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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 11 Next Section - Chapter 12 to 22 Northern Kings
Defeated (ch. 11:1 - 23)
Chapter 11 now begins the northern portion of We see in the first five verses there is another coalition
of kings who have joined together to fight Concerning horses, In Deuteronomy 17:16 the Lord tells
Moses and Israel
that they are not to accumulate horses.
In Deuteronomy 20:1 God tells Throughout Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms,
(Psalm 20) the Lord tells Israel
not to trust in chariots and horses, but to trust in the Lord.
The accumulation of horses would cause them to trust in them and
not the Lord. There is
something else here concerning horses.
Canaanites also tended to worship horses, and the Lord didn't
want Israel
to be caught up in such worship. In verse 5 you see the Waters of Merom,
which is a gorge. In the
region, which is Galilee, it was a gateway to the north, so to speak.
Many roads converged here and so if you could conquer this spot,
you would be well on your way to the north. As in every other battle, and as in so many places in the
Bible, God tells His people not to be afraid of the enemy, even if they
or he, seems larger than life, as was the case here.
God told Joshua not to fear because by the next day He would
deliver the enemy into their hands, and he would slay them.
Of course, the army of Israel
had to go out and fight for this to happen.
So once again, we are involved when it comes to receiving the
promises of God. We, like
Joshua, had a part to play before the Lord delivers any promise to us. Also in verse 6 the Lord says to "hamstring" the
enemy's horses and burn their chariots.
In English, the verb "hamstring" means to render as
disabled in any fashion, but to be precise, means to cut the tendons in
one's legs in order to prevent the one from walking.
The Hebrew word here that is translated as "hamstring"
simply means "to cut out or to pull out".
Just what kind of cutting out is involved here is debatable among
scholars. It could mean to
cut the tendons in the horses legs, or it could even mean to cut out the
testicles of the mail horse. Whatever
the case, the point is to render these horses as useless. Notice the word "sudden" in verse 7.
Many scholars and military men see the word "sudden" as
a fast paced and unexpected attack by the Israeli army, just another
brilliant performance by Joshua, one of In verse 18 the text states that Joshua and the army of Israel
took a long time to battle these nations.
Many scholars believe this was seven years.
They say this because of certain comments made about Caleb.
In Joshua 14 he dies at the age of 85.
He was called by God at the age of 40.
Israel
spent 38 years in the desert, leaving 7 years. Note in verse 20 that it was the Lord Himself who hardened
the kings hearts as He did with Pharaoh's heart back in Notice the Anakites in verses 21 and 22.
They were all killed in the north, but not the south, not in what
is modern day Gaza. Annakites show up in
Deuteronomy 9:1 to 3 and are tall people.
In 1 Samuel 17 we see Goliath.
He was an Anakite. We
see later in Israeli history that the Anakite descendents come back to
haunt Israel. Next Section - Chapter 12 to 22
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