§ 2. From The Taking of Jericho to the Division of the Land
These happy events were soon followed by a very sad one, equally adapted, however, to confirm Israel in the faith, since it brought to their consciousness the dangerous consequences of even the smallest violation of fidelity to God. One Achan, called Achar in Chronicles—that the nomen may at the same time be an omen, comp. Joshua 7:26, where the valley of the deed of Achan receives the name Achor, trouble—had stolen a portion of the spoil which had been consecrated to God by His own express command; and his guilt was increased by the circumstance that it was not stolen from want but through base covetousness; for we learn from a later account that he was a man of property, since his oxen, asses, and sheep were burnt with him, and all his possessions. We read, “The anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.” The fact that a crime committed by a single individual should have been imputed to the whole nation has proved a great stumbling-block. Calvin, on the other hand, appeals to the inscrutability of the divine decrees. “It is best,” he says, “that we should withhold our judgment until the books be opened, when the divine decrees, now obscured by our darkness, shall come forth clearly to light.” But in this instance there is not the slightest indication of any such absolute ἐπέχειν. The outward act of Achan was certainly an individual one, but the disposition from which it sprang was widely diffused through the nation: as human nature is constituted, it could not have been otherwise; and, in most cases, only fear of that God whose omnipotence and justice had been so palpably set forth, hindered it from manifesting itself in action. If the whole nation had been animated by a truly pious spirit, the individual would not have arrived at this extreme depravity. The crime of the individual is in all cases only the concentration of the sin of the mass. God cannot, therefore, be accused of injustice, if He visits an apparently isolated crime on the whole nation; but, at the same time, it is clear that pious long-suffering forbearance would in this and similar cases have been severity, not mildness. To visit the crime of the individual on the whole nation would tend powerfully to awaken their pious zeal. In this way the evil was stifled in its origin, and prevented from spreading. Each one watched himself the more closely, knowing how much depended on his own fidelity, while, at the same time, he watched others also. There is nothing easier, however, than by a counter-question to embarrass those who take exception to this, if they only acknowledge the operation of a special providence. How can we reconcile with the justice of God the fact that the innocent must suffer with the guilty in public calamities, in plagues, war, and floods, in which even the heathen recognised divine judgments? In both cases the solution of the knot lies in the circumstance that the innocence is always relative. An opportunity was given for the expression of divine disapprobation in an undertaking against the city of Ai, concerning whose site investigations have recently been made by Thenius in the bibl. Studien von Käuffer, ii. p. 129. It is probably the present village Turmus Aja, in the neighbourhood of Sindjil, which occupies the site of the former Bethel. Externally considered, the loss of thirty-six men, which the Israelites suffered on this occasion, was very small and trifling. Nevertheless there was reason in the sorrow manifested by Joshua and the nation. For the Israelites, accustomed to recognise the finger of God in all that befell them, such an event had quite a different meaning from what it could have had for a heathen nation. God had promised His people constant victory; and from the fact that, in this case, the promise was not fulfilled, they justly concluded that God had withdrawn His favour from them. Hence they abandoned themselves to the most anxious solicitude respecting the future. Joshua at once adopted the right course. He turned to the Lord in earnest prayer. He fell on his face with the elders, and remained prostrate until the evening, praying and fasting. He did not indeed keep within suitable limits in his prayer, as Calvin has already remarked. True to human nature, he is inclined to seek the cause of the misfortune in God and His guidance. Instead of first looking into his own breast, he ventures to expostulate with the Lord, why has He led the people across the Jordan; and to express the wish that they had remained on the other side. But God overlooks this weakness, from which none of His saints is free; for He sees that the prayer proceeds from a true motive. Joshua shows himself more concerned for the honour of God, compromised by His people’s disaster, than for the disaster itself. “Get thee up,” God says to him, “wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? “Not by sorrowing and supplication can the matter be set right, since the cause lies not in me, but in you. By stealing from the accursed, the curse has fallen upon the nation itself. The nation can only free itself from participation in the punishment by a powerful reaction against participation in the guilt: they must show their horror of the crime by punishing the evil-doer. Measures are then given to Joshua for the discovery and punishment of the evil-doer, and are carried out by him on the following morning. The people are to purify themselves before they appear in God’s judicial presence, a custom which could not fail to impress rude minds. First of all the tribes come before Joshua, then the families, then the households, and finally the individuals. The lot first falls upon the tribe, then the family, etc. It is uncertain whether the determination took place by lot or by the Urim and Thummim. The expression in 1 Samuel 14:42 is somewhat in favour of the former, so also the way in which it was managed; which, however, can also be explained if we suppose that the determination was made by the Urim and Thummim. The gradual progression was designed to cause great suspense among the nation, to make each one look into himself, asking himself the question, “Is it I?” In favour of the Urim and Thummim we have the fact that this was the customary means, appointed by God, of inquiring into that which was concealed—a means to which Joshua had been expressly referred; comp. Numbers 27:21, “And Joshua shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the Lord.” If we decide in favour of the determination by lot, it is scarcely necessary to say that no universal justification of this mode of selection can be drawn from the circumstance. Joshua must, in this case, have had the definite promise that God would in this way reveal what was hidden. Without such a promise it would have been foolish and impious to leave the determination to lot. Achan remains hidden, doubting God’s omniscience, like every criminal, until judgment singles him out. But then Joshua’s truly paternal address brings him to confession,—a mighty proof for Israel how God’s infallible eye looks into the most hidden things. Thereupon followed the punishment. Achan was first stoned, with his whole family, then burnt—for burning itself was never a capital punishment among the Israelites; finally, a great heap of stones was erected on the place of execution. Formerly theologians were very much perplexed by the fact that Achan’s sons and daughters were destroyed with him. Most critics—for example, Clericus, Buddeus, and others—agree in maintaining that it can only be reconciled with divine justice on the presupposition that Achan’s children were conscious of and accessory to his crime. They appeal specially to Deuteronomy 24:16, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” But this passage is clearly inapplicable to our event. It has reference to those axioms which the rulers were to follow when left to their own method of punishment. Here, on the other hand, the matter is not left to Joshua’s decision, but is regulated by God’s immediate determination. To this case we might far more appropriately apply the declaration of God, that He would visit the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. In applying this decree we are doubtless led to a presumption of the participation of Achan’s family in his guilt, in a certain sense; for this threat of the law, like all similar passages of Scripture, is only directed against such children as tread in the footsteps of their fathers: comp. Leviticus 26:39 ff., a passage which must be regarded as the best commentary. But the participation is not to be attached to the guilt, as something isolated, but to the sinfulness, of which this special offence was an individual expression. The fact that Achan’s family were involved in his punishment presupposes that the apples had not fallen far from the branch; that they were closely connected with him in his sin. Without any inconsistency they might still have been perfectly innocent in the present case. Man, who can judge only the act, not the secrets of the heart, dare not have inflicted the punishment on them.
