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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joshua 22:21 - 22:21
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In utter amazement at the suspicion expressed by the delegates of the congregation, the two tribes and a half affirm with a solemn oath, that it never entered into their minds to build an altar as a place of sacrifice, to fall away from Jehovah. The combination of the three names of God-El, the strong one; Elohim, the Supreme Being to be feared; and Jehovah, the truly existing One, the covenant God (Jos 22:22), - serves to strengthen the invocation of God, as in Psa 50:1; and this is strengthened still further by the repetition of these three names. God knows, and let Israel also know, sc., what they intended, and what they have done. The אִם which follows is the usual particle used in an oath. “Verily (it was) not in rebellion, nor in apostasy from Jehovah,” sc., that this was done, or that we built the altar. “Mayst Thou not help us to-day,” sc., if we did it in rebellion against God. An appeal addressed immediately to God in the heat of the statement, and introduced in the midst of the asseveration, which was meant to remove all doubt as to the truth of their declaration. The words which follow in Jos 22:23, “that we have built,” etc., continue the oath: “If we have done this, to build us an altar, to turn away from the Lord, or to offer thereon burnt-offering, meat-offering, or peace-offering, may Jehovah himself require it (דָּרַשׁ, as in Deu 18:19; cf. 1Sa 20:16). Another earnest parenthetical adjuration, as the substance of the oath, is continued in Jos 22:24. “But truly (לֹא וְאִם, with an affirmative signification) from anxiety, for a reason (lit. on account of a thing) have we done this, thinking (לֵאמֹר, since we thought) in time to come your sons might say to our sons, What have ye to do with Jehovah, the God of Israel?” i.e., He does not concern you; He is our God. “Jehovah has made the Jordan a boundary between us and your sons; ye have no part in Jehovah. Thus your sons might make our sons cease to fear Jehovah,” i.e., might make them desist from the worship of Jehovah (for the infinitive form יְרֹא instead of the abbreviated form לֵרֹא used in 1Sa 18:29, there are analogies in יְצֹק in Eze 24:3, and לִישֹׁון, Ecc 5:11, whereas יִרְאָה is the only form used in the Pentateuch). There was some reason for this anxiety. For, inasmuch as in all the promises and laws Canaan alone (the land on this side of the Jordan, Num 34:1-12) is always mentioned as the land which Jehovah would give to His people for their inheritance, it was quite a possible thing that at some future time the false conclusion might be drawn from this, that only the tribes who dwelt in Canaan proper were the true people of Jehovah.