Joshua 12:7

"And these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel smote beyond the Jordan westward, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even unto mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir (and Joshua gave it unto the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their divisions; in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South: the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite):"

These verses are the beginning of a very long sentence running through Joshua 12:24, in which are recorded the 31 kings and their cities which were destroyed by Joshua and their land given to Israel. The first thing one encounters in the study of this is that there are a number of kings, along with their cities, which are not mentioned in the previous chapters, where is found a more detailed account of the overthrow of the majority of these. Cook explained this thus:

"Those cities mentioned in Joshua 12:10-18 either belonged to the league of the Southern Canaanites, the power of which was broken in the battle of Beth-horon, or were at any rate conquered in the campaign following the battle. Those mentioned in Joshua 12:19-24 were in like manner connected with the northern confederates who were defeated at the Waters of Merom."[13]

Significantly, Bethel is among the cities not previously mentioned as having been conquered by Joshua; but it will be recalled that in our study of the destruction of Ai, the defense outpost associated with Bethel, and located almost adjacent to it, that we speculated that it was at that very same time that Bethel and its king were also destroyed, the whole narrative of Joshua existing in the form of a general summary, rather than as a detailed account of everything that happened. This chapter confirms the probability of that being indeed the character of this book, a general summary, not a detailed account of everything.