After the guilt had thus been turned aside from the nation, the march against Ai was at once undertaken. Here Joshua had recourse to a stratagem. In the night he sent out a detachment of the army, who were to go by a secret way, and lie in ambush west of the town, between it and Bethel. Much difficulty has here arisen from the fact that this ambush is given in Joshua 8:3 at 30,000, in verse 12 as 5000 men. The subterfuge to which most expositors resort is certainly unsatisfactory, viz. that Joshua sent out a double ambuscade. For there could have been no object in this; since the 30,000 and the 5000 were sent to the very same place. Moreover, it is quite inconceivable how an ambuscade of 30,000 men together could have escaped the notice of the enemy, though this might readily be explained in the case of a smaller number, from the mountainous nature of the district. The true reconciliation is the following: At Joshua’s command the whole nation prepared for the march against Ai. Joshua, however, does not wish all to go, but selects 30,000 men. Of these, 5000 are now sent as an ambuscade: with the residue he marches direct and openly against the city. The apparent discrepancy has arisen from the circumstance that the meaning is not clearly set forth in Joshua 8:3. The author relates the command for the nightly departure, etc., as if it referred to the whole 30,000 men,—a want of precision of which he afterwards becomes sensible, and which he tries to remove by the supplementary account of the strength of the ambuscade. Joshua now marches against Ai in the morning with the remaining 25,000 men. The inhabitants of Ai, without any suspicion of the stratagem, advance to meet the Israelites; and when these retire in pretended flight, all who had remained in the city flock out. According to Joshua 8:17, the inhabitants of Bethel also take part in the pursuit of the Israelites, which may probably be explained in this way: Many of those inhabitants of Bethel who were able to bear arms had resorted to the larger and stronger Ai, which was allied to them, or to which they were subject, in order by this means to meet the common enemy in a more effectual way than was possible while their active forces were divided. When the enemy found themselves at a suitable distance from the town, Joshua stretched out his lance towards Ai at the command of the Lord. Very unnecessary difficulties have here been made. Because it is said in Joshua 8:19, “And the ambush arose quickly out of their place,” it has been assumed that they broke forth at the stretching out of the lance as at a preconcerted signal. This has given rise to great embarrassment. The ambush was too far away to be able to see the outstretched spear. If it had been so near, the people of Ai must have been blind to have seen nothing of it. Here a multitude of expedients have been devised. Some substitute a shield for the spear, contrary to all use of language; others suppose that a banner was attached to the spear, or, as Maurer and Keil, a shield plated over with gold; others again maintain that posts were placed between the ambuscade and the army, by which means the ambuscade was made aware that the preconcerted signal had been given: all arbitrary assumptions, and yet not satisfactory. There is not a word in the text which would lead us to infer that the stretching out of the spear was a preconcerted signal for the ambush. It is more natural to conclude from the account in Joshua 8:26, that Joshua did not withdraw the outstretched lance until all the inhabitants of Ai were proscribed, that this symbolic action had quite another object. The outstretched lance was a sign of war and victory to the army of Joshua itself. It was quite natural that the ambush should break forth at the same time, if Joshua had before arranged with them that they should advance upon the town as soon as the enemy had withdrawn to a certain distance from it, which they could easily ascertain from the mountain heights behind which they lay hidden. After the city had been taken, the ambuscade set fire to it. This, however, was done only in order to give the army a sign of the taking, and to deprive the enemy of courage. Otherwise the Israelites would have robbed themselves of the booty which belonged to them; for this case was not similar to the taking of Jericho. Joshua did not set fire to the whole town till the Israelites had possession of the spoil. In the account of the defeat of the enemy no express mention is made of the inhabitants of Bethel. We cannot, however, with Clericus, infer from this that they succeeded in saving themselves by flight. Doubtless they were included among the inhabitants of Ai, owing to their comparatively small number. But Bethel itself was not conquered until later by the Josephites, comp. Judges 1:22-26. For at that time the only object was to take the most important points; conquest in detail was left to a later time. According to Joshua 8:28, Ai was made an eternal heap of ruins; but instead of the earlier town, which was destroyed utterly and for ever, a new place afterwards arose of the same name, mentioned in Isaiah 10:28.
Joshua made use of this first opportunity for carrying out a decree which Moses had given to his people on his departure, Deuteronomy 27. They were to write down upon stones, plastered over with plaster, the whole sum of the law which Moses had declared to them, the quintessence of the Tora, which forms the germ of Deuteronomy 4:44 to Deuteronomy 26:19. At the same time they were solemnly to pronounce a blessing on those who would keep this law, and a curse on those who should break it. Moses himself had fixed the place where this solemn act was to be performed. It was the region of Sichem, forty miles from Jerusalem, even now one of the most charming, most fruitful, and well cultivated districts of all Palestine and Syria; and, what was here specially considered, had been consecrated by the earlier history of the patriarchs. Here, according to Genesis 33:18, Jacob had first set up his tent for a length of time, when he returned from Mesopotamia. Here, full of gratitude for the divine protection and blessing, he had erected an altar and called it “The Mighty God of Israel.” Here, before going to Bethel to make an altar to the God who had heard him in the time of his affliction, he commanded his people to put away the strange gods which they had brought with them out of Mesopotamia, and to purify themselves. Here they had given him all the strange gods that were in their hands, and he had buried them under the oak which stood near Sichem, Genesis 35:1 ff. By the possession of Ai the way was opened to this holy city, situated north of Ai in what was afterwards the district of Samaria. The distance occupies about five hours, if Turmus Aja be identical with Ai. The narrative of the solemn event is short, because it presupposes the appointment in Deuteronomy. By a comparison of both passages the event was as follows: Sichem lies between two mountains, Ebal on the north, and Gerizim on the south. On the former Joshua caused an altar of rough stones to be erected, which had not been hewn with any iron tool; the first which had there been consecrated to the true God since the patriarchs had journeyed through Palestine. The reason why unhewn stones were taken for the altar is thus given by Calvin and others. According to the law of God, Deuteronomy 12, there was to be only one national sanctuary in all Canaan, because multiplicity of places for the worship of God would interfere with religious unity and the development of a religious public spirit; and while hindering the expression of that united spirit, would give free scope to the ἐθελοθρησκεία, which passes so readily from places to objects. This measure, therefore, tended to the advancement of God’s worship. The place of the sanctuary was not yet determined, however; but it was already necessary that the places where the worship of God was provisionally performed should be characterized as subservient only to temporary necessity. Hence the altars were built only of sods, or of coarse, unhewn stone. But we learn that this reason is not the true one from that passage of the law which Joshua has in his mind, Exodus 20:25 