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Joshua 10 - 11

Joshua
JoshuaSteve Gregg

In these chapters from the book of Joshua, Steve Gregg discusses the story of the Gibeonites and the prolonged battle that ensued. He explores the miraculous event in which the sun appears to stand still and offers a possible explanation for how it could have occurred. Gregg also discusses the gruesome aftermath of the battle in which Joshua takes five kings captive and ultimately conquers the land that was promised by God. Overall, the talk offers insights into the historical events depicted in this section of the Old Testament.

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Transcript

The Gibeonites and the Israelites four cities of the Gibeonites decided that they would not fight on the side of their own people, but would take Israel's side. Now that doesn't mean that Gibeon joined Israel's army and went out and fought against the others, but at least they took sides with Israel and made peace with Israel and that was offensive to the other Canaanites of course. It was an act of treason.
And so in chapter 10, now it came to pass when Adonizedek, the king
of Jerusalem, which was of course at this time a Canaanite city, we think of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or Judah, but it was not yet conquered and therefore it was still a Canaanite city. It was never really permanently conquered until the time of David much later. But Adonizedek, the king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it as he had done to Jericho and its king.
So he had done to Ai and its king and how
the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them that they feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city like one of the royal cities and because it was greater than Ai and all its men were mighty. So we see that Gibeon was not a wimpy city. It was a greater city than Ai.
In fact, it was a royal city and it was all its men were mighty men. So it's like
you might think that the Gibeonites might have thought, well, you know, we're pretty tough. We could take our chances with these Israelites, but they didn't.
Though they were strong, they
acknowledged their vulnerability and that God could beat them. And so, in other words, the surrender of Gibeon to Israel was not an indication that Gibeon was a weak city that was particularly vulnerable more than others. It wasn't because of their special vulnerability or weakness or insecurity, but it was because of more of an active desire to come over to the side of God's people, I think.
And even though they had to become servants in the house of the Lord, they were
mighty men, but they gave up their freedom as a city in order to become slaves to God's people and to serve at the house of God. It reminds me, by the way, of Psalm 8410, where the psalmist says, For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Psalm 8410, the Gibeonites were like that. They became
doorkeepers or more like other kinds of servants, woodcutters and water carriers in the house of God rather than dwell and associate themselves with the wicked. And this offended the wicked, their neighbors.
So, therefore, Joshua 10, three, therefore, at an Isaac, king of Jerusalem, sent to
Hoham, king of Hebron, Pyram, the king of Jarmath, Japhia, the king of Lachish and Debir, the king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me and help me that we may attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. Now, notice, he doesn't say, let's make a confession and attack Joshua and Israel. I don't know if they had quite the backbone to consider that, but they wanted more or less to punish Gibeon for having taken the wrong side.
And, you know, it's like what Peter said about
Christians who converted and are no longer pleasing their heathen friends because they think it's strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riots, speaking evil of you. They persecute you because you're not on their side anymore. You're on God's side and they want to punish you for that.
Therefore, the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of
Jarmath, the king of Lachish and the king of Eglon, gathered together and went up. They and all their armies and camped before Gibeon and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal saying, do not forsake your servants.
Come up to us quickly, save us and help
us. For all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the mountains have gathered together against us. Now, I don't know how they got a messenger through, but this is often seen to be the case in scripture that a city will be besieged.
And then so they send a messenger out for help. I don't know
how the messenger gets past the besieging army. Maybe he sneaks out at night or there's secret tunnels that maybe the whole population couldn't escape, but one guy could get through.
Or maybe
the Gibeonites got advance notice that this force was coming against them. And so they said, we better send for help. And so the messenger got out before the invaders arrived.
In any case, Joshua
got the message. And you could easily imagine how Joshua could say, wow, God's going to stall my problem. I caused for myself here.
You know, I made this covenant with these people I shouldn't have
made a covenant with. I can't break it. But hey, no one says that these other kings can't wipe them out.
You know, if these other kings wipe them out, then we're clear. But instead, Joshua says, no, we
made a covenant with them. They are our servants, like masters are responsible for the safety of their servants.
We're saddled with this burden of the Gibeonites. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal.
He and all the people of war with him and all the mighty men of valor.
And the Lord said to Joshua,
Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand. Not a man of them shall stand before you. Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly and having marked all night from Gilgal.
I believe
it's about 20 miles from Gilgal to give in. It is an all night march. I actually walked 20 miles one night hitchhiking home one night and couldn't get a ride.
So I walked home and it's 20 miles and
took all night. I know what an all night march is, just about that same distance. But it means, of course, that Joshua and his troops arrived there without having had a night's sleep and having marched 20 miles.
