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Jos_1:1 Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,
The Book of Joshua] Who was a book man as well as a sword man: {a} and might well give for his motto, Ex utroque Caesar. Julius Caesar wrote his own acts; witness his learned Commentaries - for so he called them, in modesty, rather than histories; and the like did his successors, Augustus Caesar, in four books, and Adrian the Emperor, with great diligence. That Joshua himself was penman of this book, or of most part of it, is probably gathered from Jos_24:26, and that he wrote also the end of Deuteronomy - viz., from the death of his master Moses - may be gathered from the copulative and, wherewith this book beginneth - And it came to pass, &c.; so the original hath it. See the like in Jdg_1:1 Rth_1:1 1Sa_1:1 2Sa_1:1, &c. Indeed, the whole law - so the whole Scripture - is but one copulative, say the schoolmen; and "God spake by the mouth" - not mouths - "of his holy prophets which have been since the world began." {Luk_1:1-4} Joshua is here set forth both as a pattern to princes - far beyond Xenophon’s Cyrus or Machiavel’s Borgia - and as a type of Christ, the great Conqueror. {Rev_6:2} He had his name changed, when he was sent as a spy into Canaan, {Num_13:16} from Oshea to Joshua; from Let God save, to God shall save. Under the Law, which bringeth us as it were into a wilderness, we may desire and pray that there were a Saviour: but under the Gospel we are sure of salvation; and that our Jehoshua hath bound himself to fulfil all righteousness, and to land us safe at the key of Canaan, at the kingdom of heaven.
{a} Et hae ipso laudem veram meruit quod falsam contempsit. - Dion, Fulgos.
Ver. 1. Now after the death of Moses.]
“ Sic uno avulso non deficit alter Aureus. ” - Virgil.
The Church shall never want a champion of Christ’s own providing; but Moses shall revive in Joshua, and there shall be a succession of godly governors, till the headstone be laid with, "Grace, grace unto it." {Zec_4:7}
That the Lord spake unto Joshua.] Not immediately, as to Moses, but some other way, {Num_12:7-8} probably by Urim and Thummin, as in Num_27:18; Num_27:21. Not so to Saul {1Sa_28:6} - for the high priest Abiathar was fled from him to David, with an ephod in his hand. {1Sa_23:6} Similarily, Christ answered nothing to Herod, {Luk_23:9} who had cut off the head of the Baptist, that was vox clamantis, the voice whereby he had cried.