Joshua 11-12
Summary
Big Idea: The victory has been won by God, through Joshua so that there is rest.
Biblical Theology: Our salvation is also won by God, in Jesus so we can enter God’s rest.
Application: Review the book so far and the various applications we’ve had.
Leaders’ Notes
This passage finishes off the first section of Joshua and while the first part of chapter 11 is
new material, most of it is summary and even the new material reinforces themes we’ve
already seen.
Study
Announcements
Pray
Read Joshua 11:1-5
What do 11:1-3 remind you of? What’s happening?
They sound a bit like 9:1 and a lot like 10:1-4. One of the kings of the land is forming a
coalition to take on Israel.
11:1 says “When Jabin king of Hazor heard of this”, what might he have heard?
Presumably about the victory that Israel won in chapter 10 in another region of the
promised land.
Why would he react to that by getting a coalition together?
He feels threatened and probably realises that left alone he will lose eventually. On the
other hand it is a bit crazy. Israel beat the last coalition and did it easily.
How does this army compare to the previous army?
See verse 4. There was no mention of horses and chariots previously and the previous army
wasn’t described as “as numerous as sand on the seashore”. This is a bigger stronger army
than the previous one.
Read Joshua 11:6-15
What happens?
God gives Israel the victory and gives it to them pretty easily.
What is the significance of God handing them over to Israel “by this time
tomorrow”?
This was a huge army (v4), to have defeated them in a day is an incredible victory that they
can only have because God hands them over.
What’s going on with hamstringing the horses and burning the chariots?
See Deuteronomy 17:16 for some background. Horses and chariots are used for war. To
accumulate horses and chariots is to grow the strength of an army, which Israel is not to do
and doesn’t need to do because God fights for Israel. Horses and chariots may lead Israel to
trust in their own strength not in God. (On the other hand you don’t want another army to
have the horses and chariots to use against you because you just left them lying around).
What happens in verses 10-15?
Having beaten the army, Joshua now takes the cities that had been part of the coalition
(clearly this doesn’t happen in the day mentioned in v6 but following the victory in that
battle).
Read Joshua 11:16-23
What is the author doing in this section?
He’s summarizing what’s happened not just in this chapter but up to this point in the book.
Somewhere in this section you may like to look at the map that I’ve put at the end. Use it
whenever you think best but try to get the answer about not all of the land having been
taken from the text first.
How much of the land has Joshua taken?
In v23 “Joshua took the entire land” but in v22 we see that Joshua has not taken at least
Gaza, Gath and Ashdod.
In what sense has Joshua not taken the whole land?
In the sense that there were still areas where other people were living and that Israel hasn’t
yet fought. (It’s important that people know this, lots of people think Joshua and Judges
contradict each other on this point, though in fact here and later in Joshua, eg. 13:1, it is
clear that they have not yet taken the whole land physically.)
Is that a bad thing?
See Deut 7:22-23. To some extent leaving some of the Canaanites in the land initially is
beneficial for Israel. It’s only a problem if they then don’t get around to actually driving them
out and are led astray by them (which is what we discover happens in Judges).
In what sense has Joshua taken the entire land?
Israel is in now the clearly dominate force in the land and in that sense they are in charge. A
parallel in Australian history might be that the English were genuinely in control and had
“won” the land well before they encountered every Aboriginal living in the remote parts of
Australia.
What did you think when you read v18?
It’s possible people didn’t think anything at all but it strikes me that it didn’t feel like that as
you read Joshua. It sounded like it all happened very quickly and easily. The fact that it took
a long time highlights Joshua and Israel’s faithfulness more clearly – they weren’t just faithful
over a short period but for a long time and it would have been harder than it has sounded
in the narrative so far.
What are verses 19-20 saying?
It was God’s will that these nations should be destroyed and so he hardened their hearts so
that they would join together to take on Israel and lose. The context for this is Gen 15:16 –
the time has now come for the Amorites to be judged and it is too late for repentance.
Pharaoh provides a useful parallel. He hardened his own heart because of his own sinfulness,
which brought God’s judgement, part of which involved God hardening Pharaoh’s heart so
that he didn’t let Israel go and the plague of the firstborn came upon Egypt. This verse is
going to be emotionally difficult for some in the group but we need to maintain both God’s
freedom and sovereignty and human responsibility.
