Burying the Giants: Covenant Memory at the Edge of the Land Text: Joshua 24:29-33
Introduction: The End of an Era
The book of Joshua ends not with a bang, but with three burials. After the grand drama of the conquest, after the solemn covenant renewal at Shechem, the story concludes with the quiet, methodical work of an undertaker. We have the deaths of Joshua, the great military commander, and Eleazar, the high priest. And sandwiched between them, we have the long-delayed burial of Joseph's bones, carried out of Egypt centuries before. It is easy to read this as a simple historical footnote, a tidying up of loose ends before the curtain falls. But in Scripture, nothing is ever just a footnote, and how a story ends tells you a great deal about what the story means.
This is the closing of the books on the conquest generation. These are the men who saw the walls of Jericho fall, who saw the sun stand still at Gibeon, who saw the Lord fulfill every last one of His good promises. And their passing marks a critical transition point for the people of God. An era of mighty men and manifest miracles is ending. Now, the ordinary business of living in the land begins. The central question posed by this quiet conclusion is this: what happens when the giants are gone? What happens when a generation's faithfulness is no longer propped up by the living presence of the men who walked with God in power?
This passage is about memory. It is about how a covenant people are to remember the works of God when the eyewitnesses are no longer around to tell the tale. It is about the difference between a faithfulness that is borrowed from the previous generation and a faithfulness that is owned. And it is a deeply sober warning. The seeds of the chaos and apostasy that will plague Israel in the book of Judges are sown right here, in this brief moment of faithfulness that is already defined by the lifespan of the elders. These three graves are sermons in soil. They are tangible monuments to God's faithfulness, but they are also solemn warnings against a faith that is only skin deep.
The Text
Now it happened that after these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash.
And Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who knew all the work of Yahweh which He had done for Israel.
Now they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred qesitah; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him at Gibeah of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.
(Joshua 24:29-33 LSB)
A Servant's Rest (v. 29-30)
We begin with the death of the man whose name gives the book its title.
"Now it happened that after these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash." (Joshua 24:29-30)
Notice the title he is given in death: "the servant of Yahweh." This is the same title given to Moses. It is the highest honor. Joshua was not a king, not a self-made conqueror, but a servant who did the will of his Master. His life was marked by obedience. He lived to a great age, 110 years, the same as Joseph, a sign of a full and blessed life under God's favor.
But the most significant detail here is where he was buried. He was buried "in the territory of his inheritance." Joshua did not just fight for an abstract concept called "the Promised Land." He fought for, and received, his own personal plot of ground. He took possession of the promise. This is a crucial point. The conquest was not just for the nation as a whole; it was for every tribe, every clan, every family, and every man. God's promises are not vague generalities; they land in specific places, in our actual lives. Joshua's grave, there in the hill country of Ephraim, became a permanent, silent sermon. It was a testimony in stone and soil that God is a promise keeper. The man who led Israel into their inheritance now rests in his own.
This is the rest that the first Joshua could give. It was a real, tangible, landed rest from their enemies. But as the book of Hebrews tells us, it was not the final rest. This Joshua led them into a land, but he could not lead them into a state of permanent heart-faithfulness. His grave is a monument to a promise fulfilled, but it also points to the need for a greater Joshua, a greater Jesus, who would secure for His people an eternal inheritance and a true, sabbath rest for their souls.
Borrowed Light (v. 31)
This next verse is one of the most encouraging and simultaneously one of the most ominous verses in the Old Testament.
"And Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who knew all the work of Yahweh which He had done for Israel." (Joshua 24:31)
On the one hand, this is a wonderful summary statement. The generation that crossed the Jordan and took the land remained faithful. They kept the covenant. They served the Lord. This is the fruit of Joshua's leadership and the power of God's mighty acts. But look at the qualifier. Their faithfulness is explicitly tied to the lifespan of the eyewitnesses. They served Yahweh as long as the men who had personally "known" all the work of Yahweh were still alive.
This is a borrowed light. It is a second-hand faithfulness. The problem with a borrowed faith is that it has an expiration date. When the elders died, their stories and their personal authority died with them. The next generation had heard the stories, but they had not seen the miracles. They knew the facts, but they did not "know" the work of Yahweh in the same way. This verse is pregnant with the tragedy of the book of Judges, which tells us that "another generation arose after them who did not know Yahweh or the work which He had done for Israel" (Judges 2:10). The light of the elders was bright, but it was a setting sun, and a long, dark night was about to fall upon Israel.
