Joshua 11:1-23 Notes

Book Outline

1-5a

5b-12

6 – Jericho (positive, Yahweh fights)

Israel is told to “attack” Jericho

Israel doesn’t fight, they march around the city with the ark blasting horns, “so that you know Yahweh is fighting for you”

Once walls fall, Israel goes in and finishes the clean up work

7-8 – Ai (negative, Israel sin, Achan)

Achan sees the spoil, it looked good, he took it for himself, then he hid (same vocabulary as Genesis 3:6-10)

Achan is found out, gets stoned, killed, burned

This shows God isn’t playing favorites, this isn’t Israel vs. the Canaanites, it’s God vs. corrupt societies

9 – Gibeon (positive, peace treaty, spared)

They sneak into Israel’s camp, lie about who they are, and ask to be folded into the nation of Israel (think Rahab–Joshua 2)

10-11 – Battles (blitz summary of all the battles that took place over likely decades, not a lot of details given)

11 – theme of “devote/devoting to destruction” can be seen in Deuteronomy 7:2 “and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.”

“devoting to destruction” - Hebrew word is ḥā·rǎm (see link below). Definition: devote to God, i.e., give a gift exclusively to God, which (once given) must then be destroyed so there will be no human use made of it (Lev 27:28), note: the gift may apparently be voluntary or commanded by deity, with the associative meaning of a gift given for destruction; (hof) be devoted (Ex 22:19; Lev 27:29; Ezr 10:8+), see also domain LN 57.71–57.124, LN 20.31–20.60

Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) 3049 I. חָרַם

ḥā·rǎm

11-12 – Summary (a list of defeated kings and towns, not a lot of details given)

*Each of these stories represents something about Israel’s relationship to God’s will in this moment but also ongoing into the future

Outline

(Joshua – Kenneth O. Gangel)

Joshua II. Commentary. War and Peace

MAIN IDEA

Description of Annihilation (Joshua 11:1-11)

Joshua A. Description of Annihilation (11:1–11)

SUPPORTING IDEA

Purpose of Annihilation (Joshua 11:12-23)

Joshua B. Purpose of Annihilation (11:12–23)

SUPPORTING IDEA

Joshua – Dale Ralph Davis

Not by Chariots, Not by Horses (Joshua 11:1-15)

The Opponents of God’s People (Joshua 11:1-5)

The Energy in God’s Sovereignty (Joshua 11:6-7)

The Sufficiency of God’s Help (Joshua 11:6, 9)

The Model of God’s Servant (Joshua 11:12, 15)

War Wrap-Up (Joshua 11:16-23)

The Demands of Yahweh’s Call (Joshua 11:18)

The Fearfulness of Yahweh’s Hardening (Joshua 11:19-20)

The Needlessness of Our Fears (Joshua 11:21-22)

Why God’s judgment of these nations?

The Canaanites are morally corrupt and practice sexual and child sacrifice practices are horrible.

Think back to:

Leviticus 18:2–3 ““Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.”

Leviticus 18:24–30 ““Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.””

Theologically Challenging

Divinely sanctioned violence

The word for “utterly destroy” is kherem = “The key Hebrew term is kherem, “to dedicate something to a deity” so that it belongs to no other: for objects this meant being taken into the temple (7:19); for people this could mean ritual destruction (7:21-22), but not always (see below).” - Tim Mackie, BL501 Lectures, Joshua 1-2

Deuteronomy 7:1–11 ““When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your…”