Section 10:1–27 Five Canaanite Kings attacked the Israelites

The kings of five Canaanite towns joined together to fight against Gibeon. Because the Israelites had a peace treaty with Gibeon, they helped them in their fight. Yahweh helped the Israelites by sending down hailstones on the Canaanites, and by causing the sun to stop moving so that the Israelites could continue their victory. The five Canaanite kings were captured and put to death.

Here are some other possible section headings:

Israel defeated the Canaan group
-or-
The sun stood still

Paragraph 10:1–5

10:1a

Now: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Now introduces a series of dependent clauses in 1a-e.

Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard: In 9:1–2 the kings who ruled on the west side of the Jordan River heard about Joshua and the amazing things that Yahweh had done for the Israelites. In 10:1 the kings who ruled in Southern Canaan heard similar news. The word heard at the beginning of chapters 9, 10, and 11 gives a thematic unity to these chapters. It is recommended that you translate the word heard at the beginning of each of these chapters in a way that keeps this thematic unity but is also natural in your language.

Adoni-zedek: The name Adoni-zedek means “My master is righteous” in Hebrew. Some English versions hyphenate this name and other versions write it as one word. For example:

Adonizedek (Good News Translation)

Jerusalem: At this time Jerusalem was a Canaanite town. The people of Israel did not yet live there.

that Joshua had captured Ai: The clause Joshua had captured Ai indicates that Joshua and his army captured the town of Ai, and defeated it.

10:1b

and devoted it to destruction: The phrase devoted it to destruction indicates that Joshua and his army completely destroyed the town and everything in it. There was nothing left but rubble.

10:1c

doing to Ai and its king: The clause doing to Ai and its king means that Joshua and his army killed the people who lived in the town of Ai and also killed the king of Ai.

as he had done to Jericho and its king: The clause as he had done to Jericho means that Joshua treated these two towns in the same way. He killed the people of Jericho along with their king, and he also killed the people who lived in Ai and their king.

10:1d

and that the people of Gibeon: The phrase the people of Gibeon refers to the people who lived in the towns of Gibeon.

had made peace with Israel: The clause made peace with Israel refers to the peace treaty that the Gibeonite leaders made with the Israelite leaders.

10:1e

and were living near them: The clause were living near them indicates that the Gibeonites lived in the same area as the Israelites.

General Comment on 10:1a-e

This sentence in the Berean Standard Bible is long and complex. The main verb of the sentence does not come until verse 2. Verse 1 consists of background information. The first action in the story is in verse 2. It may be clearer in some languages to translate verse 1 as two or three independent sentences. For example:

1a Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had captured 1b and completely destroyed Ai 1c and killed its king just as he had destroyed the town of Jericho and killed its king. 1d He also learned that the Gibeonites had made peace with Israel 1e and were now their allies. (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.