As you advanced again represents the Hebrew “from your faces” (Revised Standard Version “before you”). It will not be necessary to express this in translation, if this meaning is clearly enough understood apart from an explicit statement of it.
Panic translates a Hebrew word which some have understood to mean “hornet” (see Revised Standard Version), used figuratively. As Soggin explains, it “is not the ‘wasp’ or ‘hornet’ … but ‘dismay,’ a typical consequence of divine intervention in the course of holy war” (see 2.11; and see the use of the word in Exo 23.28; Deut 7.20). I threw them into panic may be translated either “I caused them to panic” or “I caused them to fear and tremble.” It is highly probable that an acceptable idiomatic expression of the proper level may be found in many languages.
The two Amorite kings are Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan (see 2.26–3.11), whose territory was on the east side of the Jordan, not on the west side, in Canaan proper. This phrase seems misplaced (see Bright), and New American Bible shifts it back to verse 8, where it is more fitting; but there is no manuscript evidence to support this.
The last part of verse 12 and verse 13 emphasize again that the victories won by the Israelites were not the result of their skill and valor as fighters, but were due to the Lord’s power. Your swords and bows had nothing to do with it may be translated without naming the specific weapons: “Your weapons and strength had nothing to do with it.” It is possible also to translate by both a positive and negative statement: “I defeated them for you. It was not your own strength and weapons that did it.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .