The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 418

CHAPTER XXIV. 29-33. tomb it is supposed to be (see Quart. Paper, Oct. 1873). In later papers, however (see JOSHUA'S DEATH AND BURIAL.-Ver. 29. Oct. 1877, and Jan. 1878), Lieutenant -The servant of the Lord. The theory Conder abandons Tibneh for Kefr Haris, of some •commentators, that this expres- on the ground that Jewish tradition, usually sion is evidence of a later interpolation found to be corTect, is in its favour. And because " the title only dates from the more mature reflection bas induced him to period when Moses, Joshua, and others were modify bis former opinion as to the early raised to the rank of national saints," need date of the tombs. T.:ntil these researches only be noticed to be rejected. It is a fair commenced, the situation of the hill Gaash specimen of the inventive criticism which was unknown, though it is mentioned in has found favour among modern critics, in 2 Sam. xxiii. 30 (" the brooks" or ".alleys which a large amount of imagination is of Gaash "), and 1 Chron. xi. 32. Nothing in made to supply the want of the smallest these places serves to identify it. This modicum of fact. What is wanting here is passage is copied, with a lew minute verbal the slightest evidence of such a. '' pe1iod" discrepancies, into the Book of Judges (eh. having everexisted,except at the time when ii. 6-9), a strong groun<l, according to eJl these saints of the old covenant closed their ordinary laws of literary criticism, for con- le,bours by death. All the facts before us cluding that the latter book was written go to prove that Moses, as well as Joshua, after the former. This is the chain of was held in as high, if not higher, venera- evidence by which the authenticity of the tion at the moment of his death as at any historical books of the Scriptures is estab- other period of Jewish history. Died. His lished, not, of course, beyond the reach of was an end which any man might envy. cavil or dispute, bat to the satisfaction of Honoured and beloved, and lull of days, be practical men. The LXX. as well as the closed his life amid the regrets of a whole Arabic translators have added here the people, and with the full consciousness that following words : " There they placed with he had discharged the duties God had him in the sepulchre, in which they bruied imposed upon him. The best proof of the him there, the stone knives with which he estimation in which he was held is con- circumcised the children of Israel in Gilgal, tained in ver. 32. when he led them out from Egypt, as the Ver. 30.-In the border of his Inheritance Lord commanded, and they are there unto In Tlmnath-Berah. Rather, perhaps, within this day." This passage is not found in the border. For Timnatb-Semb, see note on tbe Hebrew. And as the Arabic omi the eh. xix. 50. The burial-place of Joshua has LXX. do not altogether agree, the proba- been supposed to be identified by the Pales- bility seems to be that some apocryphal tine Exploration Committee. Lieutenant legend was inserted here at a very early date. Conder describes what he saw o.t Tibneh. Ver. 31.-And Israel served the Lord Amid a number of tombs he found one (cl. Judg. ii. 10). We see here the value evidently, from more than 200 lamp-niches of personal influence. Nor is such influence on the walls of the porch, the sepulchre of altogether unnecessary among us now. The a me.n of distinction. The simple character periods of great religions movements in the of the ornamentation, he thinks, and the Christian Church are in many ways very entire absence of it in the interior of the like to the time of the Israelitish conquest tomb itseU, not only suggest an early date, ol Palestine by Joshua. They a.re times but a.re in harmony with the charo.cter of when God visibly fights for His Church, the simple yet noble-minded w111rior, whoie when miracles of grace are achieved, when JOSHUA, ' BB  3~(1 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. [en. XXIV, 20-38,