ff. There the people are commanded to make altars of turf before the erection of the tabernacle of the covenant, and afterwards on special occasions; when, for example, the ark of the covenant was taken to battle with them. “And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.” These latter words contain the reason of the command. The object was to lead Israel to recognise that in relation to God they could not give, but only receive—not design, but only execute—to make them acknowledge that all they could do made the thing no better, but only worse. Understood in this way, the command comes into connection with the prohibition against making idols, which immediately precedes it. Both have their origin in the same source; or at least, the false element which gives rise to the worship of idols may very readily appear in the attempt to worship God in a self-devised system. Joshua then wrote a copy of the law which Moses had given to the children of Israel, on the stones prepared for this purpose. Joshua 8:32 does not define more accurately what is here to be understood by the law of the Lord, but assumes that it is already known from Deuteronomy. It is self-evident that there cannot be a reference to the whole of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 27:8 gives the explanation, so that it is scarcely conceivable how some suppose that it has reference to the Decalogue; and others only to the curses which are pronounced in this chapter on the transgressors of the law. In Deuteronomy 27:1 Moses says to the people, “Keep all the commandments which I command you this day;” and again, in Deuteronomy 27:8, “And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.” According to this, it comprised the whole series of doctrines, exhortations, threats, and promises, which had been uttered by Moses on the day when the command respecting the monument was given. But the whole second legislation recorded in Deuteronomy 4:44 to Deuteronomy 26:19 belonged to this day. This was properly the תורה for Canaan. The thorough distinction between the first and the second legislation is this: that the latter, given in sight of Canaan, is throughout adapted to the residence of the people in the country; while a reference to the relations during the march through the wilderness forms the foreground of the legislation in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. The design of the erection of these stones is thus given by Calvin: Quando muti essent sacerdotes, clare lapides ipsi locuti sunt. This is based on the presupposition that the stones were destined to exercise an influence on the after-world. But the mode and manner of the writing speak to the contrary. The plaster laid on the stones must soon decay when exposed to the air. The object probably referred primarily to the act itself or to its accessories, and to posterity only in so far as the thing was recorded in writing. The external establishment of the law symbolized the internal; the writing on stone exhorted the Israelites to their duty to write the law upon the tables of their heart. The whole brought the inner connection of covenant and law to the consciousness of the nation; pointing especially to the fact that the possession of the country into which they were now entering depended absolutely on the fulfilment of the law. Then followed the proclamation of the curse and the blessing. At the command of Moses Joshua placed six tribes on Mount Ebal, six on Gerizim, which lay opposite, and in the middle between the two the ark of the covenant with the priests and Levites. These read aloud, first the blessings, then the corresponding curses; the tribes upon Mount Gerizim responding “Amen” to the former, and the tribes on Mount Ebal to the latter. For example, the Levites first said, “Blessed be the man that maketh no graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place,” and all the people answered “Amen.” Then, “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image,” etc., and all the people answered “Amen.” Thus they were obliged to declare themselves guilty of that divine punishment whose fearfulness they had just had an opportunity of learning by the example of, the Canaanites, if they transgressed the conditions of the covenant. The reason why the people standing on Mount Gerizim responded “Amen” to the blessings, and the people standing on Mount Ebal to the curses, has frequently been sought in the natural condition of the two mountains,—one being covered with vegetation, the other desolate and bare. But this distinction is problematical, and exists now only in a very slight degree; comp. Robinson, iii. p. 316. The reason adopted by Keil is much more probable, viz., that Gerizim owed its selection as the place of blessing to the circumstance that it lay to the right of the Levites, comp. Matthew 25:33. When the ceremony was concluded Joshua read out the whole contents of the document which was written upon the stones.
Joshua then returned to the camp at Gilgal with the army. The Israelites were still to remain together, in order to break the power of the Canaanites. Not until this happened did it become the task of the separate tribes to put themselves in full possession of their inheritance. Until then the camp at Gilgal remained the proper headquarters of the Israelites. According to Keil, the Gilgal here mentioned is not identical with the encampment of the Israelites mentioned in Joshua 4:19, but was situated in the neighbourhood of Bethel and Ai. But when the camp at Gilgal is mentioned without any nearer determination, we naturally think of the Gilgal already familiar from the earlier narrative. The name Gilgal stands in such close connection with the event previously recorded, that the arguments for the existence of a second Gilgal must be stronger than they are in fact. The Israelites’ fortune in war at last began to arouse the Canaanitish princes and peoples from their sloth, and to incite them to take common measures. The inhabitants of Gibeon only drew a different lesson from what had occurred. This was a mighty town, north-west of Jerusalem,—according to Josephus, forty stadia distant from it; under David and Solomon the seat of the tabernacle of the covenant; now the village el-Djib, which is a mere abbreviation of Gibeon. According to Robinson, part ii. p. 353, it was two and a half hours’ journey from Jerusalem. The Gibeonites regarded the weapons of the Israelites as invincible, and all resistance as foolishness: hence they sought to secure the preservation of their life by cunning. Some—for example, Clericus and Buddeus—have supposed that this cunning of the Gibeonites was quite unnecessary, and had its origin in their false ideas. Nothing further was necessary than that they should voluntarily submit to the Israelites. Their lives would then have been spared without hesitation. But this view is distinctly erroneous. It is already refuted by the narrative itself; for how then could Joshua have been blamed, as in Joshua 9:14, for having been deceived by the cunning of the Gibeonites into precipitately granting them their lives? Or how could the people and the elders have murmured against Joshua on this account, as they are said to have done, in Joshua 9:18? But all doubt is banished by the plain passages, Exodus 23:32-33; Exodus 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in which the Israelites are expressly forbidden to receive the Canaanites by treaty as subjects or even as serfs. Add to this the passages in which it is declared that Israel should accomplish the judgments of divine righteousness on the Canaanites, and should destroy them. If this were the case, it made no difference whatever whether they surrendered or offered resistance. So also the passages in which “That they teach you not to do after all their abominations,” is given as a motive for Israel not to spare the Canaanites: comp., for example, Deuteronomy 20:18. This consequence must apply equally to those who voluntarily surrendered. The arguments against this view may easily be set aside. Appeal is made to the fact that it is expressly appointed, in Deuteronomy 20:10, that when a town is about to be besieged, peace shall first be offered to it. If this