History of Israel: The Southern Campaign

After the victories over Jericho and Ai and the reading of the law, Israel is ready to start the next phase of the campaign. However, it starts with a bit of controversy including a covenant that eventually needs to be fulfilled. Fulfilling that covenant is what leads to one of the greatest victories so far in taking the Promised Land.

If you are enjoying Bible Backdrop, please leave a 5 star rating and review. If you want to get in touch with the show, the email is given in the episode. Bible Backdrop is available on Apple, Spotify and wherever podcasts are found.

Transcript

The woman looked up from the chore she was doing. Her name was Tirzah and it had been several weeks since her husband had left with the army. The quick victories at Jericho and Ai seemed long ago, although they had only been a month or so.

It started with a message from the Gibeonites...a request for help. A Canaanite army was marching on them and they asked for Israel to honor their treaty. Joshua gathered the army, including her husband, Ezer, and marched out of the camp. Now was the worst part...the waiting.

Some news had leaked out. A major victory in Gibeon leading to a pursuit of the enemy. Now they were campaigning against the cities in the south...cities she’d never heard of. Messages kept filtering in that Israel was winning. But even victories had costs. The army may be winning...but would she suffer loss?

She shook herself. She couldn’t think like that. Adonai had been gracious and she would trust in Him. And if her husband should not return...she would still trust in Adonai.

A voice called out: “They’re back!” Tirzah ran to the edge of the camp. Sure enough, a great dust cloud rose from the south. She noticed the same look of eagerness in the faces around her. Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers. Would all of them return?

Suddenly she was surrounded by a wave of reunions. The men had mud, dirt and blood caked to them but the families didn’t care. There was joy all around! And yet...she still had not seen her husband. 

Finally, she saw her cousin, Heled, who had gone out with her husband. She ran over to him. “Heled! Have you seen Ezer?!”

He took a deep breath: “His company somehow got cut off in the last battle. You know Ezer though. He kept on fighting. We broke through to them, but Ezer was wounded. He couldn’t make the walk back, so he had to ride in a cart. They should be here soon.”

Tirzah waited, a knot in her stomach. About an hour later she heard it. Creaking wheels, shouted commands, and heavy footsteps. The carts had arrived. 

She couldn’t wait and ran to the carts. There were so many of them! Thankfully, most of them were loaded with plunder from the battles and only a few were needed to haul the wounded. “Ezer!” she shouted. “Ezer!”

 “Tirzah?” a small, weak voice responded. Rushing to the sound of her name, she saw her husband laying in the cart, a large bandage on his leg. 

 “What happened to you?!” she exclaimed.

 “We got too far ahead of the line and found ourselves surrounded. The commander and half the men were killed. I led the rest of us back towards the lines while Heled fought his way to us. By the time they got there, all of us were wounded. I didn’t realize until I couldn’t take another step. That’s when I noticed my leg.”

The cart was moving slow enough for Tirzah to easily keep up. She started removing the bandage, afraid of what she would find underneath. It was a ghastly wound, cut deep into the muscle. But whoever did this knew their stuff. It was packed with healing herbs and a salve was put on top of it.

Back in their tent, Tirzah went to work immediately on replacing the old herbs with new ones and cleaning the wound. The sounds of joyful reunions were interspersed with the bitter cries of those that lost loved ones. The casualty numbers were low, but even one seemed to be too many.

A voice came from outside the tent: “May I come in?” Ezer and Tirzah looked at each other. It was Joshua. “Yes, of course” Tirzah said. His head peaked in to make sure it was ok and then he walked the rest of the way in. Command and authority seemed to surround him at all times.

 “How are you Ezer?” he said.

 “Good sir. I should be fine in a few weeks for the next campaign.”

 “I was told you led the men after your commander was struck down. That you saved men’s lives. I’m sure the families are grateful to you. I’m grateful to you.”

 “Thank you sir”

Joshua came over, looked at the wound and his shook his head. “I’ve seen wounds like this before. Keep the medicine on it and it will heal, but it won’t be the same again. I think your fighting days are done.”

 “But sir…”

 “No buts. You’ve done more than enough and have earned your rest. If you want to help with training or logistics, I would welcome it. But it’s hard to come back from a wound like this and fight again. Now rest and heal up. Tirzah, make sure he follows my orders.”

After he left the tent, Tirzah couldn’t help but smile. If Ezer survived this wound, then her husband would always be home. Maybe then they could then settle down in the land Adonai had promised for them. Maybe then they would have peace.

Hello again everyone and welcome to this episode of Bible Backdrop. Today, we’re going to look at the next stage of the campaign to take the Promised Land. The nation of Israel has just finished conquering Jericho and Ai and conducted a reading of the law at Mount Gerizim and Ebal. At this point, they are ready to take the next steps in the conquest.

We learn that word has gotten out of Israel’s success and one tribe of Canaanites has decided to go a different route. They recognize that Israel is under a mandate and that nothing will stand in their way. So rather than stand and fight, they rely on trickery. This tribe, the Gibeonites, decide to ask for a treaty. Gibeon was located north of Jerusalem and included 3 other cities: Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath Jearim; all of them were in that same general area. Now, Israel was under orders from Yahweh that no treaty was to be done with the Canaanites. They were to either assimilate, surrender and depart the land, or be destroyed. The Gibeonites probably understood this, so they sent some men to the Israelites with worn sandals, patched clothing, dry and dusty wineskins and moldy bread to appear that they came from a great distance. When they arrive, they ask for a treaty and it appears that they are willing to be vassals to the stronger Israelite nation. If you remember from the episode of covenants, this would be a suzerain-vassal covenant and while the vassal had to serve the suzerain, they also expected their protection. At first, the Israelites are skeptical, but they look at the evidence and determine that the Gibeonites are telling the truth. They decide to move ahead and make a covenant with them.

