Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges, and officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.
1. And Joshua gathered all the tribes, etc He now, in my opinion, explains more fully what he before related more briefly. For it would not have been suitable to bring out the people twice to a strange place for the same cause. Therefore by the repetition the course of the narrative is continued.
Joshua thought his work was finished, yet God stretched his days longer still, and he seized the chance to press Israel once more toward God. We must never lay down our labor for Him while breath remains; if He extends our years beyond expectation, it is because He has further service waiting for us to do.
AI summary
Commenting on Joshua 24:1-14
And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem,.... The nine tribes and a half; not all the individuals of them, but the chief among them, their representatives, as afterwards explained, whom he gathered together a second time, being willing, as long as he was among them, to improve his time for their spiritual as well as civil good; to impress their minds with...