Joshua 12:7-24

LIST OF THE KINGS SUBDUED BY JOSHUA, Joshua 12:7-24.

[This list is acknowledged by the most rationalistic critics to be a very ancient document. Ewald speaks of it as “a record of remarkable interest in many ways. Its distinctive antiquity would be sufficiently evident from its enumeration of cities which in those early days were great and powerful, but which afterwards sank into absolute insignificance, or were never heard of again.” It was not improbably composed by Joshua himself. A number of the kings here mentioned are not otherwise known, but so far as the previous history throws light on it this list follows mainly the order of the conquest. On the apparent exceptions see note on Joshua 12:16.

From the fulness of this list as compared with the previous history we at once see that it was no object of the compiler of the Book of Joshua to record a complete history of all the wars and conquests of Joshua. He has given a detailed account of only the most important, but enough to show, together with this list, that under the administration of the great captain the whole land was subdued.]