Joshua 12:1

With this chapter the first half of the Book of Joshua is completed, and appropriately enough, this first section is concluded with a broad summary of the Conquest of Canaan. This conquest required a long war of at least seven years duration, and the Book of Joshua does not present any thorough history of that war, but rather confines its report to those events of particular bearing upon Israel's relation to God, and to His redemptive purpose for mankind. This first half of the book deals principally with Israel's taking of the land of the Canaanites, and the second half of it is concerned chiefly with the division of the territory of Canaan among the individual tribes. "The first part of the book closes with Joshua's triumph, and the second ends with the record of his death."[1]

This chapter begins with a description of the Trans-Jordanian (eastward) conquests of Sihon and Og by Moses and Israel and the settlement of the two and one half tribes east of Jordan, as allowed by Moses. The author here evidently had two purposes in view by his placement of Joshua 12:1-6, as suggested by Woudstra, as follows: (1) "To draw a parallel between Moses and Joshua, and (2) to stress the unity of all Israel."[2]

In the second division of this chapter (Joshua 12:7-24); (1) "The kings in Southern Canaan are listed first (Joshua 12:9-16); and (2) the kings in Northern Canaan are listed last."[3]

Longacre attributed this chapter, indeed the first half of Joshua, to, "JE, RD, and P;"[4] and Morton thought this chapter came from "D."[5] Our own opinion is that it came from JOSHUA! We cannot believe that P, or D, or J, or E, or R, or any of the rest of those imaginary writers were eye-witnesses or participants in the events here outlined. More recent scholarship is beginning to see the impossibility of receiving such allegations regarding the source of Biblical books. Boling, for example, writes: "It must be admitted, however, that there is no direct evidence to show that the label `P' (or any other label, J.B.C.) must be placed on this chapter."[6] The death of all allegations of various sources for Biblical books is in three simple words: NO DIRECT EVIDENCE! Furthermore, we declare unequivocally that "there are no prior documents that were copied to make up the holy Bible." If Biblical enemies want to get their "prior sources" accepted by believers, let them produce the documents! Joshua is simply not a piecemeal kind of book. As Lilley put it, "The overall effect (of merely reading it) emphasizes the unity of the book."[7]

"Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land beyond the Jordan toward the sunrising, from the valley of the Arnon unto mount Hermon, and all the Arabah eastward: Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley and half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon; and the Arabah unto the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and unto the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Bethjeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah: and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who dwelt at Ashteroth and at Edrei, and ruled in mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, unto the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. Moses the servant of Jehovah and the children of Israel smote them: and Moses the servant of Jehovah gave it for a possession unto the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh."

"Chinneroth ..." (Joshua 12:3). This body of water is called Chinneroth, Tiberias, Gennessereth, and Galilee in the Bible, also with variations of "Sea of ..." or "Lake ..." in each instance. The "Sea of the Arabah" is the Dead Sea. Pisgah was a dramatic promontory overlooking the Arabah, which is the great rift in the earth in which the whole Jordan and the Dead Sea are found. "Pisgah lay near the northeastern corner of the Dead Sea."[8] "`Beth-jeshimoth' means `house of wastes,'"[9] an appropriate name indeed for a strip of land lying northeast of the Dead Sea and adjacent to it; "It is described by travelers as the most arid portion of the whole land."[10]

As for the scope of the territories that belonged to Sihon and Og, they may be described thus: between them, they controlled all of the Trans-Jordan eastward from the Jordan Valley, with the Jabbok river lying between their territories. Og controlled the northern area as far as mount Hermon, and Sihon controlled the southern sector south of the Jabbok. The mention of "half of Gilead," indicates that the rather indefinite area called "Gilead" was divided about equally between Sihon and Og. (For further details regarding the conquest of Transjordania eastward, see notes, above on Deuteronomy, chapters 2,3. Also, see Vol. 3 in this series of commentaries, under Numbers 21.)

"The Rephaim ..." (Joshua 12:4). "These were one of the various tribes of giants, like the Anakims, Zuzims, Emims, of whom we read in the land of Canaan."[11] It is of interest here that Og had two palaces, living both at Ashtaroth and Edrei. Matthew Henry commented that, "Israel took both from him, and made one grave to serve him that could not be content with one palace!"[12]