peace be accepted, the inhabitants are to be spared, and subjected only to tribute. But the passage proves the very contrary. In Deuteronomy 20:15 it is expressly stated that the decree has reference only to foreign enemies; and its false application to the Canaanites is expressly contested in Deuteronomy 20:16-18, and their complete extermination commanded; which, if the Israelites fulfilled their mission, they could escape only by flight and emigration. Appeal is also made to Joshua 11:19-20, where we read, “For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.” But Michaelis has justly remarked, Mos. Recht. i. § 62, that the author only means to say that the Israelites would perhaps have been more merciful than the law if the Canaanites had begged for peace, and would have granted them what Moses had forbidden them to grant. There is no doubt, therefore, that the Gibeonites acted wisely when they sought, by cunning and deceit, to gain from the Israelites an assurance that their lives would be preserved. We only observe, that it seems to follow from the narrative that Gibeon had been a free town, exercising a kind of supremacy over three other towns situated in that district, viz. Kephira, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim; a relation which we find elsewhere subsequently in the book of Joshua, for we read of towns with their daughters. In the whole narrative there is no mention of a king, but only of elders of the town; and these seem to have been invested with supreme authority. Moreover, Gibeon is not to be found in the list of the thirty-one royal towns of the Canaanites, Joshua 12:9-24. Perhaps this constitution may have been the concurrent cause why they did not unite with the other towns against Israel. The question has here been raised, whether the Israelites were under an obligation to keep the oath given to the Gibeonites. This may very plausibly be contested. The treaty with the Gibeonites was concluded on the basis of their declaration, and on a presumption of its correctness. Calvin remarks: “Cum larvis pascitur Josua, nec quidquam obligationis contrahit, nisi secundum eorum verba.” But the sanctity of an oath is so great, that where any uncertainty remains it is always better not to dispense with it. The treaty had been made by Joshua and the elders unconditionally, and without the stipulation that it should only hold good hypothetically. In Joshua 9:19 they say, “We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel; now, therefore, we may not touch them.” Joshua did everything, however, which lay in his power to guard against the injurious consequences of this rash step. He did not allow the Gibeonites to retain their independent existence, lest in this way the town should prove a mighty and seductive seat of idolatry. The town was given to the Israelites. The Gibeonites were made slaves, and were specially appointed to the lower service of the sanctuary. In after time we find them always in the place of the sanctuary, or in the cities of the priests and the Levites; consequently in places where they could not so readily exercise an injurious influence, and where they themselves had an opportunity of learning the fear of God. The נתינים consisted principally of these—the devoted, or servants of the sanctuary. In the distribution of the land their city was assigned to the tribe of Benjamin, but was afterwards made a town of priests and Levites. Nor does the whole event rest solely on the testimony of the book of Joshua, but is also corroborated by the 2d book of Samuel, 2 Samuel 21, where the Gibeonites complain that Saul broke the oath sworn to them by Israel. Under the pretext of religious zeal, Saul, in the interest of his covetousness, had instituted a slaughter of the Gibeonites. The voluntary surrender of the town of Gibeon was indirectly the cause of the speedy subjection of the whole subsequent territory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It accelerated the union of the kings of this district, of whom the king of Jerusalem is named as the mightiest king of the ancient capital of the Jebusites, already mentioned in Genesis under the name of Salem. It is remarkable that this king bears the name Adonizedek, almost the very same as Melchizedek. It appears also to have been the custom among the Jebusites, what we still find among most nations of the ancient East, that the names of the kings were more hereditary titles than proper names. The fact that the allied kings are, in Joshua 9:1, called “the kings beyond the Jordan,” is explicable by the circumstance that the Israelites had not yet gained a firm footing in the country on this side of the Jordan; and hence they still retained that designation which properly only applied to them so long as they had not yet crossed the Jordan. The attack of the allies was first directed, not against Israel, but against Gibeon, which had been faithless in their eyes. Joshua, made aware of it, immediately hastened to the assistance of the besieged. He made a journey of from eight to nine hours in the night with his army, and arrived before Gibeon early in the morning. The first battle that Israel fought in Palestine resulted in their favour. The enemy were totally defeated. The fugitives fled towards the south, with the intention of gaining their fortified towns. Beth-horon is named as the first town to which the Israelites pursued them. According to Joshua 16:3; Joshua 16:5, 1 Chronicles 8:24 Chron. 8:24, there were two Beth-horons, an upper and a lower. Our narrative is in unison with this. It speaks of a way up to Beth-horon, and of a way down from Beth-horon. Upper Beth-horon lay on the top of the slope; Lower Beth-horon at the foot of it. Both places are still in existence,under the name of Beit-ur. They are small villages, but have considerable foundation-walls. The pass between the two places, which was called the ascent as well as the descent from Beth-horon, has also been discovered by Robinson: see part iii. p. 273 ff. From thence the enemy fled to Azekah and Makkedah, more southern than Beth-horon—the former about parallel with Jerusalem, and west of it; the latter somewhat lower down. The narrative now goes on to say, Joshua 10:11 : “And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died.” Isaiah alludes to the event here narrated in Isaiah 28:21. After the example of others, especially of Masius and Grotius, the French Benedictine, Calmet, in his treatise “On the Stone-rain which fell upon the Canaanites,” in his Biblical Researches, translated by Mosheim, part iii. p. 53 ff., has, with much learning, tried to defend the opinion that an actual stone-rain is here referred to. On the other hand, by far the greater number understand by the stones a hail of unusual size, which, being violently driven by the storm, killed a number of the Canaanites. Jesus Sirach, Sir 46:6, is of this opinion; so likewise the LXX., Josephus, and Luther, who, after the precedent of the λίθος χαλάξης of the LXX., translates “large hail” instead of “large stones.” There can be no doubt that this latter view is the correct one. The author himself explains what kind of stones he means when he says, immediately after, “they were more which died with hailstones, אבניהברד, than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.” This alone is sufficient proof. Calmet here seeks to avail himself of the assumption that hail-stones stands for a hail of stones. But there is not the slightest confirmation to be adduced in favour of this strange interpretation. On the contrary, it can be shown from other passages, Ezekiel 11:13, Ezekiel 11:11, “that the Hebrews were accustomed to call hail, hailstones or simply stones.” An actual miracle did not, therefore, occur here. The fact that the hail happened just at this time with such destructive power, and that it fell upon the fleeing enemy, not touching the Israelites who pursued them at some little distance, verges upon the miraculous. In this way the Israelites were made to feel that they gained the victory not by their own power, but by that of God, who alone made their weapons victorious; while their enemies were taught that their misfortune was due not to human error, but to the judgment of God.