It's not like they arrived fresh to the battle. They arrived almost like they'd
already spent a day of hard work marching under under arms and so forth. But nonetheless, they not only had a long night's march, they had a long day of fighting.
The longest day ever, as it turns out,
because this day got prolonged. So they really had a long battle that they were involved in this particular case. So the Lord routed them before Israel, killed them with the great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along the road that goes to Beth Horon and struck them down as far as Africa and Makeda.
Now, Beth Horon is a pass in the mountains where apparently once Israel showed up and started
attacking people, they started in retreat through these mountain passes. If they could get through the passes, they might get make it back into their cities and be make it harder for Israel to defeat them. Of course, if these people got back into their walled cities and shut the gates, they'd still have to be defeated much harder.
It'd be like attacking a walled city instead of attacking a bunch of vulnerable
troops out on the field. So these people were trying to escape through this pass. Now, Ezekiel and Makeda, their locations are not exactly identifiable today.
We're not sure exactly what they are.
Although Makeda becomes sort of a new post for Joshua, from which he launches further battles in the southern region. But it says there were more who... No, no, no, no.
Verse 11. And it happened as they fled
before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horon. And the descent means they made it up over the mountain pass.
They were now on the other side, almost to safety. God didn't let them get to safety.
The Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Ezekiel and they died.
There were more who
died from the hailstones than those whom the children of Israel killed with the sword. Now, if you've got armed guys, presumably with helmets on, stuff like that, and yet there's hailstones killing them. These are sizable hailstones.
Now, the Book of Revelation talks about hailstones a hundred pounds. Those would squish you like a
bug if they happened to hit you. A hundred pound weight, it's like having a safe, you know, a small safe falling you from the top of a skyscraper, you know.
A hundred pounds would be an awful lot. These probably were not that
large. They wouldn't have to be to kill people.
There are, in the modern day in some places, really huge hailstones
occasionally. I've heard that in Texas there have been hailstones the size of softballs. Well, a hailstone the size of a softball, if it hits the top of a car, it makes a pretty serious dent in that roof, that steel roof of a car.
A hailstone
that size hitting a person on the head will make a pretty serious dent in the head too, probably crack the skull. These were killer hailstones. Now, part of the miracle here was not only the size and the deadliness of the hailstorm, but the fact that it wasn't killing the Israelites too.
I mean, if you're in a battle pursuing your enemies and hailstones are falling on
killing your enemies and you're dodging every one of them, that's pretty good. Unless we're to understand that these people had put some distance between themselves and Israel, the ones who are escaping at the furthest distance from the advancing Israelites were almost going to get away. So God took them out with hailstones.
But since they were on the descent of Beth Horn, it
means that they're on the other side of the hills. Maybe the hailstorm was over on the far side of the hill and the Israelites not having gone that far yet were not in danger. In any case, that's just one way that God miraculously helped Israel in this case.
The
other is next, verse 12. Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Son, stand still over Gibeon and moon in the valley of Ajalon. So the sun stood still and the moon stopped till the people had revenge upon their enemies.
Is it not written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in
the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down about a whole day. And there has been no day like that before or after it. There has never been a day like that before or after it where the Lord heeded the voice of a man for the Lord fought for Israel.
Now, God
has, of course, heeded the voice of man in some respects on many occasions. Perhaps not in this sense. But in what sense did this happen? The language of what Joshua spoke is here presented as poetry, and it apparently may be maybe even a quotation from the book of Jasher, which is mentioned as carrying this information.
By the way, just as I said, the book of Jasher is mentioned twice in scripture here
and in Second Samuel chapter one. In both cases, poetry is cited. That is from the book of Jasher.
And both of it is in the context of
certain battles of Israel. The word Jasher means upright. So apparently the book was called the book of the upright.
And while we don't
have the book of Jasher anymore, although there is, you can buy the book of Jasher in a store. It's not the same one. Somebody apparently decided that since the Bible makes the book of Jasher, there might be a market for it.
But the book of Jasher was apparently a collection of
war songs. But before we talk about this one, if you want to look at the other one we know about, it's in Second Samuel chapter one. And it contains a lament that David uttered when Saul's death and Jonathan's death was reported to David.
He sang a song. David was a musician, a
songwriter, of course. He wrote a lot of songs.
And he composed a song which came to be called The Song of the Bow. And it says in Second Samuel
1.18, indeed it is written in the book of Jasher. David wrote it, but it was included later in this collection of war songs.
One of David's songs
sung on this occasion. And you can see in Second Samuel chapter one verses 19 through 27, the contents of this particular song that is also in the book of Jasher. Apparently a lot of the heroic battles and so forth of Israel were in this book.
One of them included the report of Joshua
commanding the sun to stand still. So back in Joshua 10 again, what it is said is Joshua said in the sight of Israel, sun stand still over Gibeon and moon in the valley of Eichelon. So the sun stood still and the moon stopped till the people had revenge upon their enemies.
