In Joshua chapter one, verse thirteen, Moses’ successor was old and stricken in years. However, he had aged and was advanced in days. He did not live beyond a hundred and ten years, as indicated in chapter twenty-four twenty-nine of the same book, and this was not a great age for the time. So it is said in Genesis twenty-seven. The hardships and anxieties of his life had aged Joshua. The work of the Lord successfully carried on, as it was by Joshua, may wear men out by its excitement. But this personal course with God is like eating the tree of life, and “in His presence is the fulness of joy.”
There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. The land had still to be inherited: not overrun, or conquered, as far as it could be said to be by defeating the armies that took the field. Remarkably, we have a distinct order given to Joshua to divide Israel’s land, which did not yet conquer. In these verses, several nations are still in the midst. The Philistines, the Geshurites, the Avites, the Giblites, and the Sidonians may have sometimes been generic and sometimes more specific of the Canaanites. Of these tribes, the Philistines and “all the Sidonians” (or Phœnicians) did not conquer the land yet.