21 Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel: Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And at that time came Joshua, etc Of the sons of Anak we have spoken elsewhere. They were a race of giants, with the account of whose mighty stature the spies so terrified the people, that they refused to proceed into the land of Canaan. Therefore, seeing they were objects of so much dread, it was of importance that they should be put out of the way, and the people made more alert by their good hopes of success. It would have been exceedingly injurious [1] to keep objects which filled them with alarm and anxiety always present before their minds, inasmuch as fear obscured the glory ascribed to God for former victories, and overthrew their faith, while they reflected that the most difficult of all their contests still awaited them. Therefore, not without cause is it mentioned among the other instances of divine aid, that by purging the land of such monsters, it was rendered a fit habitation for the people. The less credible it seemed that they could be warred against with success, the more illustriously was the divine power displayed.
1 - Latin, "Perquam noxium." French, "Fort dangereuse;" "Very dangerous." -- Ed.
At that time - i. e. in course of the "long time" mentioned in Joshua 11:18.
The Anakims - See Numbers 13:22. As it was the report of the spies respecting the Anakims which, above all, struck terror into the Israelites in the wilderness, and caused their faithless complaining and revolt, so the sacred writer goes back here in his story to record pointedly the overthrow of this gigantic and formidable race. They had their chief settlements in the mountains around Hebron Joshua 10:3 or Debir. See Joshua 15:15.
Anab was a city in the mountain district of Judah, lying some distance south of Hebron. It still bears its ancient name.
Cut off the Anakims - from Hebron, from Debir - This is evidently a recapitulation of the military operations detailed Joshua 10:36-41.
Destroyed - their cities - That is, those of the Anakims; for from Joshua 11:13 we learn that Joshua preserved certain other cities.
And at that time came Joshua,.... After he had made a conquest of the land, or at the time he made it, as before related:
and cut off the Anakims from the mountains; whither, upon the conquest of the land, they had betaken themselves, and lived in dens and caves: these were giants, so called from Anak the father of them; though these are not to be restrained to his posterity, but include all other giants in the land; and the Targum renders the word by "mighty men"; and as some of them dwelt in mountains, others in cities, as follows:
from Hebron; where the children of Anak dwelt when the spies were sent into the land between forty and fifty years before this; and though the inhabitants of Hebron had been before destroyed by Joshua, these Anakims, who very likely then made their escape, returned and took possession of it after Joshua's departure, and while he was engaged in making other conquests; as we find that after this others of the same race again possessed it, and were in the possession of it after the death of Joshua, when they were slain by the tribe of Judah, Judges 1:10; from Debir: where others of them also had got after the conquest of it; unless we suppose, as I see no great reason to object to it, that these were cut off both at Hebron and Debir, at the time of the taking of them, of which see Joshua 10:36,
from Anab; a city which fell to the lot of the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:50. Jerom (g) says, in his time it was a village, near Diospolis or Lydda, about four miles from it to the east, and called Bethoannaba; but he says, that most affirm it to be eight miles from it, and called Bethannaba: Masius conjectures, that it is the same with the city of Nob; for, he says, that travellers in those parts affirm, that the city Nob is called Bethanoba and Bethanopolis:
and from all the mountains of Judah; the hill country of Judea, and the mountains round about Jerusalem:
and from all the mountains of Israel; as those about Samaria, and elsewhere:
Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities; which they had formerly inhabited, or had got into the possession of.
(g) De loc. Hebrews. fol. 88. C.
In Joshua 11:21, Joshua 11:22, the destruction of the Anakites upon the mountains of Judah and Israel is introduced in a supplementary form, which completes the history of the subjugation and extermination of the Canaanites in the south of the land (Josh 10). This supplement is not to be regarded either as a fragment interpolated by a different hand, or as a passage borrowed from another source. On the contrary, the author himself thought it necessary, having special regard to Numbers 13:28, Numbers 13:31., to mention expressly that Joshua also rooted out from their settlements the sons of Anak, whom the spies in the time of Moses had described as terrible giants, and drove them into the Philistine cities of Gaza, Bath, and Ashdod. "At that time" points back to the "long time," mentioned in Joshua 11:18, during which Joshua was making war upon the Canaanites. The words "cut off," etc., are explained correctly by Clericus: "Those who fell into his hands he slew, the rest he put to flight, though, as we learn from Joshua 15:14, they afterwards returned." (On the Anakim, see at Numbers 13:22.) They had their principal settlement upon the mountains in Hebron (el Khulil, see Joshua 10:3), Debir (see at Joshua 10:38), and Anab. The last place (Anab), upon the mountains of Judah (Joshua 15:50), has been preserved along with the old name in the village of Anb, four or five hours to the south of Hebron, on the eastern side of the great Wady el Khulil, which runs from Hebron down to Beersheba (Rob. Pal. ii. p. 193). "And from all (the rest of) the mountains of Judah, and all the mountains of Israel:" the latter are called the mountains of Ephraim in Joshua 17:15. The two together form the real basis of the land of Canaan, and are separated from one another by the large Wady Beit Hanina (see Rob. Pal. ii. p. 333). They received their respective names from the fact that the southern portion of the mountain land of Canaan fell to the tribe of Judah as its inheritance, and the northern part to the tribe of Ephraim and other tribes of Israel.
