Joshua 10:1-5 meaning

Joshua 10:1-5 records the forging of an alliance between five Canaanite kings, in light of the Israelites’ recent military victories.

In the previous chapter, the kings of six Canaanite people groups joined forces to attack Israel when they heard about her victories over Jericho and Ai (Joshua 9). In the present chapter, the news about Israel’s fame continues to spread across Canaan, striking terror in the enemy’s hearts. The narrator introduces us to the leader of a new opposition group, Adoni-zedek, whose name means "my lord is righteous" (v. 1).

Adoni-zedek was the king of Jerusalem, a city located south of the center of Israel, on the edge of one of the highest tablelands in the country. It belonged to the Jebusites before David captured it around 1000 BC and made it the capital of Israel (2 Samuel 5:6-10). During Israel’s conquest, King Adoni-zedek heard that Joshua had captured Ai and had utterly destroyed it (just as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king). That news alarmed him.

This is the first time in Scripture where the name Jerusalem appears in its complete spelling. However, before this chapter, Jerusalem was known as Salem (from the Hebrew word Shalom) which means "peace." Melchizedek was the king of Salem mentioned in Genesis 14:18 and is a prefiguration of Jesus who is the true King of Peace. Psalms 110:4 gives a prophecy of the Messiah who would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The link between Salem and Jerusalem is further strengthened by its kings having the same name structure, Melchi-Zedek and Adoni-Zedek.

Ai was a small Canaanite city. It existed before Abraham (Genesis 12:8, 13:3). The name means "a ruin." According to recent archaeological findings, biblical Ai is the modern archeological site Et-Tell. It was the second city attacked in Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. Joshua burned Ai and killed all its inhabitants (Joshua 8:26). Moreover, he shamed the king of Ai by hanging his body on a tree and throwing his corpse "at the entrance of the city gate" where a stone cairn was raised over it to memorialize the destruction of Ai (Joshua 8:29). Ai was about 15 miles northwest of Jericho.

Jericho was the first city that Israel captured during the campaign. It was in the lower Jordan Valley, west of the Jordan River and about ten miles northwest of the Dead Sea. The Bible calls Jericho the "city of palms" because it had abundant palm trees (Deuteronomy 34:3, Judges 1:16, 2 Chronicles 28:15). It was a secure fortress with formidable walls. During the conquest, the LORD asked His covenant people to perform a seven-day ritual to conquer Jericho, marching around the city each day. At the end of the seven-day parade, God caused the city walls to collapse, allowing the Israelites to capture it and its king (Joshua 6).

The king of Jerusalem heard about these events and was disturbed. Worse yet, he heard that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were within their land. The Gibeonites descended from "the remnant of the Amorites" (2 Samuel 21:2). Their city was in the highland region west of the Jordan River, the modern Palestinian village of el-Jîb. It was about 18 miles west of the Israelite camp at Gilgal.

The news about Israel's victories over Jericho and Ai had prompted the people of Gibeon to approach Israel and solicit a peace treaty under the false pretense that they were a foreign people. Without consulting God, the Israelites made a covenant of peace with them but soon learned they were actually Canaanites who lived in their vicinity. The Israelite congregation grumbled, but their leaders remained faithful to the treaty they had made with the Gibeonites. Nevertheless, to punish the Gibeonites for their lies, Joshua cursed them, making them woodcutters and water carriers for the LORD’s sanctuary (Joshua 9).

When Adonizedek heard about Israel’s victories over Jericho and Ai and how Gibeon surrendered to her, he understood the precarity of his life and that of his people. He feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city (v. 2). Geographically, it was a large town. It was like one of the royal cities, the administrative centers of larger districts (Joshua 9:11). Although it was not a royal town, Gibeon’s strategic location and fortifications gave it the potential to be one.

