“Y’hoshua did to them what Adonai had ordered — he hamstrung their horses and burned up their chariots.“-Joshua 11:9
The Lord basically gave one recorded instruction to Joshua concerning the enemy.
“Hamstring their horses and burn down their chariots”.
So what exactly does “hamstringing” an animal mean?
It’s actually pretty painful to describe.
What it involved was taking a sword and literally slicing the primary tendon called the “hamstring” that runs up and down the back of a horse’s leg.
Once the hamstring was cut, the horse was disabled for life and from that point on, would never be fit for the battlefield.
Also, since the horses were the ones who drove the chariots, which was the main battle weapon of choice, once you disabled all the horses, the chariots also became useless.
Therefore, by destroying both beast and the carriages they pulled, any possible threat of the enemy army rising up again was nipped in the bud for all time and forever.
This time around Joshua and his army wasted no time in launching the attack.
Rather than sitting around waiting to be attacked like what happened last time, they moved quickly against the northern alliance who had sent up their headquarters at Merom.
This was a daring move and the northern coalition was probably taken off guard when the Israelite army suddenly showed up at their doorstep.
We’ll continue this discussion the next time we meet.
I know biblical Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible well but I am not sure about the specific meaning of ‘hamstring’ here. it seems to go against the spirit of the Bible that God would order to torture animals instead of simply killing them, which would perfectly do the job here. There are a number of passages that show God’s concern about animal welfare (e.g. Prov. 12.10). I do not believe that the end justifies the means in biblical ethics. Exegesis should be coherent.
Good points.