“Y’hoshua said, ‘Roll big stones to the mouth of the cave, and put men there to guard them. However, you, don’t wait, but keep chasing your enemies, and attack those farthest in the rear. Don’t allow them to return to their cities, because Adonai has handed them over to you.'”-Joshua 10:18
So the southern Canaanite alliance consisting of the five kings and their armies have been soundly trounced!
We’re told the kings fled the battle scene and hid in a cave in an area called Makkedah.
However, their whereabouts were soon discovered and reported to Joshua.
At the time, Joshua was still camped at Gilgal with his soldiers and their families, but once he heard the news, he immediately traveled to Gilgal and ordered the cave where the kings were hiding be sealed with huge boulders (covering up the mouth of the cave which was the only way to get in and out).
Now that the kings were safely imprisoned, Joshua and his soldiers had the leeway to shift their attention to the more pressing matter at hand: the destruction of the enemy soldiers.
We’re told of the strategy they used in verse 19:
“…keep chasing your enemies,
and attack those farthest in the rear.”
Since each of the 5 armies were fleeing in different directions, Joshua had to act accordingly by dividing up his forces.
His goal was to take down his enemies kind of like eating a banana: start at one tip and chomp his way up to the other tip.
Joshua was well aware his troops didn’t have the time to race ahead of the enemy forces and cut them off before they reached the protection of their walled cities.
He had no choice but to start killing off the enemy forces from the rear and work his way up to the front of the column in the hopes of slaughtering them all before any of them could make it back to their walled cities.
However, take a look at verse 20:
“After Y’hoshua and the people of Israel had finished killing them off in a very great slaughter, till they had been destroyed, and the remaining remnant had entered the fortified cities“.
While it seems like Israel succeeded in killing off most of the enemy, some of them still got away and made it back to the safety of their fortified cities.
Okay, so what big takeaway am I getting from all this?
One takeaway I’m getting is that while Israel was obedient to the Lord and had already given Israel the victory, Joshua and his forces still had to fight for the victory.
It was a struggle man, involving a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
And so it shall be in our life.
God may have already given us the victory but from what I’m gleaning here, the Lord is not just going to hand it to us on a silver platter.
For whatever reason (I believe for our growth actually), there are times when the Lord wants us to “work” and work hard to grab hold of the victories He has in store for us.
Noah and his family were saved but Noah still had to go out and bust his butt in building that ark.
God had handed over the Promised Land to His People but they still had to fight for it.
And likewise, we too, will have to fight for the victories the Lord has reserved for us.
Talk to you all next time.
Leave a Reply