Joshua 9. Do you remember in Deuteronomy that God told Israel to totally annihilate all the inhabitants of all the cities in Canaan but they could make a peace treaty with cities outside of Canaan, letting them live if they would become servants to Israel. So the Gibeonites came to Joshua with worn out sandals and clothes, telling him they were from far off and wanted to make a peace treay. Joshua agreed and only 3 days later found out they had deceived him. Gibeon was very close to Gilgal where Israel camped. But Joshua said that he would keep his word and not destroy the Gibeonites, only make them servants.

Joshua 10. Five of the Canaanite kings attacked Gibeon for making this peace treaty with Israel b/c they thought it would weaken the coalition of Canaanite kings willing to fight Israel. They didn’t know that the Gibeonites had deceived Israel. So Joshua marched all night with his army to rescue the Gibeonites. The armies of the 5 kings were slaughtered with the Lord killing many with hailstones (more than the Israelites killed). Joshua needed more time to finish chasing down and killing the Canaanites, so he asked God to make the sun and moon stand still until they finished teh slaughter, and God did so. 9:13 Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. ¹⁴ There was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel. I do believe that this happened. I can’t explain how it happened. I know that scientifically the sun doesn’t even really move across the sky although it looks that way to us and the Bible speaks of it that way in accommodation language. But the Lord who made the sun from nothing and set in motion the laws of planetary orbits could make it stay daylight for an extra day. They finish the slaughter and Joshua killed the 5 Canaanite kings.

Life Lesson: If you were Joshua and you needed more hours of daylight to finish a complete slaughter of the Canaanites, would you have ever thought to ask God to make the sun stand still and give you an extra day of daylight? Have you ever asked God for something really crazy, something really out of the ordinary, something almost miraculous if not miraculous? Don’t be afraid to ask. James says “you have not b/c you ask not”. Think of something that you would really like God to do. Maybe it’s helping you find a mate. Maybe it’s working out a big issue in your marriage. Maybe it’s a major illness or injury that your loved one is facing. Mabye it’s a career change. I’m thinking of something that I want to see happen but there will need to be some big changes first. I’m going to ask God to make it happen and then trust Him, His will be done.

Chapter 10 then describes the conquest of southern Palestine. Chapter 11 describes the conquest of northern Palestine. Chapter 12 names the 31 kings that Joshua and the Israelites defeated and killed.

Chapter 13 begins: 13:1 “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years when the Lord said to him, “You are old and advanced in years (probably in his late 80’s), and very much of the land remains to be possessed.” He is told to give the land of Canaan west of the Jordan River to the 9 1/2 tribes (the half of the tribe of Manasseh) and to give the land east of the Jordan to the 2 1//2 tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. Here is a great map of the land that Israel had not yet conquered as Joshua neared the end of his life. As you can see, there was still a lot of land to be conquered. Unfortunately, they did not finish conquering those lands. Notice they did not conqueer the Philistines and the Philistines will be a major thorn in their side in the future just as God predicted.

The next thing will be the actual division of the parts of Canaan that they did conquer.