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

A casual reading of this passage leads one to believe that by the end of it the Israelites had more or less destroyed all of the people inhabiting the land.  However, a closer reading tells a different story.  For example, the king of Jerusalem created the alliance which attacked Gibeon.  Yet, Jerusalem is not one of the cities described as being conquered and destroyed as part of the campaign which followed Joshua’s successful defense of Gibeon.  Jarmuth, another city which was part of that alliance, is also not mentioned as being conquered and destroyed.  Then in the summary of Joshua’s battles the passage tells us that the Israelites wiped out all of the Anakites in the hill country of both Judah and the northern part of the land, but that some remained in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, cities which would later become centers of Philistine dominance (the Philistines were not yet on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea at the time of Joshua).   The other thing which hints to us that we are supposed to understand that not all of the people living in the land when the Israelites arrived is when it tells us that only the Gibeonites entered into a treaty with the Israelites.  If the Gibeonites had been the only people living in the land whose presence predated the Israelites there would have been no reason to mention this.  So, while Joshua destroyed the emerging nations in the land (we see the same southern and northern political divide emerge in the split kingdom), he did not completely eradicate the people living in the land.

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