1And it happened when Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and put it under the ban, as he had done to Jericho and its king, so had he done to Ai and its king, and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were in their midst, 2that he was very afraid, for Gibeon was a big town, like one of the royal towns, and it was bigger than Ai, and all its men were warriors. 3And Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron and to Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish, and Debir king of Eglon, saying, 4“Come up to me and help me, and let us strike Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the Israelites.” 5And the five Amorite kings, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered together, they and all their camps, and they encamped against Gibeon and did battle against it. 6And the men of Gibeon sent messengers to Joshua at the Gilgal camp, saying, “Do not let go of your servants. Come up quickly to us and rescue us and help us, for all the Amorite kings who live in the high country have gathered against us.” 7And Joshua came up from Gilgal, he and all the combat troops with him, and all the valiant warriors. 8And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hand. No man of them will stand up before you.” 9And Joshua came against them suddenly—all night long he had come up from Gilgal. 10And the LORD panicked them before Israel, and they struck them a great blow at Gilgal, and they pursued them on the road of the ascent to Beth-Horon, and they struck them down as far as Azekah and as far as Makkedah. 11And it happened when they fled before Israel, that they were on the descent from Beth-Horon when the LORD flung down on them great stones from the heavens as far as Azekah, and those who died from the hailstones were many more than the Israelites killed by the sword. 12Then did Joshua speak to the LORD on the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, and he said in the sight of Israel:
and the moon in Ajalon Valley.”
13And the sun halted
and the moon stood still
till the nation wreaked vengeance on its foes.
Is it not written in the Book of Jashar?—“And the sun stood still in the middle of the heavens and did not hasten to set for a whole day. 14And there was nothing like that day before it or after it, in the LORD’s heeding the voice of a man, for the LORD did battle for Israel.” 15And Joshua went back, and all Israel with him, to the Gilgal camp. 16And those five kings fled and hid in a cave at Makkedah. 17And it was told to Joshua, saying, “The five kings have been found hiding in the cave at Makkedah. 18And Joshua said, “Roll great stones over the mouth of the cave, and set men over it to guard them. 19As for you, do not stand still. Pursue your enemies and cut them down from behind. Do not let them enter their towns, for the LORD your God has given them into your hand.” 20And it happened when Joshua and the Israelites had finished striking them a very great blow, to the last of them, that a remnant of them survived and entered the fortified towns. 21And the troops came back safely to the camp to Joshua, no man so much as snarled at the Israelites. 22And Joshua said, “Open the mouth of the cave, and bring these five kings out to me from the cave.” 23And so they did, and they brought those five kings out to him from the cave—the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon. 24And it happened when they brought out those kings to Joshua, that Joshua called out to all the men of Israel and said to the captains of the men of war who had gone with him: “Put your feet on the necks of these kings.” And they drew near and put their feet on their necks. 25And Joshua said to them, “Do not fear and do not cower. Be strong and stalwart, for thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies with whom you do battle.” 26And afterward Joshua struck them down and put them to death, and he impaled them on five poles, and they remained impaled on the poles till evening. 27And it happened as the sun was setting that Joshua gave the command and they took them down from the poles and flung them into the cave in which they had hidden, and they put great stones over the mouth of the cave, to this very day. 28And Joshua took Makkedah on that day and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword and every living thing within it. He left no survivor, and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho. 29And Joshua moved on, and all Israel with him, from Makkedah to Libnah, and he did battle with Libnah. 30And the LORD gave it as well into the hand of Israel with its king, and he struck it with the edge of the sword and every living thing within it. He left no survivor, and he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho. 31And Joshua moved on, and all Israel with him, from Libnah to Lachish, and he camped against it and did battle against it. 32And the LORD gave Lachish into the hand of Israel, and he took it on the second day and struck it by the edge of the sword and every living thing within it, as all that he had done to Libnah. 33Then did Horam king of Gezer come up to help Lachish, and Joshua struck him down, and all his troops with him, till he left no survivor of him. 34And Joshua moved on, and all Israel with him, from Lachish to Eglon, and they camped against it and did battle against it. 35And they took it on that day and struck it with the edge of the sword and every living thing within it. On that day he passed it under the ban as all he had done to Lachish. 36And Joshua went up, and all Israel with him, from Eglon to Hebron, and they did battle against it. 37And they took it and struck it with the edge of the sword, and its king and all its towns and every living thing within it. He left no survivor, as all he had done to Eglon, and he put it under the ban and every living thing within it. 38And Joshua, and all Israel with him, turned back to Debir and did battle against it. 39And he took it, and its king and all its towns, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and he put under the ban every living thing within it. He left no survivor. As he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir and its king and as he had done to Libnah and to its king. 40And Joshua struck the whole land, the high country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. And he left no survivor of it. And every breathing thing he put under the ban as the LORD God of Israel had charged. 41And Joshua struck them from Kadesh-Barnea to Gaza, and the whole land of Goshen to Gibeon. 42And all these kings and their land Joshua took in one fell swoop, for the LORD God of Israel did battle for Israel. 43And Joshua, and all Israel with him, turned back to the Gilgal camp.
