SIL Translator’s Notes on Joshua 10:30

10:30a

And the LORD also delivered that city and its king into the hand of Israel: The clause the LORD also delivered that city and its king into the hand of Israel indicates that Yahweh gave Joshua and the Israelite army the power to defeat the king and the town of Libnah. They captured the town of Libnah as they had captured the town of Makkedah.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

The Lord also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand (New International Version)
-or-
The Lord also gave the Israelites victory over this city and its king (Good News Translation)

10:30b

and Joshua: There are two ways to understand the pronoun “he,” which the Berean Standard Bible translates as Joshua.

(1) The pronoun “he” refers to Joshua and the Israelite army. For example:

the city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword (New International Version)

(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, NET Bible, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, Good News Translation, New Living Translation (2004), New Century Version, Contemporary English Version)

(2) The pronoun “he” refers to Yahweh. For example:

and he struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it (English Standard Version)

(English Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, God’s Word, New American Bible, Revised Edition, King James Version)

It is recommended that you follow option (1). The pronoun “he” probably to refers to Joshua as the representative of the Israelite army, or to the Israelite army itself.

put all the people to the sword: The Hebrew clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as put all the people to the sword is an idiom. It indicates that Joshua and his army killed every person in the town of Libnah.

Here is another way to translate this Hebrew idiom:

he killed all the people (God’s Word)
-or-
killed every person in it (Good News Translation)

10:30c

leaving no survivors: The clause leaving no survivors indicates that there were no people still alive in Libnah after the Israelite army attacked it. This information was stated in a positive manner in the previous part of the verse. It is restated here negatively. This is a way to emphasize that every single person died.

Here is another way to translate 30b-c:

Joshua ⌊and his army⌋ killed everyone in Libnah with their swords, leaving no survivors

10:30d

And he did to the king of Libnah as he had done to the king of Jericho: The clause he did to the king of Libnah as he had done to the king of Jericho is similar to the clause in 10:28d. It indicates that Joshua killed the king of Libnah. You should translate this in a similar way to 10:28d.

It may be helpful to begin a new sentence here. For example:

Then Joshua killed the king of Libnah as he had killed the king of Jericho (New Living Translation (2004))

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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