Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah:
Joshua with all Israel passed onward from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah as the continuing campaign and chronicle of battles for the towns and several small kingdoms of Canaan. That move belonged to a stiff fight in which no city made peace except Gibeon and Joshua took the whole land, living in the camp and marching all night to save Gibeon. Rather than quit before the Amorites were destroyed he prayed for a day of double length, with the sun standing still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, a prayer answered because he refused to quit until the work was done.
Joshua was about eighty years old, one of the two of his generation who wholly followed the Lord through the forty years of temptation and wilderness time, and he had the Captain of Jehovah's hosts with him in every victory. His name means saviour as Jesus does in Greek, and he largely wrote the book recording these victories. The advance was part of dividing the land and setting Israel in a fair way to conquer all foes and find the promised rest, the same work as leading Israel through the Jordan with Jericho as the first-fruit of that evil land falling by the invisible army of God, proving that trust brings triumph and failure to trust brings defeat as at Ai. The land might have been possessed soon in prosperity had Israel been faithful, but general backsliding after Jericho turned years that might have been prosperity into adversity and repeated captivity, and the conquests were necessary because sparing those peoples would have let them continue spreading the same corrupt practices.
In this chapter souls means the whole person, so when the account says the souls in the conquered cities were destroyed and slain it means the people who lived there were killed. The account therefore illustrates that the souls were destroyed, died, were cut off, and went into the grave, so the soul is not immortal and is not a being that exists consciously apart from the person. The victory at Libnah is one of the victories where the record says till they were consumed, he let none remain, he left none remaining but destroyed all that breathed, never counting the day won while a single foeman breathed, and it calls for the same thoroughness in fighting for freedom of schools until of all debts there are left not one remaining.
Joshua with all Israel passed onward from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah as the continuing campaign and chronicle of battles for the towns and several small kingdoms of Canaan. That move belonged to a stiff fight in which no city made peace except Gibeon and Joshua took the whole land, living in the camp and marching all night to save Gibeon. Rather than quit before the Amorites were destroyed he prayed for a day of double length, with the sun standing still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, a prayer answered because he refused to quit until the work was done.
Joshua was about eighty years old, one of the two of his generation who wholly followed the Lord through the forty years of temptation and wilderness time, and he had the Captain of Jehovah's hosts with him in every victory. His name means saviour as Jesus does in Greek, and he largely wrote the book recording these victories. The advance was part of dividing the land and setting Israel in a fair way to conquer all foes and find the promised rest, the same work as leading Israel through the Jordan with Jericho as the first-fruit of that evil land falling by the invisible army of God, proving that trust brings triumph and failure to trust brings defeat as at Ai. The land might have been possessed soon in prosperity had Israel been faithful, but general backsliding after Jericho turned years that might have been prosperity into adversity and repeated captivity, and the conquests were necessary because sparing those peoples would have let them continue spreading the same corrupt practices.
In this chapter souls means the whole person, so when the account says the souls in the conquered cities were destroyed and slain it means the people who lived there were killed. The account therefore illustrates that the souls were destroyed, died, were cut off, and went into the grave, so the soul is not immortal and is not a being that exists consciously apart from the person. The victory at Libnah is one of the victories where the record says till they were consumed, he let none remain, he left none remaining but destroyed all that breathed, never counting the day won while a single foeman breathed, and it calls for the same thoroughness in fighting for freedom of schools until of all debts there are left not one remaining.