Joshua1chapter 1

a.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.

a.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.

a.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.

a.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.

a.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.