Joshua 10:33
Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish; and Joshua smote him and his people, until he had left him none remaining. Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish; and Joshua smote him and his people, until he had left him none remaining.
When Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish, Joshua smote him and his people with the edge of the sword until he had left him none remaining, utterly destroying all therein as part of Israel's conquest of several small kingdoms.
The souls destroyed there mean living persons, the whole person and whole being, which is the primary sense of the word in Scripture.
Those souls were mortal and not inherently immortal, for all the persons were slain and destroyed until none remained, proving that a soul can be lifeless and can be killed with the sword.
Joshua's thoroughness in refusing to count the work done while a single enemy still breathed is thorough obedience in wholly following the Lord, wrought with the Captain of Jehovah's hosts present, for to have spared those peoples would have perverted mercy by letting their evil spread.
Conquest and Thorough Obedience
Joshua, whose name means saviour as does Jesus in Greek, did his greatest work at about eighty years of age after leading Israel through the Jordan to conquer foes, divide the land, and bring them toward the promised rest as one of the two of his generation who wholly followed the Lord. When Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish, Joshua smote him and his people with the edge of the sword until he had left him none remaining, utterly destroying all the souls therein, as part of Israel's conquest of several small kingdoms. The smiting left no survivors, in a complete destruction of Horam and his people.
The Captain of Jehovah's hosts was present with Joshua in this smiting, as at Jericho where the invisible army of God leveled the walls. That presence proves how soon the whole land could have been possessed had Israel stayed faithful instead of backsliding at Ai through failure to trust and then living in adversity the years she might have lived in prosperity. Sparing these peoples would have been a perversion of mercy because they would continue to spread the same kind of evil.
Joshua's thoroughness in destroying Horam completely, never counting the day won while a single enemy still breathed and refusing to quit before the work was finished, is thorough obedience in wholly following the Lord. That same thoroughness is the pattern for finishing the work of freeing schools from debt until not one debt is left remaining.
Soul Means Mortal Person
In Joshua 10 the word soul is used in its primary sense in Scripture to mean a person, the whole person and whole being, the entire man and whole creature. It means a living person and a living creature, the person himself, not an immortal part of him or a separate man within a man. When the account says that all the souls in the various cities were slain and destroyed until none remained, it means that all the persons who lived there were slain.
The smiting of Horam king of Gezer and his people until none remained is one of the repeated slayings of so many souls in Joshua 10, meaning so many persons slain. In the destruction of Lachish and of Horam who came to help it, Joshua smote them with the edge of the sword and left none remaining, utterly destroying all the souls therein. The souls there are mortal and not inherently immortal, for they were killed with the sword and destroyed. In the original the term is dead soul, proving a soul can be lifeless and can be killed, illustrating that the soul that sinneth shall die and proving that man became absolutely mortal.