The summary ends with reference to the Anakites. Who are the Anakites?
It’s unlikely that anyone will know this off the top of their head. Go to Deuteronomy 1:28.
The Anakites are the big scary people that made Israel afraid to go into the land the first
time. Now they have been defeated buy Israel.
What is the significance of the final statement in v23 “Then the land had rest
from war”?
Rest is the goal. Creation ends with God resting and Hebrews 4 makes clear that entering
God’s rest is still the goal. That the land is now at rest means that the goal has been
achieved (even if they haven’t yet finished driving everyone out), they are now at peace in
the land that God has given them, living under his rule unopposed.
Read Joshua 12
What is this chapter trying to show?
It gives the evidence for what has just been said in chapter 11.
What are verses 1-6 dealing with?
The land east of the Jordan that was conquered under Moses.
What are verses 7-24 dealing with?
The land west of the Jordan conquered under Joshua.
(There’s not really a lot to say about chapter 12, it gives a summary of the battles won and
highlights Israel’s great victory by listing the defeated kings)
These chapters finish off the first section of the book of Joshua and do it partly
by summarising what has happened. What are some of themes that we’ve been
seeing all the way through Joshua that come together here?
It doesn’t matter what order these come in. If there’s time get them to talk about where
else we’ve seen them in the book. This section of the study should function as a kind of
revision / consolidation of the studies so far.
It is God who is giving Israel the victory.
We’ve seen this in every battle – at Jericho God gives the plan and the way the walls fall
down showed that it was God who had done it. At Ai they lose when God is not with them
and then win when he is with them and gives them the strategy. In chapter 10 the author
points out that the hailstones killed more people than the Israelites. Here there is no
obvious miraculous event but the victory comes much more quickly than you would expect
and two of the phrases we have seen lots before are present: v6 “I will hand all of them
over”, v8 “the LORD gave them into the hand of Israel”. There is also the reference to God
hardening their hearts so that he might destroy them.
The obedience of Joshua and the Israelites is highlighted.
We’ve seen two presentations of this theme. One pattern used all the way through Joshua
is God commanding something and then almost identical words being used to highlight
Joshua’s/Israel’s obedience to what was commanded, which is what we see here in v9. A
second is in Joshua doing what God had commanded through Moses. This is particularly
prevalent here: see 11:12, 15, 20, 23.
Joshua’s leadership and continuity with Moses
This was an important theme at the beginning of the book and has never disappeared
although the studies have focussed on it less. It comes out here especially in11:15 but also in
the structure of chapter 12 which places what Moses did and what Joshua has done side by
side in a summary of what has been achieved – they are shown to be working towards the
same goal here.
As we look at the summary of what has been accomplished and how it has been
accomplished, how does it point us forward to the work of Jesus?
Since this is a summary chapter it will point us forward in similar ways to previous chapters.
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The victory is entirely of God. We don’t earn our salvation and we cannot achieve it by
our own work. Through Jesus God gives us the victory.
The victory comes through God’s leader who is obedient to God and who stands in
continuity with Moses.
Jesus’ victory opens the way for us to enter God’s rest.
As we’ve read this first section of Joshua, what has stood out to you about God’s
character?
There are a lot of possible answers to this question. The aim of the question is to draw
together and reflect on what we’ve done so far. Some possible answers: God’s power, his
rule over history and nations, his generosity to his people, his holiness and intolerance of
sin, his faithfulness to his word, etc. One possible direction to take is a discussion about the
accusation some people make that the God of the OT is different to the God of the NT.
How do we reconcile the God we meet in Joshua with the God we meet in Jesus and in the
NT? A useful way forward is to talk about the fact that there has always been a big
difference between the way God relates to his people and the way he relates to those who
are not his people. This will be uncomfortable for some.
What’s the right response for us as we understand more of who God is and how
he works through Jesus?
Your answer to this question will depend to a pretty large extent on the answers you got to
the last question. The applications will be similar to the ones we’ve had previous weeks –
obedience, thankfulness, trusting Jesus, faithfulness etc. You’ll just need to go where the
group takes you.
Regions Conquered Under
Joshua1
1
Bimson, J. J., J. P. Kane, J. H. Paterson, D. J. Wiseman, and D. R. W. Wood, New Bible
Atlas, (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press) 2000, c1985.