TEXT [Commentary]

4.   Benedictory summary (21:43-45)

43 So the LORD gave to Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44 And the LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had solemnly promised their ancestors. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the LORD helped them conquer all their enemies. 45 Not a single one of all the good promises the LORD had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true.

NOTES

21:43 all the land he had sworn to give. See Gen 12:7; 15:18; 26:3-5; 28:13-15.

21:45 everything . . . came true. Heb., hakkol ba’ [TH935, ZH995] (only five Hebrew letters, meaning “the whole came to be” or “everything came to pass”), a beautiful, stunning, ­perfect finish to this entire report of God’s amazing faithfulness.

COMMENTARY [Text]

With all distributions completed, the author reminds the reader that God had kept his promises (e.g., Gen 12:7; 28:4, 13; Exod 6:4; Deut 6:10). The fulfillment of God’s promises is the central element in each of the three statements of this short evaluative summary, the unifying theme of the paragraph. Each statement begins with a general affirmation that God had done something, followed by a reminder that God had promised to do this.

The reader of Joshua will remember God had made three promises to Joshua himself (1:3-5). These now had been fulfilled. God’s promises of land and of rest, made to Israel’s ancestors generations ago, as the author noted here, had been renewed to Joshua personally. God’s third promise to Joshua had been that no one would be able to stand before him in battle. This promise, too, God had kept.

Everything pulls together in 21:45, the author’s finale to the enterprise of taking possession of the land. That task was now finished, in the sense that Joshua’s victories over the Canaanites gave Israel’s tribes the freedom to disperse and settle into their allotments (cf. 23:1-5). But the emphasis in this benedictory statement of completion is not on Joshua, nor on Israel. It is on God, who had made Israel many “good promises”; not one had failed. The reader is not mistaken in concluding that the God of Israel, the God of the church, is the God who keeps promises.