Joshua 23, Joshua's Epitaph

Canaan has been conquered.  Now Joshua is dying.

Joshua 23: 1-5, Joshua calls the tribes together

After a long time had passed and the LORD had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years, summoned all Israel--their elders, leaders, judges and officials--and said to them: "I am old and well advanced in years. You yourselves have seen everything the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the LORD your God who fought for you. Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain--the nations I conquered--between the Jordan and the Great Sea in the west. 

The LORD your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you.

Joshua wants the nation to continue as before, in the tradition of Moses and of Joshua and of the Sinai Covenant. It is possible that Joshua is only addressing the nine-and-a-half tribes west of the Jordan, as he describes them as being between the Jordan and the Great Sea. Or he is merely describing the land that he, not Moses, conquered.

Joshua 23: 6-11, Be very strong

"Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.

"But you are to hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have until now. 

"The LORD has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. One of you routs a thousand, because the LORD your God fights for you, just as he promised.

"So be very careful to love the LORD your God.

"Be very strong..."  Classic Joshua.  "Be strong and courageous!" If the people rely on YHWH, they cannot be stopped.

Joshua 23: 12-16, But if you turn away...

"But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you.

"Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you.

"If you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the LORD's anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you."

Joshua's message is a mixture of pride and warning, of blessing and curse.

There is a real concern about allying themselves with the people of the land. The people of land have grown wheat and barley, figs, grapes and olives. They have agricultural knowledge that the Israelites might lack and so it will be tempting to absorb the local farming culture.  But embedded in the Canaanite agriculture practices were fertility rites, worship of the Baals and Ashteroths, the various male and female gods.