After what we have just related, the narrative goes on to say, in Joshua 10:12-15, “Then spake Joshua 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, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou. Moon, in the valley of Ajalon; and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.”
We shall first notice the various opinions respecting this passage. They may be reduced to four.
1. In ancient times by far the greater number of its defenders held the opinion that the whole passage must be understood in a strictly literal sense, that the sun stood still at Joshua’s command, and that there was therefore a double day. The oldest author in whom we find this view is Jesus Sirach. He says, Sir 46:5, “By his means the sun went backwards, and one day became two”—μία ἡμέρα ἐγενήθη πρὸς δύο. Following this view of the passage, Buddeus afterwards makes it the basis of an argument against the Copernican system. The best collection of the arguments for this view, next to that of Buddeus, may be found in Calmet, I. chap. iii. p. 1 sqq., and in Lilienthal, The Good Cause of Divine Revelation, part v. p. 154 ff., and part ix. p. 296 ff.
2. Others take essentially the same view, but are inclined to the opinion that the earth and not the sun stood still, or at least maintain that the contrary cannot be concluded from the passage in question. So, for example Mosheim, in his Remarks on Calmet’s Essays, to which we have already alluded, p. 45, observes, that in ordinary language all natural things are not spoken of as they are in fact, but as they appear to the eyes and to the senses. And, in a certain sense, this mode of speech is correct, in so far as things are spoken of as they appear to the whole world. Even scholars have neither the wish nor the power to depart from this mode of speech in common life, since they say, for example, “The moon shines,” although it has no light of its own, but only a borrowed light; and they say, “The sky or the air is blue,” although it only appears so to our eyes, and “The sun rises and sets,” etc. Scripture must, therefore, necessarily accommodate itself to ordinary modes of speech, if it would be understood by the majority of those for whom it was written, and not, forgetting its object, enter into physical deductions, thereby turning its readers aside from its design. But we cannot therefore assume that Scripture sanctions error; just as it would occur to no one to accuse a natural philosopher of error, because he conformed to the ordinary use of language. Thus the Jewish nation, with all others, believed that the sun moved round the earth. And supposing that this view is based upon an error, which is by no means proved, yet Joshua would have been unintelligible, and have made himself ridiculous, if he had commanded the earth to stand still.
3. Others are of opinion that unusual appearances took the place of the sun and moon in the eyes of the Israelites, after these had ceased to shine; and that this phenomenon is so clothed in half-poetical description, as to make it appear that the sun and moon themselves remained standing in the heavens beyond the usual time. It may readily be conceived that this class includes a variety of different opinions, since free scope is given to arbitrary imagination, leaving us at liberty to investigate the whole region of luminous phenomena, and to select from them at will. Thus Michaelis holds that the storm was followed by universal lightning, which lightning enabled the Israelites to pursue the enemy, and prevented the Canaanites concealing themselves anywhere, or gaining a footing. Spinoza thinks that the rays of the setting sun were refracted in the hail. Clericus supposes refractions, such as those by means of which the sun may be seen above the horizon, beyond the polar circle, although still in reality below it. And there are still more hypotheses of this nature.
4. Others take the whole description throughout as poetical and figurative. Vatablé, professor in Paris at the time of the Reformation, seems to confess to this view when he thus paraphrases the prayer of Joshua; “Lord, suffer not the light of the sun and the moon to fail us, until we have completely conquered our enemies.”
If now we proceed to examine these different views, it soon becomes evident that the third, in all its modifications, is untenable. Granting that the author of the book speaks in this passage, we must understand everything precisely and literally. For, in harmony with the homely character of his hero, he employs throughout a simple, historical representation, free from all rhetorical adornments and exaggerations. It is therefore absurd to suppose that in this sole instance he acted out of his character, and disfigured the simple course of the event by his representation. But it is equally absurd to maintain, with Spinoza, that Joshua and his whole army, and likewise the author, were deceived through ignorance of natural science, and took the appearance of a parhelion, or something similar, for the continued light of the sun. Such a deception is certainly without a parallel; even a child would readily distinguish between the two. If, on the other hand, we assume that the author only quotes the words of another, and that of a poet, all reason for this view disappears. There is therefore no cause for assuming a special phenomenon of nature. Only a want of acquaintance with the bold imagery of Oriental poetry can suppose that there is any necessity for such an historical basis. In this case the fourth explanation is unhesitatingly to be preferred. Compare the eighteenth Psalm, where David’s victory over the enemy is represented under the image of a fearful storm; compare also the Israelites’ song of victory after their passage through the Red Sea, Exodus 15; Deborah’s song of praise in the book of Judges, Judges 5, where, according to Judges 5:20, even the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Compare also the many highly poetic passages in the prophets, for example in Habakkuk, especially Habakkuk 3; and it must be conceded that this passage is surpassed in boldness by many even in Scripture. Some, indeed, have disputed the fact, maintaining this or that among the passages indicated to be somewhat less figurative than the one in question—that the stars, for example, having become obscured, were probably in reality a concomitant cause of the victory over Sisera; but such a proceeding is as unpoetic as possible. Nowhere in the canonical books of Scripture has the image such an external limit. Recall, for example, how, in Isaiah, the fig-trees are represented as clapping their hands for joy on account of Israel’s pardon; the ruins of Jerusalem break forth into shouting; in Joel, the mountains flow with milk, etc. There would only be reason for protesting against the figurative conception if an incongruity could be proved between the image and the object, if the image and the thing were not one in essence. This is the only demand which can be made in this respect on the sacred writer, and we shall prove hereafter that it is perfectly satisfied by a figurative conception of the passage. From these remarks relative to the third view, it follows that, in order to determine whether the first or second (in this discussion to be regarded as one), or the fourth interpretation is to be regarded as the correct one, everything depends upon whether the passage contains the words of the author or not. For, in the former case, all must acknowledge that the author of our book really was persuaded of the fact that the greatest of all miracles took place; and those who also acknowledge the divine authority of the Old Testament must believe that the thing did actually take place. In the latter case only a love of the marvellous, counteracting the natural aversion to miracles, could insist upon a strict literal apprehension. That a portion of the passage does not proceed from the author, but is taken from an old poem, is beyond doubt. In Joshua 10:13 the author even quotes the Book of the Just, ספרהישׁר; and that this was a poetical book follows partly from the fact that, in 2 Samuel 1:18, it is mentioned as containing David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan. In all probability it was a collection of songs, composed at different times, in praise of pious heroes, or pious men who were very distinguished. The true theocrats are elsewhere termed ישׁרים, comp. Numbers 23:10; and Jeshurun occurs in the song of Moses as a designation of Israel. But the further question is, whether that which follows after the quotation is also taken from this collection of songs, or whether they are the words of the author of the book himself. In the latter case the miracle would still remain undisputed. But since historical truth may be contained even in a poem, it would follow, from the fact that the author relates it in homely prose as history, that the author of the poem in this case also kept simply to the historical truth. There is certainly one argument which speaks for the fact that only Joshua 10:12 and the beginning of Joshua 10:13 are taken from the book named. In general, the words which state that there is a quotation in a passage, are not placed in the midst of the words quoted, but either before or after them. But since rules of this nature are not so binding as not to leave something to the freedom of the author; since most analogies which are appealed to, the citations in the books of Kings and Chronicles, are of quite another sort, and cannot be compared with our case; since no verbal quotation of passages from other writings is to be found in them, comp. the details by Keil; since an analogy for the position of the words may be adduced from the prophetic writings, where “Thus saith the Lord” appears innumerable times in this way; it follows that the argument ceteris paribus can only prove something when it is not outweighed by other stronger arguments to the contrary.
