The Shechem Covenant

excerpt from Joshua and the Promised Land
by Roy H. May, Jr.

At Shechem, the people made their decision. Before Joshua they pledged, "The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey" (v. 24). The lesson seems clear. Faithful living brings blessings for national life (v. 14). Infidelity leads to disaster (v. 20). Choices have to be made. There are many deities -- other options -- to choose (v. 15). We see also the concern that commitments not remain abstract. They must take historical form and be incorporated into national life. Thus, the writer points out that this renewed covenant was written as "statues and ordinances" (v. 25). A stone monument was erected as an enduring reminder of the agreement (cf. 8:30-35). The gathering at Shechem was extraordinary. It committed Israel to being a very different kind of people than it had previously been in Canaan.

Unlike the Deuteronomistic sermon (23:1-16), this passage is believed to be very old. It is probably from the tribal period. Like the sermon, however, it has been molded by the Deuteronomistic editors for their own time. For them, the exile was another benchmark in the history of Israel. The people again had to choose which deities they would follow.

Joshua's stirring words, "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord," is the stuff for sermons today! Indeed, Joshua 24 continues to be a very relevant text. The call for God's people to examine their relationship with the Lord, their commitment to obedient discipleship, and to choose which of the many available "deities" they will serve are enduring requirements for faithful living. What one is required to do is based on what God has done. Fidelity to the God "who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery -- and protected us along all the way that we went" (v. 17), requires that we too commit ourselves to freeing and protecting those who live in slavery and suffer oppression. There is no doubt that the Shechem covenant lends itself to much reflection in our own time.

This passage also gives us another clue to the origins of Israel and how it obtained the Promised Land. This will help us deal with the question that has been with us since the beginning: was the "conquest" of Canaan "ethnic cleansing" or a movement by landless peasants to take the fields of wealthy landowners?

Behind the Deuteronomistic writing style and theological concerns is a complex and intriguing text. What is this story? What kind of gathering was it? Why Shechem? Why is it so important? But, the most intriguing question is, why were they (still) worshiping Canaanite deities? Weren't the people Israelites? Such questions point to Israel's origin. This was not a racially and culturally uniform people. They represented a mixture of different heritages and religious beliefs primarily native to Canaan. Somehow they came together as the people called Israel. The Shechem covenant had a key role in this process. For this reason, Carlos Dreher regards Joshua 24 as another important clue for understanding the Book of Joshua.

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