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
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1. Adoni-Zedek. The name means “master of justice” or “master of victory,” and as several medieval Hebrew commentators note, it is probably a hereditary title rather than a proper name. Melchizedek king of Salem (probably a variant of “Jerusalem”), mentioned in Genesis 14:18, has a similar titular name, which means “king of justice” or “king of victory.”
2. like one of the royal towns. Even though there is no monarchy in Gibeon, its size and importance make it the equivalent of a royal town.
6. Do not let go of your servants. That is, hang on to us; do not leave us in the lurch.
help us. The simple verb “to help” also has technical sense, exhibited in many psalms and in narrative contexts such as this, which is to render military support.
7. the combat troops . . . all the valiant warriors. These terms probably indicate that Joshua led elite troops, the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of commandos, on this mission.
9. Joshua came against them suddenly. By marching all night long the considerable distance from Gilgal to Gibeon, he is able to carry out a surprise attack, perhaps just at daybreak.
10. and the LORD panicked them. This is a vivid illustration of the system of dual causation sometimes adopted by the biblical writers. The soldiers of the alliance of five kings are of course in the first instance panicked by Joshua’s surprise attack, a shrewd tactical maneuver, but now the panic is explained as God’s direct intervention.
11. the descent from Beth-Horon. This is the same steep road that is called “ascent” in the previous verse, now imagined from Beth-Horon looking down rather than the other way around.
great stones from the heavens. This wording gives the initial impression of an entirely supernatural event, but then it is explained naturalistically as a reference to hailstones. Even so, the hailstones would have had to be improbably big in order to be lethal.
12. O sun in Gibeon halt. The reason for the prayer is explained in the next verse: the sun is to halt its movement across the sky and the moon not to appear in its place in order to give Joshua a long extension of daylight in which to hunt down and destroy his enemies.
13. the Book of Jashar. This lost text is also mentioned in 2 Samuel 1:18 as the literary source in which David’s elegy for Saul and Jonathon appears. It is safe to assume that it is a very old book, largely poetic or even epic, in which martial themes are prominent. The name jashar would appear to mean “the upright,” though Shmuel Ahituv, mindful of the practice of calling books by their opening words, interestingly proposes that it could mean “he sang” (revocalizing jashar as jashir).
And the sun stood still. This translation construes the remainder of this verse as a continuation of the quotation from the Book of Jashar. It does not scan as poetry, but the language is elevated, with epic flourishes.
did not hasten to set. Psalm 19 imagines the sun racing across the sky like a warrior running on his path, and that mythological imagery is probably behind the verb “hasten” here.
19. cut them down from behind. The verb zanev, derived from zanav, “tail,” means etymologically “to cut off the tail.” It is used in Deuteronomy 25:18.
20. to the last of them. More literally, “until they came to an end.” But as the next clause makes clear, this actually means that they were almost entirely wiped out but some escaped.
21. no man. The Hebrew says “to no man,” but the prefix le is probably a dittography triggered by le yisraʾel, “at [or to] Israel.”
24. Put your feet on the necks of these kings. As both Egyptian and Assyrian art abundantly demonstrate, this was a symbolic gesture by the victors for subjugating the defeated enemies.
26. he impaled them on five poles. Since it would be somewhat odd to hang a dead body by the neck, this particular verse offers credibility to the view that the Hebrew verb in question when applied to an execution means to impale, not to hang. Impaling the body for public display would be an act of shaming.
27. to this very day. This is again the etiological tag—the story explains why one finds great stones piled over the mouth of the cave at Makkedah.
28. and Joshua took Makkedah on that day and struck it and its king. Here begins a catalogue of Joshua’s conquests, conveyed in more or less identical formulas, and probably from a different literary source.
32. And the LORD gave Lachish into the hand of Israel. This notation is still another indication of the tenuous relation to history of this account of the conquest because extrabiblical evidence shows that in the thirteenth century B.C.E. (the time of Joshua) and well beyond it, Lachish was not in Israelite hands. Altogether, this report of a lightning campaign in which a large swath of the land was conquered does not accord with the archaeological record for the history of this period. One might also observe an internal contradiction between the catalogue of conquests and the episode that precedes it. One of the five kings put to death at the Makkedah cave is the king of Jerusalem, the very man who organized the anti-Israelite alliance. One would expect that the conquest of Jerusalem should then logically figure in this account, but it was of course general knowledge that Jerusalem remained in Jebusite hands until over two centuries later, when it was taken by David. One suspects that the source from which the catalogue of conquests was drawn knew nothing of an Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem who played a central role in these battles, and that the redactor did not reconcile the two accounts.
40. the Negeb and the lowland. In David’s time, much of the Negeb was dominated by the Amalekites, and the lowland was Philistine territory.
41. from Kadesh-Barnea. This would be extravagantly far to the south, in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.
42. in one fell swoop. Literally, “one time” or “at once.” This hyperbolic flourish again raises the problem of historicity.