But, if we examine closely, it appears at least most probable that the whole passage is interpolated from the song. First, we point to the fact that if the author had wished to relate a real miracle, he could not have done it in this place. This miracle must have occurred at Gibeon. But the author only inserts the words, “Then spake Joshua,” etc., when he has already told how Israel came to Azekah and Makkedah in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. This circumstance admits only of one explanation. The author first describes the events as historian; then he gives a simultaneous poetical sketch of the same events, just as Moses did in Numbers 21:14-17, Nu 21:18-27 ff. Again, the defenders of the miracle overlook the fact that Joshua not only desires the sun to stand still at Gibeon, but also the moon in the valley of Ajalon; and this can scarcely be understood otherwise than poetically (comp. later). But the verse which forms the conclusion of the whole passage, “And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal,” comes especially into consideration here. If we attribute this passage to the writer, we do not know how to deal with it. It is impossible to believe that Joshua at that time really returned to Gilgal with the whole army. The author continues in Joshua 10:16 just where he has left off in Joshua 10:11. He narrates circumstantially how Joshua followed up the victory, and how the army undertook a campaign into the southern region, still farther distant from Gilgal, and conquered the cities of the hostile kings. Not till Joshua 10:43 are we told how Joshua returned to Gilgal after he had subdued the whole territory of the hostile kings. Three subterfuges have here been employed, all equally inadmissible. Some, such as Calvin and Masius, represent the verse as spurious, though we are unable to perceive how it could occur to a glossator to insert it here, in so unsuitable a place. If the verse be already omitted in the LXX., at least in the oldest codd., the Vatican and Alexandrian, taking into consideration the usual character of the translation, the circumstance proves nothing further than that the translator felt the difficulty no less than later expositors. Others, for example Buddeus, try to explain the passage in a less violent way by a different interpretation. They translate, “Joshua already intended to return to Gilgal.” Joshua is represented as having had the intention of returning, but as having altered his determination when he heard that the five kings were concealed in the cave at Makkedah. Verbally, nothing can be objected to this interpretation. The שׁוב with אל betokens in itself not the desired goal, but only the turning towards it. But it is scarcely conceivable that Joshua had already the design of returning, and had begun to carry it out. Could it have entered his mind to rob himself of all the fruits of his victory by a precipitate retreat to Gilgal, and not to avail himself of the excellent opportunity which was here given him to occupy the whole of the enemy’s country, which he would afterwards have been compelled to do with infinitely greater exertion and danger? Moreover if the words, “And he returned,” were intended to denote merely intention and beginning in contrast to performance, this must necessarily have been expressly noted in what follows, which is not the case. Add to this, that in Joshua 10:43 the same words are literally repeated; and if they are there to be understood of an actual return, another interpretation of this passage can scarcely pass for anything but an inadmissible shift. Others again appeal to the insufficiency of Oriental historiography. The author, they think, at first intended to conclude his whole narrative with Joshua 10:15. Then it occurred to him that he had still to record some not unimportant circumstances. These, without consideration, he joined to that which went before, where we should insert, “But previously that which follows happened.” This view is also inadmissible. How is it conceivable that it could have been the author’s first intention to pass by in silence the whole contents of Joshua 10:16-43? For his object, this is just the most important thing. The battle is of importance to him only as a means of obtaining possession, which is properly the subject of his book; and there is not a word before Joshua 10:16 of the other great consequences of the victory, of the subjection of the whole southern half of Palestine. Moreover the poetical character is not only unmistakeable in Joshua 10:12 and the first half of Joshua 10:13, but also in the second half of Joshua 10:13 and in Joshua 10:14. Even Masius acknowledges this, although he adheres to the current idea. He says: “There can be no doubt that the words, ‘So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day,’ are rhythmic, and are taken from the Book of the Just. The whole mode of expression and construction shows it most clearly.” On the other hand, appeal is made to the fact that Joshua 10:15 has nothing poetical about it. But this is not at all necessary, since analogies, such as that of Exodus 15:19, show that it was not unusual to give songs glorifying the mighty deeds of the Lord, a prosaic conclusion closely connected with them. The fact that this verse is repeated almost word for word in Joshua 10:43 proves nothing. The author of the book intentionally makes use of the words of the poetic passage he had previously quoted.
