Paragraph 11:10–11

11:10a

At that time Joshua turned back: The verb phrase turned back indicates that Joshua changed directions. He and his soldiers turned south to walk to town of Hazor.

At that time: The phrase At that time indicates that Joshua and the Israelites turned back as part of the same battle as verse 9.

11:10b

and captured Hazor: The clause and captured Hazor indicates that Joshua and his army captured the town of Hazor City. Hazor City was mentioned in 11:1.

and put its king to the sword: The clause put its king to the sword indicates that they killed the king of Hazor City. “Put to the sword” is a Hebrew idiom that was used in 10:32, and it is recommended that you translate it the same way in both places.

Here is another way to translate this Hebrew idiom:

captured Hazor and killed its king (Good News Translation)

11:10c

because: The word because introduces the reason why they attacked the town of Hazor.

Hazor was formerly the head of all these kingdoms: The word formerly indicates the viewpoint of the author of this book, who wrote at a time later than Joshua.

Here are some other ways to translate this word:

at that time (Good News Translation, NET Bible)
-or-
up to this time (Contemporary English Version)

the head of all these kingdoms: The phrase the head of all these kingdoms indicates that the king of Hazor was the leader of the kingdoms who fought against the Israelites.

© 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.