Now this is a rather, it does
seem to be a unique case where God heeded the voice of a man because this was not a case of an answered prayer. He didn't pray. He didn't say God please stop the sun.
He commanded the sun and it obeyed. And that's not very common until Jesus comes on the scene. When Jesus comes on the scene
he speaks to the weather too.
And he speaks to demons. He speaks to fevers and he speaks to dead people and they obey him. Jesus really, although he was,
the Bible tells us he did a great deal of praying.
He didn't seem to do any miracles by praying. He did miracles by commanding dead people to get up and
waves to stop and wind to cease and demons to come out. I mean, these are not the same thing as praying.
This is not addressing God. This is addressing
something else. And we don't find other instances of that that I can recall anywhere in the Old Testament.
We find prayer answered, but we don't find a man
commanding nature to obey him. And so that's perhaps why it is said there's never been a day like that before or after where God heeded the voice of a man. That is that God allowed a man to take God's prerogatives and speak as if he were God and God backed him up on it and let it happen.
But what happened here? Now,
this is the only case in the Bible where we read of the sun stopping, if that's what happened here. There is another case in scripture recorded in three places in Isaiah and it's in second Kings and it's also in second Chronicles where Hezekiah was dying and asked for a sign when God said he when Isaiah, the prophet told him he'd be healed. He asked for a sign of that.
And Isaiah said, well, the sun is going to go backward on the sundial, but the shadow is going to go
backward on the sundial 10 degrees. And it is generally assumed that the shadow went backward, then the sun must have gone backward in the sky. It may not be that that is so.
The sun might not have gone
backward. Maybe just the shadow miraculously went backward. I don't know.
But it would seem to imply that the sun went backward. The problem with stories like these is
because people say, well, we know so much more about astronomy than they did back then. They perhaps had the idea that the earth was a flat plane and the sun was a little object that went over it each day and that for it to go backward or forward wouldn't interrupt too much because it's way out there in the sky and God could move the sun around without affecting the earth very much.
But, of course, we know now that the sun doesn't really move in relation to the earth, but the earth moves in relation to the sun.
And for the sun to stop or to go backward is really going to involve changes in the motion of the earth. And since the earth spins at the speed of a thousand miles an hour at the equator, it's hard to imagine it coming to an abrupt halt without throwing everything into chaos.
I mean, even if you were driving at 60 miles an hour and you hit a brick wall, everything in the car is going to be through the windshield, you know. And if the earth
is spinning a thousand miles an hour and then God stops it, all the trees are going to be falling over, everything's going to go awry. And if he makes it go backward, if he puts it in reverse, it's even going to be worse.
So, people argue that it's unrealistic from what we now know about the movement of the earth with relation to the sun, which they presumably didn't know back then, it's impossible to take these stories seriously because of the tremendous damage that would be done.
Well, obviously that objection is failing to take into account that the same God who could make the earth stop could also hold things in place. I mean, we don't know of any natural power that could make the earth stop, but we do know of a supernatural being who can do such things.
And if he can do that, what can't he do? You know, if God wants to stop the earth without knocking the trees and buildings and everything over, I don't suppose that's going to happen.
I don't suppose that's any harder for him than to stop the earth and allow them to fall over. I mean, he can do what he wants to do, he's in control.
Obviously, if we learn nothing from a story like this, it's that God can do everything, including stop the sun from its movement in the sky.
Of course, the objection also assumes that it was an abrupt stop. You know, when I go on an airliner, they fly about 500 miles an hour, and yet they can land within the space of a few miles, or less, on a runway.
You know, we don't all fly through the windshield of the plane when we land. Sometimes it's a little rough, but you can bring something to a stop within a few minutes anyway, if it's moving 500 miles an hour. I know because they do it all the time when they land airplanes.
A thousand miles an hour would take a little longer, perhaps, if there's no, you know, if you're trying to have the same effect.
In other words, if God doesn't have to just put on the brakes and it stops right there, he could just slow it down gradually until it just isn't moving anymore. If he wanted to, it wouldn't knock everything over.
But the point is, God can do whatever he wants to do. If he can't, then the story is a fake story. If he can, then there's no problem with the story.
You know, that's the issue. Is there a God who can do this kind of thing, or isn't there?
Now, many people say, we're not even really asked to believe that that's what happened, because we're misunderstanding the wording. Some people say, it's not that the sun literally stopped in the air, or that the earth literally stopped so that the sun appeared to stop, but that God did some other kind of miracle.