We only remark further, what would certainly not in itself be a sufficient proof, that the miracle of a standing still of the sun, alleged to have been performed by Joshua, is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture; that the prophets, whose writings are completely interwoven with references to the histories of previous times, in which they saw more than dead facts, in which they saw just so many prophecies of the future, have not a syllable respecting it, nor have the psalmists, who frequently make God’s mercy in past times the theme of very long disquisitions: and in all the New Testament, with its numerous allusions to the mighty deeds of God under the Old, we find nothing of this miracle. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in his representation of the effects of faith under the old covenant, also makes no reference to it, although he mentions the act of Rahab, the destruction of the walls of Jericho, etc. Attempts, indeed, have been made to find a reference to this event in one passage of the Old Testament, Habakkuk 3:11; but it is only possible to do so by an offence against the laws of language. The passage is translated, “Sun and moon stand still in their habitation;” but theשֶׁ֥מֶשׁיָרֵ֖חַעָ֣מַדזְבֻ֑לָה can only mean, “they stand towards their habitation,” they repair to their habitation, and there remain still. The setting of the sun and moon is poetically represented as their withdrawal into their habitation. The symbols of divine grace no longer shine with a friendly light; the fearful darkness which has arisen is now illuminated by another light, the lightning, by which God destroys His enemies. The passage is parallel to those numerous other ones in the prophets, in which the sun and moon are represented as dark before and during the manifestation of divine judgments. Isaiah 13:10 : “For the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine;” comp. Joel 2:10, Joel 3:15 (3, 4); Amos 8:9. From this it is clear, that the passage in Habakkuk contains exactly the contrary of that which is said to be recorded in Joshua. Here the sun and moon remain beyond their time; there they set before their time. But the defenders of the historical conception assert that, if the author had wished the quoted poem to be understood figuratively, he must expressly have said so, otherwise the reader must necessarily come to the conclusion that the quotation contains pure historical truth. But the question is whether the connection does not involve an actual declaration, which is equivalent to a verbal one. The author details the actual course of events in Joshua 10:8-11, up to a point of time which goes beyond that in which the event of Joshua 10:12-14 occurs. The enemy is already conquered, and far advanced in flight. And when the author now interrupts his narrative, returning to the time of the battle in order to give another account of it from a poetical book, the natural, self-evident conclusion is, that this account gives no new historical particular, but is only intended as a repetition, in a poetical form, of what had been previously given in a historical form; and the author shows this plainly enough by the fact, that on beginning the history again in Joshua 10:16, he connects it immediately with Joshua 10:11, where the history left off. Compare the וַיָנֻסווּ in Joshua 10:16 with the בְּנֻסָםוַיְהִי in Joshua 10:11. It must not be overlooked, however, that the poetical representation differs from the historical only in form. It is essentially the same whether God lengthened one day into two, or whether He did in one day the work of two; the expression of mercy towards Israel is equally great. But just because the carnal mind is so slow to recognise this, the more palpable form is substituted for that which is less apparent to the sight; as in Psalms 18. David represents his enemies as destroyed by a storm, in order to show that he recognises the concealed mercy of God no less than the palpable.
We shall now give a brief sketch of our view of the whole passage. After having narrated the two mighty manifestations of divine mercy towards Israel, the victory which He gave to their arms at Gibeon, and the hail by which He punished the flying enemy, the author abruptly breaks the thread of the narrative, in order to insert a passage from a contemporary song, in which the great deeds of this day are extolled. The singer tells how Joshua said unto the Lord, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” It is easy to explain how Joshua may be said to have spoken to the Lord, since the address to the sun and moon immediately follows. For his desire is only apparently addressed to them; it was properly directed to the Lord of hosts. The first question which now rises is, at what time and in what place Joshua expressed this wish, or rather at what time the singer made him express it. The אז, “at that time,” cannot help us in determining this. For it is plain that it does not refer to what immediately precedes it—viz., to the flight of the enemy as far as Azekah, so that Joshua could have given utterance to the prayer when he first arrived at this place—but to the whole events of the day, the entire conquest of the enemy. This follows from the words, “In the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel,” which form a closer explanation of the word then. We must therefore look round us for other signs. In Joshua 10:13 we read that the sun remained standing in the midst of the heavens. It was therefore towards mid-day when Joshua expressed the wish. The determination of place, which follows from Joshua 10:12, fully agrees with the determination of time. The words, “Sun,stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon,” are only intelligible on the supposition that they were spoken at Gibeon. There, in the thick of the fight, Joshua wishes the sun to stand still, that he may have time to conquer the enemy completely; at the time of moonlight he hopes to be at Ajalon, in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, and there the moon is not to withdraw her light until he no longer requires it. According to Joshua 19:42, Ajalon lay in what was afterwards the territory of the tribe of Dan, south-west of Gibeon, and therefore in the region towards which the fleeing kings must first turn, and where they afterwards actually went, near to Azekah: Robinson, part iii. p. 278. The singer, therefore, makes Joshua express the wish in the midst of the battle at Gibeon, that the sun and the moon might remain standing—i.e. that the day might not draw to a close until the defeat of the enemy should be complete. This wish was fully accomplished; and the singer narrates this in Joshua 10:15, in such a way as to continue the image which he has begun. Joshua conquered the enemy so completely, that the day appeared to have been lengthened, and to have become a double day. Then, in Joshua 10:14, the singer goes on to a general eulogium on the splendour of this day. When he says that no day before or after was so glorious as this, the words must be pressed in an inadmissible way in order to draw from them a proof for the miraculous lengthening of the day: comp. Exodus 10:14; 2 Kings 18:5 Kings 18:5, 2 Kings 23:25. Every great salvation presents certain aspects in which it surpasses all others; comp. Deuteronomy 33:24, where Asher is characterized as blessed among the sons of Jacob, which might with equal truth be said of the rest. According to Judges 5:24, Jael appears as the most favoured among women, which she was, however, only from certain points of view. But the importance of this day must not be estimated too low: it was in reality one of the greatest days of Israelitish history; it may be regarded as the day of the conquest of Canaan. The singer now concludes with the return of Joshua to Gilgal. The details concerning the pursuit of the kings, the occupation of their towns, etc., belonged to the history whose thread he now takes up again with the author of the book of Joshua. When Joshua arrived in the vicinity of Makkedah, he received information that the five hostile kings had concealed themselves in a cave near this town, which has never been rediscovered. He himself now set up his camp at Makkedah, after having closed the mouth of the cave; the lighter troops he allowed to continue in pursuit of the enemy. These returned after they had pursued the enemy to their fortified towns. The five kings were then drawn forth from their hiding-place, and Joshua allowed his generals to tread upon their necks. This symbolical act was intended to show Israel in a palpable form the fulfilment of the promise, Deuteronomy 33:29, and to fill them with courage for their future undertakings. In the person of the five kings, all Canaan as it were, with its apparently invincible heights and fortresses, lay under their feet. After Makkedah also had been taken, the army again moved on, and conquered several more towns, almost all in the territory of the tribe of Judah. The whole extent of the conquests made in this march is thus described by the author in Joshua 10:41 : “And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen even unto Gibeon.” Gaza is here