Joshua 24:3
And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.
Joshua 24:3 belongs to Joshua's final closing address when laying down his work after God had given Israel rest from its enemies, calling the tribes together at Shechem to recount their history. It was his closing work when the time came for him to lay down his work, following what Moses did just before his death in calling Israel together to rehearse past experience, trials, failures, and warnings. The verse is part of that review of God's acts for Israel at Shechem.
The verse recalls that God took Abraham from beyond the Euphrates, away from his former people and an idolatrous family where ancestors had served other gods, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, multiplied his descendants, and gave him Isaac. God called Abraham away from his former people and their idols, bringing him from beyond the Euphrates into Canaan. At Shechem the land God had given Israel stood as evidence of His work and recalled His covenant with Abraham and Jacob.
The rehearsed history shows that God, not Israel's strength, brought the people into Canaan and gave them what they had not earned. The land at Shechem was given though they had not labored for it. God's dealings with Abraham and his descendants were thus the ground of the call to serve Him.
The review of God's providential care, blessings, mercies, love, and acts since He called Israel to be His people was meant to awaken gratitude for His guidance and humility over their murmuring, disobedience, neglect of His revealed will, and failure to follow it, and to strengthen faith. Joshua stood to strengthen the faith of God's people by reviewing past blessings and mercies. Losing sight of what the Lord did in the past means losing sight of His present working in their behalf.
God chose Abraham from idolatry and led him into Canaan to preserve the truth and His law for future generations amid widespread idolatry and disobedience. He was appointed to preserve the truth and His law for future generations. God communicated His will to him through angels, with Christ appearing to him to make known the moral law and the salvation to be accomplished through Christ, though his descendants later turned from true worship and transgressed God's law.
God's dealings with Abraham and his descendants call Israel to serve Him sincerely and truthfully and to put away idols inherited from ancestors. The history warns against idolatry and close ties with idolaters including intermarriage because such contact could corrupt them and lead to sin and ruin, shunning even the appearance of evil. As God faithfully kept His promises He would also faithfully carry out His warnings so that turning from Him would bring desolation, and this warning applies personally to each person.
Joshua's example of strengthening God's people by reviewing past blessings stands as a pattern to be followed today in rehearsing the instruction God has given. Those still on the stage of action who have experienced God's dealings are to recount the sacrifices of those who led out, the simplicity of the early workers, and the power of God manifested to keep the work free from error and delusion and extravagance. Doing this blesses themselves and molds workers without that experience. Those who enter now knowing little of the self-denial and self-sacrifice at the commencement must be told again and again and must carry the work forward in the same humble spirit and self-sacrificing principles.