This is the great challenge of generational faithfulness. Is the faith your own, or are you simply running on the spiritual capital of your parents and pastors? Is your Christianity a matter of personal conviction, rooted in the Word of God, or is it a matter of cultural habit, propped up by the people around you? God has no grandchildren. Every generation must learn to know the Lord for itself. The faithfulness of this generation was commendable, but it was fragile because it was tied to men and their memory, not yet fully written on the heart.
The Long Memory of Faith (v. 32)
Now we come to the strange and wonderful account of Joseph's bones.
"Now they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred qesitah; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons." (Joshua 24:32)
This is an astonishing act of long-term, multi-generational covenant faithfulness. Go back to the end of Genesis. Joseph, on his deathbed in Egypt, made his sons swear an oath. "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here" (Gen. 50:25). For centuries, through slavery and oppression, the children of Israel guarded those bones. Through the ten plagues, the exodus, and forty years of wandering in the wilderness, they carried that coffin. Through the wars of conquest, they carried those bones. And now, at last, they fulfill the promise.
Why was this so important? Because those bones were a sermon. They were a constant, physical reminder that Egypt was not home. Joseph had risen to become the second most powerful man in the world, but he knew he was a sojourner. His hope was not in the treasures of Egypt but in the promise of God. By demanding his bones be buried in Canaan, he was testifying to his faith in the resurrection and in the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was saying, "Our future is not here. It is there, in the land."
And notice where they bury him. At Shechem, in the very plot of ground his great-grandfather Abraham first came to, and that his father Jacob bought. This act stitches the entire history of Israel together. It connects the patriarchs to the conquest. It is a stake in the ground, a declaration that they are not a new nation, but the heirs of an ancient promise. They are burying their past in the soil of their future. This is what it means to have a long memory. Our identity is not something we invent for ourselves; it is something we receive, and we have a duty to remember.
The Priesthood Endures (v. 33)
The chapter, and the book, concludes with one final burial.
"And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him at Gibeah of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim." (Joshua 24:33)
Eleazar, the high priest who served alongside Joshua, also dies and is buried in the land. This is not incidental. You have the passing of the civil and military leader in Joshua, and the spiritual leader in Eleazar. Both pillars of the conquest generation are now gone. But their burial in the land signifies a permanent settlement. They are not retreating. The military leader rests in his inheritance, and the high priest rests in the inheritance given to his zealous son, Phinehas.
The leadership passes on, but the institutions God established endure. The priesthood continues. The worship of God is to be central to their life in the land. The deaths of great men are solemn occasions, but they are not the end of the story. God's covenant does not depend on any one man. The work is larger than the worker. Joshua's work is done, Eleazar's work is done, but God's work of preserving a people for Himself continues through the structures He has ordained.
The Gospel in the Graves
So, we are left with three graves in the hill country of Ephraim. A commander, a patriarch, and a priest. These are not just historical markers; they are signposts pointing to the gospel.
The grave of Joshua reminds us that the first "Jesus" could give the people land, but not lasting faithfulness. He could give them rest from their enemies, but not rest from their sins. His work was a type, a shadow, of the true Joshua to come, the Lord Jesus Christ, who conquers our sin and death and leads us into an eternal inheritance.
The bones of Joseph, carried for centuries and finally laid to rest, preach a powerful sermon about our true home. Like Joseph, we are pilgrims and sojourners in this world. This is not our final resting place. We are looking for a better country, a heavenly one (Heb. 11:16). And we have a promise, not that our bones will be carried to a piece of earthly real estate, but that our Lord Himself will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will be raised. Joseph's bones waited for a home; our bodies wait for a resurrection.
And the grave of Eleazar reminds us that we need a priest. But the Aaronic priesthood was a temporary one, a succession of dying men. We have a better priest, Jesus, who is "a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek" (Heb. 7:17). He does not die and need to be replaced. He ever lives to make intercession for us.
The generation after Joshua failed because their faith was in the memory of men. Our faith is not in a memory, but in a living reality. The Holy Spirit has been poured out, and the law of God is no longer written on tablets of stone but on our hearts. The faithfulness God requires is the faithfulness He Himself provides through His Son. These men were buried in hope, looking forward to the promise. We live on this side of the promise fulfilled. Therefore, let us not have a borrowed light or a second-hand faith, but let us know the Lord for ourselves, and serve Him all the days of our lives, until we too are laid to rest, awaiting the great day of resurrection.