(6) Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses.--As Joshua was the servant of the law himself, so must his successors be. No higher position was attainable than this. It has been the same with the successors of the greater Joshua. With them, and with those who follow them, nothing can ever supersede the authority of the written word.

Verse 6. - Be ye therefore very courageous. The original is stronger, Be ye exceedingly courageous (see note on Joshua 1:6). That is written in the book of the law of Moses. A yet more distinct intimation that the words of Moses had been collected into a book at this early period, and that it was known as the Book of the Law of Moses. It seems incredible that such a book should have been invented at a time when the precepts it contained were lightly regarded, and should have been represented as the proper standard of conduct when every one knew that it could never have been anything of the kind.

23:1-10 Joshua was old and dying, let them observe what he said now. He put them in mind of the great things God had done for them in his days. He exhorted them to be very courageous. Keep with care, do with diligence, and regard with sincerity what is written. Also, very cautiously to endeavour that the heathen idolatry may be forgotten, so that it may never be revived. It is sad that among Christians the names of the heathen gods are so commonly used, and made so familiar as they are. Joshua exhorts them to be very constant. There might be many things amiss among them, but they had not forsaken the Lord their God; the way to make people better, is to make the best of them.Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses,.... To observe which required spiritual strength, fortitude of mind, a holy courage, a firm and fixed resolution, and particularly to destroy the Canaanites required in that book, and to abstain from all communion and fellowship with them:

that ye turn not aside therefrom, to the right hand or the left; See Gill on Joshua 1:7.