Joshua what God had said to him twice, be strong and of a good courage, so the last of the six occurrences in Scripture comes up from the men he is sent to lead.