Joshua 11:1 ¶ And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor had heard those things, that he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, 2 And to the kings that were on the north of the mountains, and of the plains south of Chinneroth, and in the valley, and in the borders of Dor on the west, 3 And to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the mountains, and to the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh. 4 And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many. 5 And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel. 6 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them: for to morrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. 7 So Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly; and they fell upon them. 8 And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephothmaim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining. 9 And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire.
Here in verse
4 we see the dangers of hyperliteralism. Phrases like sand that is upon the
sea shore in multitude is not an exact contrast but an equivalence meaning
a lot, more than one could reasonably count. The Holy Spirit uses this kind of
phrasing elsewhere.
In Genesis 15:5 God challenges Abram to count (tell
as in a bank teller) the stars if he can, as the number of his descendants
shall be like the number of stars.
Up
until the invention of the telescope mankind was able to count only a few
thousand stars. However, God will liken their number to the number of particles
of sand on the sea shore. This is not an exact numerical comparison but an
equivalence, meaning the numbers are similar, an amount too great for a man to
number.
Genesis 22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in
multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the
sand which is upon the sea shore;
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
Hebrews
11:12 Therefore sprang there even of
one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and
as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
However,
it is not so with God. He can count them and has names for each one. This is
one of those amazing facts about how great the God who created the universe and
who orders all matter, energy, space, and time is.
Psalm
147:4 He telleth the number of the
stars; he calleth them all by their names.
Horses and chariots make a good study. Here is what I said about
Genesis 50:9.
“The phrase chariots and horsemen will play a very important part in places in
the Old Testament and be a source of contention. One thing missing in
scholarship and Bible exposition is the common sense understanding of chariot
warfare. A chariot was a mobile fighting platform as well as a ceremonial
vehicle whose weak link was also how it was delivered to the forefront of the
battle so quickly; its horses. Logic tells us, logic and common sense, that the
horses would be what the infantry would go after first. Kill the horses and the
chariot cannot move and respond to the battle. So, with chariots there needed
to be a string of horses and horsemen to accompany them. Like the pit crew at a
NASCAR event these teams needed to be able to replace dead and injured horses
or, in a fierce battle, the chariot would have been rendered useless and even
helpless quite quickly, as the driver would not be able to remove to safety in
the event of being overwhelmed, with dead horses.
1Kings
4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand
stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
2Chronicles
9:25 And Solomon had four thousand
stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed
in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.
So,
in these two verses which have been the source of much disagreement it is very
obvious to me that Solomon had 40,000 stalls for chariot horses and 4,000
stalls that were big enough for the chariot and the horse team that drew it.
This would be necessary for maintenance and preparation before training and
battle. This also implies a string of 10 horses per chariot as the primary team
and backup. These backup teams would have not only needed protection by cavalry
but perhaps were a capable fighting force all their own. There is no contradiction,
just common sense and reading comprehension needed here.”
To hough
a horse means to hamstring, calling the horse
hamstrung in English. They severed the achilles tendon of the hind legs making
the horse useless for war.
1Chronicles
18:4 And David took from him a thousand
chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: David also
houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them an hundred chariots.
Keep in mind that a chariot is a mobile fighting platform designed
to get quickly into place to deliver spears and arrows from above and then be
removed to keep the horses from being slaughtered by infantry and to prevent
the occupants, sometimes a driver and someone shooting or throwing from being
exposed sitting ducks for missile weapons or being pulled from the chariot.
Joshua 11:10 ¶ And Joshua
at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the
sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. 11 And they smote all the souls that were
therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was
not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire. 12 And all the cities of those kings, and all
the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and
he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. 13 But as for the cities that stood still
in their strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did
Joshua burn. 14 And all the spoil of
these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto
themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had
destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.
Verse 10
reinforces what verse 1 might suggest, that Hazor ruled over these cities in
the North. According to the website, hazo-excavations.org;
Canaanite Hazor is
mentioned on several occasions in external records: it is first mentioned in
the 19th century BCE in the Egyptian Execration texts. Hazor is the only
Canaanite site mentioned in the archive discovered in Mari (18th century BCE).
The Mari documents clearly demonstrate the importance, wealth and far-reaching
commercial ties of Hazor. In the archive discovered at El-Amarna, Egypt, (14th
century BCE) there are several references to Hazor, as well as in records of
the military campaigns conducted by the Egyptian Pharaohs, during the 15th –
14th centuries BCE[1]
This is a
very potent and powerful example of the furiousness and cruelty of ancient
warfare. It was up close and personal, face to face, as they did not have
artillery and cruise missiles. This was mass killing done in a very bloody
manner.
Joshua 11:15 ¶ As the LORD
commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he
left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses. 16 So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and
all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the
plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same; 17 Even from the mount Halak, that goeth
up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon: and
all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them. 18 Joshua made war a long time with all those
kings. 19 There was not a city that made
peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon:
all other they took in battle. 20
For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come
against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that
they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD
commanded Moses. 21 And at that time
came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from
Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the
mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. 22 There was none of the Anakims left in the
land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there
remained. 23 So Joshua took the whole
land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an
inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the
land rested from war.
Remember what
I noted before, that this Goshen was not the Goshen in Egypt. Strong says it
was probably a city on the southern border of the land Joshua conquered.
The Anakims
were giants, remember? In my comments for Numbers 13 and Deuteronomy, chapter
1, I noted;
“Another thing of note is that these scouts or spies saw giants.
Remember what was said in the first part of Genesis.
Genesis 6:4 There were
giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God
came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same
became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Keep in mind that since
Genesis 6:9 says that Noah was perfect in his generations it is possible there
was no genetic taint of the fallen sons of God and human women so this genetic
abnormality that produced giants would come through his wife to his sons. I
want to repeat what I said in my comments on Genesis 6:4.
The
resultant offspring of these sons of God and human women were giants, famous as
heroes in myth and legend. The mythologies of the world have brought us stories
of these great men of renown with
various names and in various forms. The phrase and also after that shows that this was an ongoing problem even
after the Flood. I will not go into the many websites about and books written
on findings of giant remains in graves and tombs as it is difficult to
distinguish fact from fancy and outright fraud. Sticking with the Bible
account, though, we have many references that would render some of the modern
stories about archaeological finds understandable and believable. Here are a
few examples of the many references to giants with the measurement given so
that we see these were not just National Basketball Association (NBA) style
large men.
Deuteronomy
3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained
of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it
not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof,
and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. [that
is between
13 ½ to 18 feet long depending on the actual length of
a cubit]
1Samuel
17:4 And there went out a champion out
of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six
cubits and a span. [Goliath was between around 9 feet plus
and 12 feet tall]
Other
references to show that there were places where such giants were common are;
Numbers
13:33 And there we saw the giants, the
sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Deuteronomy
2:10 The Emims dwelt therein in times
past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; 11 Which also were accounted giants, as the
Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.
Deuteronomy
3:13 And the rest of Gilead, and all
Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all
the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.
Joshua
15:8 And the border went up by the
valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is
Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before
the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants.” northward:”
It might be
of some interest to you to note that Spanish explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, in
1520 reported contact with 10ft. tall giants on his journey, in South America.
[1] “HAZOR EXCAVATIONS,
The Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin,” http://www.hazor-excavations.org/the-history-of-hazor/#:~:text=Hazor%20was%20the%20largest%20site,confined%20to%20the%20upper%20city. (accessed 2.28.22)
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