That he refracted the light in such a way that even though the sun moved on as normal, the refraction was somehow, you know, continued on that part of the earth that, you know, the sunlight continued to illuminate them for a period of time. And it wasn't really that there was that miracle of a literal stopping, but rather just the visual. The same thing as people have said sometimes about the sun going backward on the sundial.
It's not necessary to believe the sun went backward, the shadow went backward. Now, that would have to be supernatural, but God could make a shadow on a sundial without making the sun move the other direction. So, there's different ways they say that this could have been accomplished.
It's not necessary, especially since it's related in poetry.
If it wasn't in poetry, we'd be more compelled to take it as a sober narrative. But, since poetry often embellishes things, for example, when Deborah and Barak conquered Sisera and the enemies of Israel in the book of Judges in chapter 5, when they sang a poetic song about that battle, it said, the stars and their courses fought against Sisera.
Well, that's poetic, you know, flowery language. The stars didn't come down and fight against Sisera. So, I mean, this kind of language is not unheard of in Hebrew poetry.
So, in other words, some say we're not even really being asked to believe something as radical as that the sun really stopped.
In fact, some scholars say, and all agree, that the Hebrew word for stand still really is be silent. In the Hebrew, it is, he said, sun, be silent, or forgive him.
That would be the literal translation.
Now, what does be silent mean? The sun is silent all the time. So, it's obviously figurative.
It's a poetic thing. What are you asking the sun to do when you're telling it to be silent? To stop moving?
Well, that's how it's translated in our Bibles, mostly. Be still.
Telling the sun to be silent might be saying, telling the sun to stand still, or maybe stop shining.
Some think that what this is saying is that the hailstorm was doing such a good job of defeating the enemy that Joshua didn't want it to end prematurely until the whole enemy was destroyed. So, he was asking the sun's light to be no longer shining.
In other words, he's asking for the clouds and the hailstorm to continue until the battle is finished, at the end of verse three, until the people had revenge on their enemies, until all the enemy were dead.
There's a lot of suggestions have been made about this. But, I have to say, if any of the suggestions other than the most traditional understanding are the case, and the traditional understanding is that the sun really did stop, or the earth stopped, and the sun appeared to stop.
That's the traditional understanding. If any of the other alternatives that people suggest are true, it hardly explains why, in verse 14, it says, there's never been a day like that before. I mean, if the hailstorm simply was prolonged, and the sun was blocked out of its light for a long period of time, is that really so unusual? I mean, isn't it fairly common for the sun's light to be blocked out by clouds for weeks at a time? I mean, that's not really so big a deal.
So, it really does seem like this is telling us that there was a unique miracle. Now, in case you've heard the reports, I want to clarify, there is not confirmation about this from NASA. It's like an urban legend that's been around for at least 40 years.
I first heard it back in the 70s, that, you know, space scientists at NASA, because they have to, by sending satellites out, they have to calculate where planets and things are going to be, you know, years ahead of time. So, they run these computer models to see where things are going to be, to make sure their satellites avoid collisions and so forth. And that, the story goes like this, that they were running these computer simulations, and they decided to run it backward just for fun.
I guess maybe during a coffee break or something, someone decided to say, well, let's run this backward. And they found out by doing this that there's a missing day and 20 minutes or something like that, a few minutes. And it was just puzzling the scientists, and they were trying to figure out how could this be? There's a day missing, the computer's finding a missing day and, let's say, 20 minutes, I forget the exact time.
And one of the space scientists had gone to Sunday school, but the Bible says that on one occasion, the sun stood still for a whole day. So, that would account for the missing day. And the 20 minutes might be when the sun dial went, the shadow of the sun dial went back 10 degrees.
So, confirmation from science that these things really happened. Well, people who are interested in knowing whether these stories are true sometimes will research them. And NASA, no one at NASA knows of this ever happening.
And many people say, you couldn't find that out with this kind of simulation anyway. How do you find a missing day? I mean, wherever the planets are is where they are. And you're not really looking at the actual position of them before a certain time and after.
You're running a computer model of where they would be in relation to where they are. And you would, if there had been a missing day, it would be invisible to the test. And so, anyway, the point is that Christians sometimes do repeat this story.
Because, I mean, why not, if you think it's true? I mean, it's circulating on the internet. It's been around longer than the internet's been around. But it's not apparently true.
So don't be looking to prove the Bible true by citing that particular story. It's been cited many, many times. But even though they haven't proved it at NASA, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
It is on record in two books, Joshua and the Book of Joshua. Two witnesses, the witness of two is true. Actually, not everything that is said by two witnesses is necessarily true.
But at least they're not left with a single witness. And that's no doubt why we're told. Is it not written in the Book of Joshua? In other words, you don't have to believe me.
There's another testimony over here. You know, if it wasn't true, why would they say so? Anyway, there's confirmation from another written record. Now, verse 15 says, Then Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.
