C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Joshua 11:18-20

Jos 11:18-20

Joshua made war with the kings of Canaan a long time; judging from Jos 14:7, Jos 14:10, as much as seven years, though Josephus (Ant. v. 1, 19) speaks of five (see at Jos 14:10). No town submitted peaceably to the Israelites, with the exception of Gibeon: they took the whole in war. “For it was of the Lord” (Jos 11:20), i.e., God ordered it so that they (the Canaanites) hardened their heart to make war upon Israel, that they might fall under the ban, and be destroyed without mercy. On the hardening of the heart as a work of God, see the remarks upon the hardening of Pharaoh (Exo 4:21). It cannot be inferred from this, that if the Canaanites had received the Israelites amicably, God would have withdrawn His command to destroy them, and allowed the Israelites to make peace with them; for when they made peace with the Gibeonites, they did not inquire what as the will of the Lord, but acted in opposition to it (see at Jos 9:14). The remark is made with special reference to this, and has been correctly explained by Augustine (qu. 8 in Jos.) as follows: “Because the Israelites had shown mercy to some of them of their own accord, though in opposition to the command of God, therefore it is stated that they (the Canaanites) made war upon them so that none of them were spared, and the Israelites were not induced to show mercy to the neglect of the commandment of God.”