King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 8
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And said unto , Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to : see, I have given into thy hand the king of , and his people, and his city, and his land: And thou shalt do to and her king as thou didst unto and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it. So arose, and all the people of war, to go up against : and chose out thirty thousand of valour, and sent them away by night. And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye all ready: And I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them, (For they will come out after us) till we have drawn them from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: therefore we will flee before them. Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for your will it into your hand. And it shall be, when ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on : according to the of shall ye do. See, I have commanded you. therefore sent them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Beth–el and , on the west side of : but lodged that night among the people. And rose up early in the morning, and numbered the people, and went up, he and the , before the people to . 11And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of : now there was a valley between them and . And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Beth–el and , on the west side of the city. And when they had set the people, even that was on the north of the city, and their liers in wait on the west of the city, went that night into the midst of the valley. And it came to pass, when the king of saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city. And and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by of . And all the people that were in were called together to pursue after them: and they pursued after , and were drawn away from the city. And there was not a man left in or Beth–el, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel. And said unto , Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward ; for I will give it into thine hand. And stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city. 19And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on . And 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: and the people that fled to turned back upon the pursuers. 21And when and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of . And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them or escape. And the king of they took alive, and brought him to . And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of in the field, in wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of , until they were consumed, that all the returned unto , and smote it with the edge of . And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of . For drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had all the inhabitants of . Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of which he commanded . And burnt , and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. And the king of he until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the , and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day. Then built an unto of Israel in mount , As the commanded the , as in the book of of , an of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto , and . And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of of , which he wrote in the of the . And all Israel, and their , and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the , which the of , as well the , as he that was born among them; half of them over against , and half of them over against mount ; as the had commanded before, that they should the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of , the and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of . There was not a word of all that commanded, which read not before all of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
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.