Now, this, I think, is mentioned out of chronological order. And this brings up something that we might as well become acquainted with as we study Old Testament history, the way it's written. Many times a summary statement will be made.
And then the following material will tell what leads up to that thing that was the summary statement. For example, in Genesis, it will say, Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more. And then it'll say, and Joseph said to his brothers, I had a dream.
And then it goes and tells the story. But it first gave the summary statement. What you're about to read is that Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers, they hated him.
Okay, now let me give you the details. Gave you the headlines, and, you know, story after this commercial. And so that's often how the history is told in the Old Testament.
You have a statement about something that happened ultimately, and then it goes back and tells the story, the backstory that leads up to that thing. His actual going to Gilgal was at the end of the warfare, but the rest of the chapter shows he continued to pursue the warfare at this point. In verse 43, Joshua returned in all Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal.
He was not at Gilgal at this point. They had marched 20 miles to get to where they were now. They didn't go 20 miles back and then go back again to Mecidah and do the things we're about to read.
So the reference in verse 15 to him returning to Gilgal is essentially anticipating verse 43, but now it's going to tell us things that transpired in route to Gilgal or before he got there, before he actually returned, because it's out of chronological order. Actually, there's a lot of chronological issues in some of these chapters of Joshua, and even in the early chapters of Judges. It seems like they tell things out of order, and then they tell something else, and they go back and tell that earlier thing again.
It can be a little confusing at times. Movies do that too. It's true.
Movies do that all the time. In fact, some of my very favorite movies, the opening scene is somebody doing something, and then you don't know how they got there or why they're doing that, and then it flashes back to the early stages. It leads up to what you saw at the beginning.
It's a legitimate means of storytelling. So, he didn't really go back to Gilgal at this point, but now that the battle was essentially won against these people on Beth Horan, he could now make it his aim to get back to Gilgal, but there are some things to take care of in route. Verse 16, But these five kings had fled and hidden themselves in a cave at Machedah.
So, while their armies were fleeing over Beth Horan, the five kings decided to take refuge together in a cave, where they hoped they would not be found, obviously, but they were being watched, apparently, and someone saw where they went, and it was told to Joshua saying, The five kings have been found hidden in the cave at Machedah. So, Joshua said, Roll large stones against the mouth of the cave and set men to guard them, and do not stay there yourselves, but pursue your enemies and attack their rear ranks. Do not allow them to enter their cities, for the Lord your God has delivered you into your hands.
Don't get distracted, you know, disposing of these kings at the moment, because we need to catch their troops before they get back to their walled cities and get where they can be somewhat protected. Continue to pursue the enemy, but just seal up the kings in the cave for a later time, set a guard or two there to watch over them, and then we'll take care of them when the battle is actually over. All the people returned to the camp.
I see verse 20, I guess. Then it happened, while Joshua and the children of Israel made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter till they had finished, that those who escaped entered the fortified cities. So, a few of them did get there after all.
Apparently, these fortified cities didn't have probably a very large population by the time a few got there, because there was a very great slaughter of those who were on their way there and didn't get there successfully. And all the people returned to the camp, to Joshua at Makeda. So, this Makeda, where the kings were in a cave, this became the next encampment for Israel and the launching point for further warfare later on.
They returned in peace. No man moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel. That was all their enemies, even anyone who would speak against them was pretty much no longer there.
They'd taken care of anyone that would oppose them, even to the point of verbally opposing them, which is just a hyperbole of saying they had no opposition with whoever left in that battle. Then Joshua said, open the mouth of the cave and bring out those five kings to me from the cave. And they did so and brought out those five kings to him from the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmath, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.
So, it was when they brought out those kings to Joshua that Joshua called all the men of Israel and said to the captains of the men of war who went with him, come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings. And they drew near and put their feet on their necks. Then Joshua said to them, do not be afraid, nor be dismayed.
Be strong and of good courage, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight. And afterward, Joshua struck them and killed them and hanged them on five trees. And they were hanging on the trees until evening.
So, it was at the time of the going down of the sun that Joshua commanded. And they took them down from the trees, cast them into the cave where they'd been hidden, and laid large stones against the cave's mouth, which remained until this very day." This sounds pretty barbaric to us, obviously. Take these guys here, they can't defend themselves.
These five guys, no doubt unarmed, or if they were armed, they would be disarmed shortly. And then, you know, put their heads and necks on the ground, put your feet on them, and then say, now I'm going to make an example of these guys. And they're sitting there listening, and then they hear each of their buddies get, you know, the sword goes into them.
It's gruesome, it's awful. But we have to remember that there are people who deserve this kind of treatment and worse. In fact, in all likelihood, they had done similar things to other people themselves.
