For if ye in any wise go back, and cleave unto the residue of these nations, these that remain among you, and make marriages with them, and come in unto them and they unto you
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know for a certainty that Jehovah your God will no more dispossess these nations from before you, and they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which Jehovah your God hath given you.
Joshua's farewell speech turns from what God has done to what Israel must not do. If they mix with the nations still left in the land, those neighbours will become the instruments of their ruin. The warning is conditional, but exact: the people sent to clear the land would end up losing it.
Joshua is not inventing a threat. God gave the same warning long before, when He first commanded Israel to clear the land (Numbers 33:55-56).
Every trace of idolatry had to be destroyed. The land was to belong to a holy people who belong to the LORD. So the Canaanite with his detestable practices had to be driven out of the land. "If you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides... And I will do to you as I thought to do to them" (33:55-56). Joshua repeated the same warning in his last address (Josh. 23:13). They did not drive them out as God had commanded, and they suffered for their disobedience.
The reversal in this verse hangs on one condition.
This was, however, conditional on their taking careful heed to love the LORD God (v.11). If not, they would decline morally and mix with the nations, intermarrying and so on. Then the tables would be completely turned. Instead of driving out the nations, Israel would find them to be snares and traps, scourges in their sides and thorns in their eyes. Israel itself would be driven out of the land (vv.12-13).
Earlier chapters keep saying Israel could not drive out certain peoples. Their own strength told a different story.
Their strength exposed the secret of their inability: they "could not" because they "would not" drive them out. They preferred to make money out of these nations rather than obey God... Making terms with the enemy was shortsighted, and it disobeyed God. It ended with the peoples who paid them tribute becoming thorns in their eyes and pricks in their sides. In the end those peoples became their masters.
The nations left in the land had stopped fighting. That, not their armies, was the danger.
The nations that remained among Israel (v. 7) were weary of constant opposition and had accepted the fact of conquest. So they were more dangerous to Israel's prosperity than they had been in their days of open war. The smile of the world is more deadly than its frown. Its hand held out in friendship is more fatal to Christian prosperity than its hand holding a sword.
Israel had proof that God keeps His word: every good thing He promised had arrived. The warning was just as reliable — and it came true.
Israel went back. They gave up the true place of separation to God from the nations, married into them, and worshipped their gods. Then His strength left them, and Israel became the miserable slaves of the peoples they had once conquered... The good shall not fail; neither shall the evil. Israel knew in all their hearts and in all their souls that not one good thing the LORD had promised had failed. They were warned as well that not one word of the LORD about evil would fall to the ground.
Israel agreed with Joshua and still failed. Judges records what God then said at Bochim.
Israel had the best intentions, and they made their promises to Joshua. Even so, the book of Judges shows us that they failed in their own responsibility to drive out the Canaanites (see Judg. 1:27–36). So God had to withdraw His promise to drive them out. The angel of the LORD came to Bochim and solemnly declared: "I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you" (Judg. 2:3).
The decline that follows this verse has a plain name.
What, then, is decline? In a word, we may say, worldliness. The heart, principles and walk are in step with the world. This is always how decline begins. So we can well understand the call in Joshua 23:11: "Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God"... But instead of driving out the Canaanites, Israel is afraid of them, tolerates them, and lives with them.
- Spared. What God told them to remove, they kept for profit — and "could not" turned out to mean "would not."
- Softened. The spared enemy stopped fighting and started smiling. Friendship did what the sword could not.
- Reversed. God sent Israel to drive the nations out; instead the nations became snares, traps, scourges, thorns — and at last masters.
- Certain. Every good word God spoke had already come true. The warning word was just as sure.
- Cleave. The cure is not stronger armies but careful love for the LORD. Decline always begins as worldliness — heart, principles and walk in step with the world.