World English Bible · Entering the land
Joshua 8
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said to , "Don't be afraid, and don't be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to . Behold, I have given into your hand the king of , with his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to and her king as you did to and her king, except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it." So arose, with all the warriors, to go up to . chose thirty thousand men, the of valor, and sent them out by night. He commanded them, saying, "Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don't go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them. They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, 'They flee before us, like the first time.' So we will flee before them, and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for your will it into your hand. It shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on . You shall do this according to word. Behold, I have commanded you." sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between and on the west side of ; but stayed among the people that night. rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the , before the people to . 11All the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up and came near, and came before the city and encamped on the north side of . Now there was a valley between him and . He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between and , on the west side of the city. So they set the people, even who was on the north of the city, and their ambush on the west of the city; and went that night into the middle of the valley. When the king of saw it, they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the ; but he didn't know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by of . All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued , and were drawn away from the city. There was not a man left in or who didn't go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel. said to , "Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward , for I will give it into your hand." stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand and entered into the city and took it. They hurried and set the city on . When the men of looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to , and they had no to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to turned back on the pursuers. 21When and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned back and killed the men of . The others came out of the city against them, so they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. They struck them, so that they let none of them or escape. They captured the king of alive, and brought him to . When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of in the field, in in which they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of until they were consumed, all Israel returned to and struck it with the edge of . All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of . For didn't draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had all the inhabitants of . Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to word which he commanded . So burned and made it a heap , even a desolation, to this day. He hanged the king of . At sundown, commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the , and a great heap of stones on it that to this day. Then built an to , the of Israel, on Mount , as the commanded the , as in the book of of : an of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to and . He wrote there on the stones a copy of ' law, which he wrote in the of the . All Israel, with their , officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the priests, who carried the , the as well as the native; half of them in front of , and half of them in front of Mount , as the had commanded at the first, that they should the people of Israel. Afterward he read all the words of , the and the , according to all that is written in the book of . There was not a word of all that commanded which didn't read before all of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the who were among them.
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The world at this moment · Entering the land, 1250 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel crossing into Canaan and contending with fortified city-states, each with its own king, in a land Egypt had recently dominated and was now losing its grip on.
- The collapse
- The whole eastern Mediterranean is coming apart. Within about fifty years the Hittite empire falls, its capital burns, the Mycenaean palaces are destroyed, Ugarit is wiped out mid-correspondence, and Egypt is fighting for its life against seaborne invaders. Nobody fully knows why. Drought, earthquake, migration, and the failure of interlocking trade are all in the explanation.
- Egypt
- Still strong enough to record a victory over a people called Israel on a stone monument around 1207 BC, the earliest mention of the name outside the Bible. But Egyptian control of Canaan is slipping, and within a generation it is gone.
- Canaan
- Not a country but dozens of walled towns, each with its own king, its own god, and its own quarrel with the next valley. This is why the book of Joshua reads as a list of kings rather than a war with a nation.
- Further afield
- Iron is beginning to replace bronze across the region, partly because the tin trade that made bronze possible has broken down. The Olmec are building San Lorenzo. The Zhou are about to overthrow the Shang in China.