There's a reference in one of the stories in the Old Testament of a king who got his thumbs cut off when he was captured. And he said, well, I've done the same thing to other guys. I've cut off other people's thumbs, you know.
And so, we just see these guys in their vulnerable final moments, and think, boy, I feel kind of sorry for these guys, you know. What chance do they have there against all these Israelites? There's just these five guys against these hundreds of thousands of enemies. It must have been terrifying for them.
What an awful way to go. What an awful last thing to be aware of is that there's a foot on your neck, and you're about to get stabbed to death or beheaded or something. But as sympathetic as we might be to our fellow humans, there are, these people were wicked people.
They had done worse things to their babies, to say nothing about their military enemies. And we don't know to what degree these people had murdered, had a lot of blood on their hands. On that day, Joshua took Makedah and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword.
He utterly destroyed them, all the people who were in it. He let none remain. He also did to the king of Makedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
Then Joshua passed from Makedah, I keep pronouncing it differently because I don't know the right pronunciation, and all Israel with him to Libna, and they fought against Libna. And the Lord also delivered it and its king into the hand of Israel. He struck it and all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword.
He let none remain in it, but did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho. The king of Jericho becomes the reference for all of these cases because it was the first case. And so what he did to Jericho, he just kind of repeated everywhere he went.
Verse 30. Then Joshua passed from Libna and all Israel with him to Lachish, and they encamped against it and fought against it. And the Lord delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, who took it on the second day and struck it, and all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword, according to all that he had done to Libna.
Then Horam, king of Gezer, came up to help Lachish, and Joshua struck him and his people until he left him none remain. And from Lachish, Joshua passed to Eglon. And these were basically the cities of those kings that have just been slain.
I mean, some of them are not, but this includes the five cities, not including Jerusalem, of the kings that had been captured and killed. So once the kings were killed, they had to go and conquer the cities because some of the people had gone into the four or five cities after they retreated. And now they're mopping up.
From Lachish, Joshua passed to Eglon, verse 34, and all Israel with him. And they encamped against it and fought against it. They took it on that day and struck it with the edge of the sword.
All the people who were in it, he utterly destroyed that day. According to all that he had done to Lachish. Then Joshua went up from Eglon and all Israel with him to Hebron.
And they fought against it. And they took it and struck it with the edge of the sword. It's king, it's cities.
It must have been a new successor king. When it says they killed the king, he already killed the king of Hebron and the king of Eglon. They were hiding in a cave.
But apparently their sons had assumed, you know, the new position as king. And by the way, these wars could have been stretched out over weeks or months. You know, we're getting the impression it's all happened in a day because we're reading about it in rapid succession.
But I mean, the marching from one stage to another would take days. The campaigns could be protracted. The Israel could have rested for some seasons between.
I mean, all of these cities that were conquered weren't all conquered before, you know, nightfall. I mean, the day was prolonged, but not that long. So the likelihood is that there were weeks or months long.
So, of course, once the kings have been slain, someone else had had succeeded them in their absence, even if it was the next day or a week later, their prince would have stepped in. So there were new kings to kill in these cities every time they came to one of them, though they had already killed the king from these cities in many cases. So it says in verse three, Joshua returned and all Israel with him to Debor.
And they fought against it and he took it and its king and all its cities. They struck them with the edge of the sword and utterly, utterly destroyed all the people who were in it. He left none remaining as he had done to Hebrew.
And so he did to Debor and all its and its king, as he had done also at Libna and its king. So Joshua conquered all the land, the mountain country in the south. And the lowland in the wilderness slopes and all their kings, he left nothing remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed as the Lord God of Israel had commanded.
And Joshua conquered them from Kadesh Barnea as far as Gaza and all the country of Goshen, even as far as Gibeon. Now, these names Kadesh Barnea, some of these Goshen, there are similar names of places like Goshen, obviously, is the region in Egypt that Israel migrated to in the days of Jacob. And Kadesh Barnea was the name of the place where the spies first left in the days of Moses to fly up the land and returned there.
I don't know if this is the same Kadesh Barnea. It might be, but it certainly isn't the same Goshen. A lot of times, more than one place had similar names.
The word Dan belonged to more than one place. So the name Jericho, there were more than one Jericho. There's more than one Bethel.
So there are Bethany. And so there's this Goshen here should not be mistaken for the Goshen down in the land of Egypt. They didn't go down there and fight on this occasion.
Kadesh Barnea might be included, but that would be at the edge of the land anyway, because that was the place from which Moses had sent the spies. If it's the same Kadesh Barnea, all these kings and their land, Joshua took at one time because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. Then Joshua returned in all Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal.
So this was the conquest of the southern region of the land. When they first came in the land, it was sort of in the central region. Jericho was sort of central between north and west areas of the land of Israel and Ai also.