Moreover, Gibeon was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. This emphasizes how those who heard of the victories of the Israelites and their God were taking the information very seriously. If Gibeon, with all its men who were mighty, sought peace with Israel, then the God of Israel must truly be powerful. The Gibeonites rightfully feared the God of the Israelites. They had heard of the splitting of the red sea, the defeat of Kings Sihon and Og east of the Jordan, and the strong walls of Jericho falling down, because the God of Israel was almighty. The Gibeonites surrendered to Israel “because of the fame of the LORD” (Joshua 9:9). Their reverential fear of Him led them to become perpetual workers for His tabernacle (Joshua 9:27).

Having gathered all this information about Israel’s successes and her alliance with Gibeon, Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, forged a plan (v. 3). He sent word to four other Amorite kings in the region: Hoham of Hebron, Piram of Jarmuth, Japhia of Lachish, and Debir of Eglon. In his mind, a coalition of armies could defeat Israel, so he launched an urgent call to his allies. This seems to be a direct continuation of Joshua 9:1, where the interlude involving the Gibeonites only further motivated the Canaanite kings to commit to alliances to withstand the threat of the Israelites.

The town of Hebron, also known as Kiriath-arba, is about 20 miles south of Jerusalem and less than two miles from Mamre, where Abraham dwelt for quite some time (Genesis 23:2). It is 3000 feet above sea level on the Judean mountain ridge. The city of Jarmuth was in the lowlands of Judah. Its site is upon the present Jebel Yarmuk, about 15 miles southwest of Jerusalem, on the crest of a rocky ridge. Lachish is about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem. It lies on a 50-foot-high, steep-sided tel covering approximately 20 acres. Finally, Eglon was about 56 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem.

The kings of these southern Canaanite towns were neighbors to Adoni-zedek, so he sent an urgent message to them to denounce the traitorous act of Gibeon: Come up to me and help me, and let us attack Gibeon (v. 4). The rationale for this coalition was that Gibeon had made peace with Joshua and the sons of Israel. According to the leader of the southern Canaanite kings, Adoni-zedek, this awful move deserved a punishment to prevent other tribes from attempting to follow in Gibeon’s footsteps.

The four kings responded positively to Adoni-zedek’s request. Thus, the five kings of the Amorites (the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon) gathered together and went up (v. 5). The writer repeats the names of the kings who constituted the confederacy to show that they were of one accord. They and all their armies complied with Adoni-zedek’s proposal, so they camped by Gibeon and fought against it.

This battle of Israel against five kings mirrors the battle Abraham had with four kings in Genesis 14:9. It is also interesting that after this battle, Melchizedek, predecessor to Adoni-zedek, meets Abraham to bless him and give bread and wine (Genesis 14:18-20). Melchizedek worshiped the true God and was, in addition to being king of Jerusalem, also a high priest of some kind to the LORD. Yet, centuries later, his successor Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, fights against the descendants of Abraham.

This highlights how the influence of the disturbingly wicked cultic Canaanite culture (Leviticus 18) had corrupted and removed all worship of the true God in the Land of Canaan (Deuteronomy 7:1-6, 20:16-17). Once, there were men in Canaan who worshipped God; now all defied Him and exploited his neighbor.

God declared to Israel concerning Canaan that “all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:24-27). The corrupt Canaanites were compared to something like a poison which needed to be vomited out of the land.

Melchizedek is noted throughout the Bible as a righteous priest (Psalm 110:1-7) and a foreshadow of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 6:20, 7:1-28), but his descendant, Adoni-zedek, who did not worship God and practiced evil to honor idols and serve selfish sinfulness, is only remembered here, as starting a war against God, hiding in a cave, and losing his life.

Although the Gibeonites were mighty men, they were not capable of defeating a coalition of five armies (Joshua 10:2). After establishing a covenant/treaty of peace with Israel, they thought they would dwell among God’s people peacefully. However, this incensed the other kings in the region. The Amorite kings saw the Gibeonites as a threat and plotted against them. In their mind, defeating the Gibeonites would be a punishment for their betrayal of trust and a warning to other Canaanite cities that might want to follow in Gibeon’s footsteps. Thus, they waged war against the Gibeonites. In the following passage, the Gibeonites will naturally call on their new allies, the Israelites, for aid.