Joshua11chapter 11

Joshua 11:1-3

when Jabin king of Hazor: The southern alliance of chapter 10 was five kings called out by Adonizedek of Jerusalem, and this is the whole north summoned by one man. Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both take Jabin as a throne title carried by the house rather than one man's given name, since a Jabin king of Hazor is reigning again at Judges 4:2 generations later. The muster runs from Chinneroth beside the lake down to Dor on the coast and up to Hermon, so every terrain in the north is called in at once.

Joshua 11:4-5

Sand upon the sea shore is the measure God gave Abraham for his own descendants at Genesis 22:17 and Jacob at Genesis 32:12, and here it counts the army assembled to destroy them. This verse is the first place in Scripture where that figure is turned on an enemy, and it does the same work later at 1 Samuel 13:5 of the Philistines and at Revelation 20:8. The waters of Merom are named twice in the whole King James Bible and both are in this chapter, at verses 5 and 7.

Joshua 11:6-7

Deuteronomy 20:1 told Israel what to do when it saw horses and chariots and a people more than itself, and the words there are be not afraid of them. Verse 4 has just described that exact sight and verse 6 gives that exact answer. To hough is to cut the hamstring, which puts a horse beyond use without killing it, and the word falls four times in the King James Bible, twice in this chapter and twice of David at 2 Samuel 8:4 and 1 Chronicles 18:4. The order is to destroy the captured equipment rather than field it, which runs with Deuteronomy 17:16 on a king not multiplying horses and with Psalm 20:7.

Joshua 11:8-9

The pursuit runs northwest to Zidon on the Phoenician coast and east to the valley of Mizpeh, so the rout scatters in both directions from Merom. Verse 9 reads the two orders of verse 6 back as things done, the houghing and the burning, which is how this book records obedience: the command in God's words, then the same words again in Joshua's actions. The chariot force Israel has just taken is left useless on the ground rather than added to its own strength.

Joshua 11:10-11

Hazor is called the head of all those kingdoms, and the mound at the site is the largest in the country at roughly two hundred acres, with a Late Bronze destruction by fire reported in the excavations Yigael Yadin published in Hazor: The Rediscovery of a Great Citadel of the Bible. The date of that burn is argued among archaeologists and the argument is not settled here. A reader then meets a difficulty at Judges 4:2, where a Jabin reigns in Hazor after this chapter has burnt it, and the readings on offer are a city rebuilt on its own ruins and a dynastic name carried by whoever held the throne.

Joshua 11:12-14

Only Hazor is burnt. The towns that stood still in their strength are left standing, which Keil and Delitzsch read as the cities sitting on their own mounds, so Israel receives houses it did not build, exactly as Deuteronomy 6:10-11 promised. Spoil and cattle are kept as a prey under the allowance of Deuteronomy 20:14, and the contrast with Jericho is sharp, since there the whole city was the accursed thing at Joshua 6:18-19 and Achan died over a wedge of gold. Jericho was the firstfruits and went whole to God, and the rest of the land is not held under that rule.

Joshua 11:15

The chain of command is written out in one verse, from God to Moses to Joshua, and every link is said to have held. He left nothing undone occurs once in the whole King James Bible and it sits here. Joshua 13:1 opens with there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed, spoken to the same man about the same country, and both sentences stand in the same book with neither correcting the other.

Joshua 11:16-18

The summary sweeps from mount Halak going up to Seir in the far south to Baalgad under Hermon in the north, which is the length of the country in one line. Verse 18 is the check on reading chapters 10 and 11 as a few weeks of fighting, because it says Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. Caleb supplies the arithmetic at Joshua 14:7-10, forty years old when Moses sent him and eighty-five when he asks for Hebron, and the forty-five years he counts leave about seven years of campaigning after the crossing on the usual reckoning.

Joshua 11:19-20

Deuteronomy 20:10 required terms of peace to be offered to a city before it was fought, and verse 19 says no city took them except Gibeon, which had obtained its treaty by deceit in chapter 9. Verse 20 then gives the reason in the vocabulary of the plagues, that it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, and this is the only place hardening appears in the book of Joshua. Gill reads a divine determination standing behind the whole action, and Clarke reads God withdrawing restraint from men whose guilt was already full, pointing back to Genesis 15:16 on the iniquity of the Amorites. Exodus carries both kinds of statement, with Pharaoh hardening his own heart at 8:15 before the same thing is said of God at 9:12.

Joshua 11:21-22

The Anakim are the people the spies saw at Hebron in Numbers 13:22 and 13:28, and the report about them at Numbers 13:33 is what turned the nation back for thirty-eight years. Here they are cut off from Hebron, Debir and Anab, and Joshua 15:14 names the three men Caleb drives out at eighty-five, Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai. Verse 22 leaves an exact remainder: none in the land of the children of Israel, only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod. Those three are Philistine cities, the champion who comes out of the camp at 1 Samuel 17:4 is Goliath of Gath, and four more men of great stature are born to the giant in Gath at 2 Samuel 21:15-22.

Joshua 11:23

The land rested from war closes the chapter, and that exact phrase falls once in the King James Bible, with its near twin at Joshua 14:15. Judges takes the formula up as the land had rest and runs it three times, at 3:11, 3:30 and 5:31, after which it stops with Deborah and never returns. Hebrews 4:8 reads this verse forward, and the King James spells the name there as Jesus for Joshua: if Joshua had given them rest, God would not afterward have spoken of another day.