So when they first came in, they penetrated into the middle of the land. And there may have been some strategy in God's mind or Joshua's for doing it this way, because it divided the southern Canaanites from the northern Canaanites and prevented them from being able easily to work together against Joshua. It divided the inhabitants of the land by Israel coming through the middle and occupying that area.
Still, of course, it would have been possible for the northern and southern kings all to come at the same time. And Israel had to put on two fronts. But it would be harder for them to conspire together with each other and to organize a campaign because Israel was in the middle part of the country.
But now that they've taken the middle, they've taken the south. Now, I don't know if they intended to. They took these southern regions because the southern regions attacked Gibeon.
Gibeon was to the south. And the other neighboring Canaanites wanted to punish Gibeon and that got Joshua involved. And once he took care of those five kings, he just kept going on to the next nearby city and taking it too.
So in a somewhat rapid succession, he cleaned up and conquered the whole southern region. But north of their original area, north of Jericho, there was still this northern area had not been conquered. And that's what they have to face in chapter 11.
And we'll actually read that. There's not going to be an awful lot of comment that has been made about it. But that's to get to the final conquest of the rest of the land.
We have to still deal with the north. This chapter 10 shows how they conquered the south. And now chapter 11 will be how they conquered the north.
And it came to pass when Jabin, the king of Hazor, heard these things that he sent to Jobad, the king of Madon, and the king of Shimron, or to the king of Shimron, the king of Asaph, and the kings who were from the north in the mountains in the plain south of Chinereth, in the lowland and in the heights of Dor on the west, to the Canaanites in the east and in the west, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite in the mountains. So not all the Jebusites were in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a Jebusite city, but apparently there were Jebusites in the northern region as well, in the mountains.
And the Hivite, below Hermon in the land of Mizpah. So they went out, they and all their armies with them, as many people as the sand that is on the seashore in multitude, with very many horses and chariots. And when all these kings had met together, they came and camped together at the waters of Miram to fight against Israel.
So Joshua is making a name for himself, and a rather odious one at that in Canaan, because he is conquering everywhere he goes. Having defeated Jericho and Ai, the kings of the southern region thought that five of them could take him on, and he made easy work of them, got rid of them. So a much larger coalition apparently is felt to be needed in the north to resist him.
We find that even that's not enough, but you can see why they want to gather as many as they could. He's just defeated a coalition of five important kings in the south, so an even larger number in the north are gathering against him. And this is the largest army that Israel has had to face.
And the most militarized in some respect, they had the horses and chariots. Israel to this point has never faced chariots and doesn't have any. So chariots were quite a war vehicle of giving advantage to those who had them.
In some regions, places had chariots of iron, and we find that Israel sometimes was not able to defeat certain cities because they had chariots of iron. These people had chariots, but apparently they were wooden or some other substance, and they were not quite as formidable. But there were certainly a large number of enemy coming.
And so the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid. That's what God has to keep saying to Joshua. Don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid. But there were a lot of things that could inspire fear around him. Because of them, don't be afraid for tomorrow about this time, I will deliver all of them slain before Israel.
So even though it probably took days or weeks or more to conquer the southern area because they had to go from city to city, they were going to have to travel so far. All of the bad guys in the north are coming to them. We'll cover them before nightfall tomorrow.
In one day, he's going to conquer all the northern territory without going there. They're coming to him. He says, I'll deliver all of them slain before Israel tomorrow.
You shall hamstring their horses and burn the chariots with fire. Now, hamstringing horses, it just seems so cruel, cruelty to animals. People object to that.
People like horses. They're nice animals. Why? Why these poor horses have to be hamstrung? Well, horses were not pets in those days, nor were they even common conveyances for getting from place to place.
They were war machinery. When people wanted to get from place to place, they didn't ride horses. They would ride a donkey if they had one or a mule.
But but they but a horse was specifically bred for battle. And therefore, once you've conquered the armies, what are you gonna do with the horses? Well, of course, the temptation would be like, wow, if we keep these horses, they could be quite a military force for us. It's like conquering your enemy and taking his tanks and his and his weapons and things like that.
And now now we are ready for battle. But you see, God was giving them the victory without them having Israel didn't have horses. Israel didn't have much military.
And so they might be tempted to trust in horses and chariots if they had them. And so God instructs them, don't. You hamstring them.
What that means, they they they cut the hamstring of the back of the foot. And according to some reports, this doesn't hurt too terribly the horse. But the main thing is it cripples them.
It makes them lame. And they can be used for, you know, pulling a plow or something like that. But they but they're not gonna be running.
They're not going to be good for military use anymore. And the idea is to disable the military equipment, which is the horses. Not not because they're afraid the Canaanites will make use of them because they're killing the Canaanites.