named as the western limit of the conquered territory; Gibeon as the most northern, and as the south-eastern Kadesh-barnea, in the wilderness of Pharan, more particularly in the wilderness of Zin, which are related to one another as the universal to the particular: comp. Keil on Joshua 10:41. The land of Goshen was situated in the southern part of the tribe of Judah. The enemy afterwards succeeded in re-establishing themselves in some of the conquered places. Hebron (with its Canaanitish race of giants, the Anakim, which is not really nom. propr., but denotes men of giant stature), which is here named among them, according to Joshua 15, must have been afterwards retaken by Caleb; Debir, according to Joshua 15:16-17, by Caleb’s son-in-law, Othniel. This lay in the nature of the thing. There could be no complete and continuous conquest except in connection with colonization. When the complete and final expulsion of the original inhabitants from Hebron, Debir, and other places is elsewhere attributed to Joshua, Joshua 11:21, he is only to be regarded as the general under whose auspices individuals carried out their conquests. The victory over the kings of southern Canaan was followed by that over the northern Canaanites; like the former, the result of a great campaign. The inhabitants of the region round about the Sea of Gennesareth, and about the sources of the Jordan at the foot of Antilebanon, had not yet been stirred out of their indolent rest; they had not combined with the inhabitants of the southern districts against the Israelites, in which circumstance Calvin rightly perceives clear traces of divine providence. Not until after these nations had been conquered, when their danger had therefore become doubly great, was their attention drawn to the Israelites; and they combined in one joint undertaking. At the head of this stood Jabin, the king of Hazor, a town, according to Joshua 19:39, situated in the later territory of the tribe of Naphtali; according to Josephus, Ant. 5:1, above the Samochonitic Sea. From the fact that in the time of the Judges there was also a Canaanitish king of the name of Hazor, it seems to follow that Jabin, the Wise, was not nom. propr., but a hereditary title of the kings of Hazor. From Joshua 11:10 we infer that all the other kings of that northern district stood in a certain relation of dependence to the king of Hazor—a state of things which must very easily have arisen in the constitution of the Canaanites, and which also existed afterwards among the Phoenicians. The danger of Israel was the greater, since the enemy had a large number of warlike chariots. The enemy assembled near the sea Merom—High Sea—so called as the uppermost of the seas which the waters of the Jordan flow through; in Josephus, Samochonitis—a shallow sea in which, after a short course of three hours, the various sources of the Jordan collect, swelling up at the time when the snow melts; at other times generally a swamp of rushes, now for the greater part of the year quite dry, and used as a hunting-ground. In the plains of this sea Joshua encountered the enemy, whose attack he had not expected, though he had gone out to meet them; and here he gained a glorious victory over them. Their fleeing remnant he pursued to the region of Sidon, as far as Misrephot Mayim—properly, “Burning of the waters”—a place, having water with which one can burn one’s self; in all probability hot springs, not far from Sidon, as seems to follow from Joshua 13:6. Joshua commanded the horses which were taken to be houghed, by which the horses not merely become useless, as is generally supposed, but soon bleed to death; the chariots he burnt. The reason of this measure was not that the Israelites did not then understand how to handle horses and chariots; it had a higher aim. It symbolized what the Psalmist expresses: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God:” Psalms 20:7. This was brought to his mind by the symbolic act. We must not, however, conclude that the Israelites acted, or were intended to act, just in the same way in all similar cases. The idea was satisfied by the one symbolic representation. This formed a permanent exhortation to Israel: “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.” The act considered as continual would bear a fanatical character, and could not be exonerated from the reproach of being a tempting of God. David had chariots and riders, and yet put his trust only in the Lord. Joshua then conquered Hazor and the other towns of the hostile kings, but only Hazor was burnt, as the head of the impotent resistance against the Lord and His people, in which, as in Jericho, the idea of the curse receives its outward representation. The author then gives a recapitulation of all the country which the Israelites conquered in this and the former campaign, Joshua 11:16-17 : “So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same; even from the Mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal-gad, in the valley of Lebanon, under Mount Hermon.” The “smooth or bald mountain,” הרחלק in, bordering on Idumea, is here named as the most southern part of the whole conquered district, and is not mentioned elsewhere, but is certainly situated south of the Dead Sea. The northern boundary, Baal-gad, is spoken of as lying in the valley of Lebanon, beneath Mount Hermon, and therefore in the valley which separates Lebanon and the majestic Hermon, the proper western boundary of Palestine, the main source of the Jordan. Besides these, several separate portions of the conquered land are given; especially those which had been taken in the previous campaign, because those taken on this occasion had already been mentioned. The mountain range, the southern region, the land of Goshen, and the depression, the Arabah, together form parts of the after-tribe of Judah. The mountain range is the mountainous part which forms the centre of the country,—the low country, the district bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. The Arabah is the hollow into which the Jordan flows,—hence the most eastern part, in contradistinction from the low country, as the most western. The other places named—the mount of Israel and its depression (every place before mentioned was already conquered in the first campaign)—formed principally the after-territory of the tribe of Joseph. The mountain of this tribe had been previously designated the mountain of Israel, in contrast to the mountain of Judah, because already, long before the separation of the two kingdoms, there was a contrast between Judah and the rest of Israel, or the ten tribes, which were represented by Joseph as the most important. The time when these conquests were made is not more closely determined in the book of Joshua. It is merely stated in Joshua 11:18 : “Joshua made war a long time with all those kings.” But the nearer determination may be indirectly drawn from Joshua 14, if we assume, what is highly probable, that the first division of land at Gilgal followed immediately upon the termination of this war. Immediately before it, Caleb says, in a speech to Joshua, that he is now eighty-five years of age. And since Caleb, according to Joshua 14, was sent by Moses as a spy in his fortieth year, in the beginning of the second year after the exodus out of Egypt, therefore, from thirty-eight to thirty-nine years of the life of Caleb passed away during the march through the wilderness, leaving from six to seven years for the conquest of Canaan. In the conclusion of Joshua 11 we read: “So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and the land rested from war.” These words must necessarily be understood with a certain limitation. Their sense can only be this, that already, at that time, when the power of the Canaanites had been broken by the two great campaigns, the divine promise given to Moses was fulfilled in its most important sense. Some of those nations whose country had been given to the Israelites as an inheritance, had not yet been attacked by them at all. This was the case with all the Phoenicians dwelling on the sea-coast, and with all Lebanon, from Baal-gad northward, as far as Chamat in Syria, the uttermost settlement of the Canaanitish race: comp. the narrative in Joshua 13:1-6. Even within the conquered territory, some nationalities were either never completely subjugated, or soon recovered themselves. This is evident from several statements of this book itself, and of the book of Judges: it lies in the nature of the thing. It is impossible that a nation so numerous and powerful as the Canaanites could be completely exterminated, or driven away in two campaigns. The principal event had already been accomplished; the power of the Canaanites in the south and north was completely broken. But there was still great scope left for the further activity of Israel, for further divine assistance. The fulfilment of the divine promise, which had previously been imperfect, served as a means for realizing the divine plan. In the country of the Israelites themselves, and in its nearest vicinity, God had prepared an instrument of punishment by which to avenge the apostasy of His people, as had been already foretold by Moses.
