Joshua 10: Joshua And The Very, Very Long Day Series

Introduction: Not everybody was pleased to hear about Israel’s victories at Jericho and Ai! The first two verses of Joshua 9 mention several kings of several groups decided they were going to fight against Israel. Of course, they must have hoped that delaying, if not destroying, Israel would make things better for them. And imagine the shock when they discovered the whole four-city group of Hivites known as Gibeonites had surrendered unconditionally to Israel!

Apparently from that group, one king recruited four other kings so that they could join forces against Israel. Oddly enough, they chose to attack Gibeon! But Israel had made a covenant with Gibeon and they were going to defend their new allies. The text gives more information:

1 The Assault Against Gibeon

Text, Joshua 10:1-5, KJV: 1 Now it came to pass, when Adonizedek king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them; 2 That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty. 3 Wherefore Adonizedek king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying, 4 Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. 5 Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it.

Somewhere I remember a saying that went something like this, “Peace is so precious because it is so rare!” That was certainly the case for the Gibeonites and others of these four nations who had completely surrendered to Israel. The details of this event are found in Joshua chapter 9.

Now, not only had the Gibeonites heard about the absolute destruction of Jericho and Ai, large and small cities respectively, other kings or leaders had heard about this, too! And even though Israel seemed to still be camping near Gilgal, near the Jordan River (see verse 6), the king of Jerusalem believed he was next on Israel’s list of targets. He decided, if you can’t beat them, join against them (to edit a popular maxim) and sent off a request for military assistance to four other kings of cities in Canaan.

We should pause for a moment and think how far Jerusalem had fallen in a relatively short time. During the days of Abraham, Melchizedek (meaning “King of Peace”) was king of Salem, another name for Jerusalem. Abraham (then, “Abram”) had met him when returning after the battle of the kings in Genesis 14. Melchizedek was not only king, but priest of The Most High God, Whom Abram equated with the LORD or Jehovah/Yahweh (Gen. 14:22). Bur from Abram’s day to Joshua’s day, the whole land of Canaan seemed to be full of idols and those who worshiped these things. The true faith, some have observed, is only one generation from becoming extinct and other events, such as what the Bible records, prove that statement.

At this time, Adonizedek (note the change, from “king” to “lord” of righteousness! in this king’s name), as mentioned, seemed to be furious that Gibeon and the other three cities had completely surrendered to Israel. Arthur W. Pink gives a detailed study of this series of events, available on-line at https://godrules.net/library/pink/43pink_d12.htm (this link covers parts of chapter 9 but there is a link to go to the next article). In brief, no matter how much Adonibezek had regarded Gibeon before, he hated them and the others now and decided to fight against them.

And Adonibezek reached out to city-states and their kings located a good distance away! Looking at the on-line Bible atlas (https://bibleatlas.org/full/gibeon.htm Jerusalem is called “Jebus” on this map), some of these places were one or two days’ march away from Gibeon. Besides this, there was a river or at least a river bed (wadi?) to cross before anybody could do much to Gibeon itself.

The other four kings were not bothered or troubled by either the distance or the water/river bed, They and their armies all joined together with Adonibezek’s forces and camped against Gibeon, making war against it. Dr. Pink, in the source cited, noted that usually warfare was not so much a direct attack against an enemy so much as it was a siege. This meant the attackers simply camped around the city until the ones inside either made a counter-attack, surrendered, or gave up due to starvation. Jerusalem itself, once under Israelite rule, suffered this very thing more than once. The strategy was cruel, but generally it worked. Hunger, after all, can be a powerful motivation.