But the danger is that Israel would make use of them, having having conquered the enemies and having them that Israel might want to have horses. Remember, it says in in chapter 17 of Deuteronomy, God said, when you guys have a king, he shall not multiply horses to himself. He's not allowed to do that.
God didn't want Israel to have a huge army because then they might trust in it. It says in Psalm 20 and verse seven, some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
That was David's conviction. David was a man of war, but he didn't want to ever come to a place where he trusted in his horses and chariots. He wanted to trust in the Lord.
And so to hamstring the horses would make it impossible for Israel to be tempted to trust in horses in the future for their security. They'd have to trust in God. And they had to burn the chariots rather than keep them for their military.
Seems like it'd be nice to keep those things. But God didn't want them to have a chariot and horse force. He wanted them to have himself and not trust in anything else like that.
So Joshua and all the people of war with him came against them suddenly by the waters of Merom and they attacked them. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel, who defeated them and chased them to greater Scythian, to the brook Mithrifoth in the valley of Mizpah eastward. They attacked them until they left none of them remaining.
So Joshua did to them as he had told him. He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. Joshua turned back at the time and took Hazor and struck its king with the sword.
Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms, and they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was none left breathing. Then he burned Hazor with fire.
So all the cities of those kings and all the kings Joshua took and struck with the edge of the sword. He utterly destroyed them as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded. But as for the cities that stood on the mounds, this would be the tells a tell.
Archaeologists in the Middle East often talk about tells. In fact, those sites are named tell this and tell that. A tell is a word that refers to a mound made up of the ruins of successive civilizations on the same spot where there's been one city on one spot and it was ruined and another city was built on top of it and it was ruined.
And there's been a succession of cities at different times on the same location. And there's a mound there that's called a tell. And a lot of archaeological digs are done at sites that are called tell dash and then a location.
That's what the word tell refers to. And that's what's actually meant here. The cities that stood on tells, Israel burned none of them except Hazor only, which Joshua burned.
And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the children of Israel took as booty for themselves. But they struck every man with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them. And they left none breathing as the Lord had commanded Moses, his servant.
So Moses commanded Joshua. So Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses.
And then for the rest of this chapter, we simply have a summary of all the conquests because they've all been completed now. So Joshua took all this land, the mountain country, all the south, all the land of Goshen, the lowland and the Jordan, the plain, the mountains of Israel and the lowlands from Mount Halak to the offensive sphere, et cetera, et cetera. We don't need to read all these places necessarily.
We've got it. This is summarizing what we've already read. And it says in verse 21, at that time, Joshua came and cut off the anikim, that's the giants from the mountain.
These are the ones that have been so intimidating to the Israelites when the spies had brought back a report 40 years earlier. He went and cut off the anikim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debar, from Anab. And it says the anikim, verse 22, none of them were left in the land except in certain Philistine cities in Gaza and Gath and Ashdod.
Gath is the city that Goliath later came from, one of the giants. But the giants were eradicated from Israel, except for in a few Philistine cities, which were not conquered. Israel did not conquer the Philistines, only the Canaanites.
And these were coastal along the coastal plain of the Mediterranean. Then Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had said to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes.
Then the land rested from war. So we come to the end of the conquest, probably about seven years it took for the conquest. There's evidence of that later on, the time frame.
But there were still cities that were not conquered, as is made very plain. Even at the end of Joshua's life, much later, God said there are still many enemies that have not been conquered here. So why does it say that he conquered the whole land? Obviously, what it's saying is he secured the land and subdued all opposition.
They were able now to divide the land up among the tribes, and the tribes basically owned it. There were cities there that still were not friendly toward them, but weren't going to dare to do anything to them. There were still enemies to conquer.
Just as when you become a Christian, you know, you conquer the flesh at some level so that you now don't live for the flesh. You live for God, but there's still areas of the flesh that need to be conquered. You still have battles to fight.
You don't just come to the place where there's, you know, you've just, you've gotten sanctified, holy, and there's no more enemies to conquer. Your whole life is going to be a battle. And Israel's whole time in the land remained a time when there were at least someone, Philistines or somebody out there causing trouble.
And that's how God left it. It says in the book of Judges that he left some enemies in the land so that the younger generation who had never seen war might not lose the ability, might not become flabby, might not take it for granted. And so it is summarized with the same, that Joshua did take all the land and conquered it just as it was promised to him.
But it's not to be understood that they'd wiped out all the Canaanites, as was the goal. Of course, this could go on over a period of time. Once they have secured the land and it's theirs, they can fight individual battles as necessary and make progress.
But they don't have to wait until every last Canaanite is dead before they can claim the land as their own. And that's what we see. All the opposition was subdued.
And that's what the summary statement is there.

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