Yehoshua Pereq 10
The voluntary surrender of Givon, a great and powerful city, increased alarm among the kings of Canaan. Five kings of the southern region of the land came together to lay siege to Givon as a kind of reprisal for what they perceived as a treacherous act of treason, making peace with enemy invaders. The citizens of Givon sent word to Yehoshua to request military support in defending them from this attack – they had little chance of surviving a battle against the united armed forces of five kingdoms.
Yehoshua responded by intervening with a surprise attack and soundly defeating the five kings, who flee from before the army of Israel. Those who escape find themselves in the midst of a divinely orchestrated and deadly hailstorm that claims more of their lives than the battle itself had.
One of the most famous and startling moments in Tanakh is recorded in this chapter – Yehoshua called upon Hashem before all of Israel, and said “may the sun be still in Givon and the moon in the valley of Ayalon”, and his prayer was answered. According to the traditional understanding of the text, the verses indicate that sun and moon literally remained in place for a full twenty-four hours, until such time as the Jewish people had fully and decisively triumphed over their enemies. However, in my weekly in-depth analysis of our Nakh content on Thursday evening, I will be delving into a variety of interpretations of this passage and will suggest a surprisingly different approach…stay tuned.
Yehoshua urged his soldiers to pursue their enemies with alacrity and not to allow them to find refuge again in their walled cities. He also ensured that the five kings, who had hidden themselves in a cave, were trapped inside and not able to escape. He eventually ordered his men to lead them out of the cave and lay them upon the ground, and instructed his officers to place their feet upon the necks of these kings in a sign of triumph. He reminded them that this success was granted to them by Hashem, who would continue to assist them in their military campaigns as long as they remained committed to His Torah. The five kings were executed by hanging, but were left there only until sunset, at which time they were buried in the cave that had initially served as their hiding place.
Building on this momentum, Yehoshua proceeded to conquer several other key southern targets, including Maqedah, Livnah, Lakhish, Gezer, Eglon, Hevron, and Devir, before finally returning to their camp at Gilgal. The Navi notes that all of these regimes were defeated at one time because Hashem enabled the Jewish people to achieve their military objectives in a miraculously fast, efficient and decisive manner.
The initial attack on Givon was a test for the Jewish people. After all, the Givonim had misled them, and the Israelite alliance with Givon was based upon false premises from the outset. The Jews certainly could have allowed them to be decimated by the five kings and could have dismissed it as their “just desserts”. However, they stood by their word and defended their new allies, and in so doing they took advantage of a rare golden opportunity to defeat five kings simultaneously – kings who resided in heavily fortified locations and each of whom would have required a separate, and possibly lengthy, military campaign to overthrow.
Another significant thematic element to this chapter is the connection between Yehoshua and Avraham. Of course, Avraham Avinu was the first Jew to relocate to Israel and settle there; the promise to bequeath the land to us was initially made to him! It seems like no accident that these first battles of conquest take place in precisely the location that Avraham Avinu camped.
Moreover, the five kings who lay siege to Givon evoke a memory of the war of the four and five kings as recorded in Parashat Lekh-Lekha, when, like Yehoshua, Avraham was faced with the dilemma of whether to get involved in a military campaign on behalf of someone who “didn’t deserve it.” In the case of Avraham, the motive for involvement was to protect Lot, the “wayward” nephew who had left him and his holy path and gone to live in Sodom. In the story of Avraham, a nighttime surprise attack allows a smaller band of fighters to overcome a larger and physically stronger one (four kings who had previously defeated five kings), and so too here in the story of Yehoshua.
Undoubtedly, this story is meant to emphasize to us the reenactment of Avraham’s personal life story through the lives of his descendants and to relate their conquest of the land and the fulfillment of Hashem’s promises in the time of Yehoshua back to the original promises that were made to Avraham and actions that he himself took when he arrived there centuries earlier. Through identifying with their illustrious forefather, the Jews under the leadership of Yehoshua demonstrated that they intended to continue the Abrahamic legacy and that they would be worthy recipients of the blessings that he secured for his descendants.