We see here again the same problem Joshua had in attacking Ai. He relied on what was before him and moved ahead without consulting the Lord. Three days later, they enter the Gibeonite land and discover the deception. The people are, shall we say, not pleased. Not only have they been deceived and made a covenant with people they weren’t supposed to, they are probably upset at missing the plunder from those cities. So even though it’s a bad oath, they will not break it for fear of what happened at Ai. Later, in 2 Samuel, we learn that King Saul does break this covenant and it has dramatic consequences.

Joshua, knowing that he has messed up, looks for an out. Since Israel is the suzerain, they are able to demand concessions from the Gibeonites. In this case, Joshua makes them servants of the Lord. They are to be woodcutters and water carriers for the priests which are the most menial jobs and usually performed by the lowest servants or the youngest person in the family. The Gibeonites, rather than be upset, are perfectly fine with the situation. In this way they are allowed to live but aren’t allowed to carry on their religious and cultural practices. 

When word of this gets out, the other kings of Canaan aren’t happy about it. Namely, Adoni-Zedek, king of Jerusalem. He understands that if the Gibeonites don’t want to fight, that is bad for the rest of the Canaanites as the Gibeonites were seen as men of valor and didn’t back away from a battle. Plus, with the Israelites occupying the center of the country and now aligned with the Gibeonites, this now presents a formidable alliance that has essentially cut the land in half. So he decides to call an alliance of the southern kingdoms of Canaan. This includes the city-states of Lachish, Hebron, Jarmuth, and Eglon plus 5 additional Amorite kings. All of these were in the southern part of the land as the northern part had been basically cut off. As any good battlefield commander knows, the best way to win a battle is to divide and conquer. Adoni-Zedek decides to take the allied army to attack the Gibeonites. He’s hoping to draw out the Israelites so he can defeat them, then maybe he can add the Gibeon cities to his domain. The allied army attacks Gibeon and they send word to Joshua. As the suzerain of the covenant, Israel must respond. What looks like a problem becomes a golden opportunity for Joshua. Rather than fight these individual armies in each of their protected cities, they’ve all come out and made themselves available to be attacked. God tells Joshua to not be afraid and that the allied army would not stand against them. He marches the army out of Gilgal in the eastern part of the country and takes them on a forced march of almost 20 miles uphill. This had to be grueling, but it also gives them the element of surprise. The allied army probably had no idea that the Israelites would cover that much ground that quickly. Although certainly exhausted, God must have provided strength because the Bible records that the Israelites attacked and practically wiped out the army. We then see two miracles that happened to make sure that victory was assured. First, reminiscent of the plague in Egypt, God sent large hailstones on the allied army during it’s retreat. This certainly winnowed down the numbers of people that the Israelites had to defeat. Second, Joshua asked for an extension of the day to complete the defeat of the enemies. This has been the cause of much debate and many critics point out the scientific impossibility of this happening. There are several explanations but we may not know the answer this side of heaven. One possibility is a comet got close enough to the Earth to push it 10 degrees off it’s axis. Or the comet was bright enough to provide enough light to continue the battle. It’s also possible that God just held the earth in place for that time. We’re not really sure. Either way, Joshua uses the additional light to continue pursuing the enemy army. The 5 kings of the Canaanite cities retreat to a cave. When discovered, Joshua tells the Israelites to the block the entrance of the cave with rocks so they can continue pursuing the enemy army. This is done and the enemy army is utterly defeated. Any remaining survivors fled to the fortified cities for protection.

With the pursuit of the army complete, Joshua goes back to the 5 kings. Normally, if a king captured another king in battle, that captured king was usually treated well as the other king knows the shoe could be on the other foot one day. Only, in this case, Joshua is not a king and he’s not here to worry about making friends with the populace. He is here to do as God directs and that includes destroying the Canaanite culture. After returning to the cave, he orders the kings to be brought out and tells the Israelite leaders to place their feet on the neck of the kings. This was a brutal and humiliating experience for these kings, but it showed the Israelites that God had allowed them to conquer the kings of the land. Then Joshua executed the kings and hung them on trees as a reminder of those that stand in God’s way. At sundown, he takes them down and buries them in the cave that they originally thought would be their salvation but ended up being their tomb. 

Now that this coalition army is defeated, the Israelite army goes on campaign against the southern city states. With the army destroyed, this job becomes a bit easier as most of the men of military age were killed and the cities are probably defended by those that couldn’t go on campaign. The Bible list 7 cities that were conquered: Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron and Debir. There were almost certainly more towns and cities that were conquered, but these were probably the major ones. Also, numerology being very important to the Israelites, the number 7 is the number of completeness. Essentially, Israel has conquered the entire southern portion of the Promised Land.

So what is this land like? It appears to be a mix of arid deserts and a fertile hill country with olive groves and vineyards. Most of these cities would be in the mountains and foothills. Looking at a map, the spine of hills are in the central part of the southern Promised Land with the desert more to the south and east. This makes sense as during the rainy seasons, the moisture comes from the Mediterranean and makes the area very fertile. Since the rain mostly falls on the hill country, the area east of the hills is mostly desert. 

On that note, I think we’ll end here for now. In the next episode, we’ll talk about the campaign against the northern kings of Canaan. If you are enjoying Bible Backdrop, please subscribe and leave a 5 star rating and review. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can e-mail me at BibleBackdrop@gmail.com. Word of mouth is still the best way for this show to get around, so tell a friend and have them subscribe. You can find Bible Backdrop on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found. Thank you again for listening and have a great week!