“Then Joshua said to the people, ‘You will not be able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you'” (Josh 24:19-20).
At the end of the book, Joshua steps out of the role of military leader and puts on the hat of prophet. He looks into the future and sees Israel forsaking the LORD to serve foreign gods. Talk about an anticlimactic ending. Why in the world would the author end the book of Joshua on such a depressing note?
The function of Joshua 24 is directly related to the presentation of Joshua as A [not THE] prophet like Moses since it provides a direct parallel to Moses in the conclusion of the Torah. There Moses also gathers the leaders of the people (compare Deut 31:28 with Josh 24:1) and prophesies that Israel will forsake the LORD to serve foreign gods: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them'” (Deut 31:16).
Joshua and the Unfulfilled Prophecy
Although anti-missionaries try to use such parallels to prove that Joshua fulfilled the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18 about THE prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15), these parallels actually prove the opposite point. Since Moses AND Joshua both look into the future with prophetic certainty and see Israel forsaking the LORD, breaking the Sinai Covenant, and going into exile (compare Deut 30:1; 31:29; with Josh 23:15), all the eschatological promises given by Moses about a new exodus led by a new Moses who will provide a new covenant in the last days remain unfulfilled in the days of Joshua (see Deut 4:24-30; 30:1-6, 11-14; 31:29; 32:43). The negative predictions about Israel’s future at the end of Joshua, therefore, reinforce the fact that Joshua is actually not THE promised eschatological prophet like Moses. For when this new Moses comes he will bring about a new exodus far greater and more glorious than the first. Come Lord Yeshua, please come quickly!
“Then in that day the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for the peoples; and His resting place will be glorious. Then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the second time with His hand the remnant of His people, who will remain, from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He will lift up a standard for the nations and assemble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth…. And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; and He will wave His hand over the River with His scorching wind; and He will strike it into seven streams and make men walk over dry-shod. And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of His people who will be left, just as there was for Israel in the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt” (Isa 11:11-12, 15-16).
