I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Joshua 10-11.

    When the king of Jerusalem learned that the Gibeonites had allied with the Children of Israel he formed an alliance with four other kings and attacked Gibeon. Joshua came to the relief of Gibeon and completely defeated the armies laying siege to it. Those armies fled, but the Israelites were able to kill all but a remnant which managed to get back inside their fortified towns. After killing the kings which had led these armies, Joshua had the Israelites regroup to their camp. From there he launched a campaign against the cities from which these armies had come. Except that the passage does not mention Joshua attacking Jerusalem, which is consistent with later Biblical accounts that Jerusalem was not controlled by the Israelites until David conquered it. When the kings in the Northern portion of the Promised Land heard what Joshua and the Israelites had done in the South, they gathered the armies and confronted the Israelites. The Northern kings fell to the same fate as the Southern kings. Of particular note is that when Joshua defeated the Northern kings, he crippled the horses and destroyed their chariots. What makes this noteworthy is what it tells us about the organization of the Israelite military. In order to use chariots effectively the soldiers who used them needed to spend enough time training with them that they did not have time to do anything else. The destruction of the chariots and the crippling of the horses tells us that the Israelites did not have a “professional” army which spent all of its time under arms and training. Such an army could be used to impose the ruler’s will over the people. Without such an army, whoever led the people was reliant on the support of the common man.