(Note: The distinction here made may be explained without difficulty even from the circumstances of Joshua's own time. Judah and the double tribe of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) received their inheritance by lot before any of the others. But whilst the tribe of Judah proceeded into the territory allotted to them in the south, all the other tribes still remained in Gilgal; and even at a later period, when Ephraim and Manasseh were in their possessions, all Israel, with the exception of Judah, were still encamped at Shiloh. Moreover, the two parts of the nation were now separated by the territory which was afterwards assigned to the tribe of Benjamin, but had no owner at this time; and in addition to this, the altar, tabernacle, and ark of the covenant were in the midst of Joseph and the other tribes that were still assembled at Shiloh. Under such circumstances, then, would not the idea of a distinction between Judah, on the one hand, and the rest of Israel, in which the double tribe of Joseph and then the single tribe of Ephraim acquired such peculiar prominence, on the other, shape itself more and more in the mind, and what already existed in the germ begin to attain maturity even here? And what could be more natural than that the mountains in which the "children of Judah" had their settlements should be called the mountains of Judah; and the mountains where all the rest of Israel was encamped, where the "children of Israel" were gathered together, be called the mountains of Israel, and, as that particular district really belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, the mountains of Ephraim also? (Joshua 19:50; Joshua 20:7; also Joshua 24:30.))
Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod were towns of the Philistines; of these Gaza and Ashdod were allotted to the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:47), but were never taken possession of by the Israelites, although the Philistines were sometimes subject to the Israelites (see at Joshua 13:3). - With Joshua 11:23, "thus Joshua took the whole land" etc., the history of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua is brought to a close; and Joshua 11:23, "and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel," forms a kind of introduction to the second part of the book. The list of the conquered kings in Josh 12 is simply an appendix to the first part.
The taking of the whole land does not imply that all the towns and villages to the very last had been conquered, or that all the Canaanites were rooted out from every corner of the land, but simply that the conquest was of such a character that the power of the Canaanites was broken, their dominion overthrown, and their whole land so thoroughly given into the hands of the Israelites, that those who still remained here and there were crushed into powerless fugitives, who could neither offer any further opposition to the Israelites, nor dispute the possession of the land with them, if they would only strive to fulfil the commandments of their God and persevere in the gradual extermination of the scattered remnants. Moreover, Israel had received the strongest pledge, in the powerful help which it had received from the Lord in the conquests thus far obtained, that the faithful covenant God would continue His help in the conflicts which still remained, and secure for it a complete victory and the full possession of the promised land. Looking, therefore, at the existing state of things from this point of view, Joshua had taken possession of the whole land, and could now proceed to finish the work entrusted to him by the Lord, by dividing the land among the tribes of Israel. Joshua had really done all that the Lord had said to Moses. For the Lord had not only promised to Moses the complete extermination of the Canaanites, but had also told him that He would not drive out the Canaanites at once, or "in one year," but only little by little, until Israel multiplied and took the land (Exodus 23:28-30; cf. Deuteronomy 7:22). Looking at this promised, therefore, the author of the book could say with perfect justice, that "Joshua took the whole land according to all that (precisely in the manner in which) the Lord had said to Moses." But this did not preclude the fact, that a great deal still remained to be done before all the Canaanites could be utterly exterminated from every part of the land. Consequently, the enumeration of towns and districts that were not yet conquered, and of Canaanites who still remained, which we find in Joshua 13:1-6; Joshua 17:14., Joshua 18:3; Joshua 23:5, Joshua 23:12, forms no discrepancy with the statements in the verses before us, so as to warrant us in adopting any critical hypotheses or conclusions as to the composition of the book by different authors. The Israelites could easily have taken such portions of the land as were still unconquered, and could have exterminated all the Canaanites who remained, without any severe or wearisome conflicts; if they had but persevered in fidelity to their God and in the fulfilment of His commandments. If, therefore, the complete conquest of the whole land was not secured in the next few years, but, on the contrary, the Canaanites repeatedly gained the upper hand over the Israelites; we must seek for the explanation, not in the fact that Joshua had not completely taken and conquered the land, but simply in the fact that the Lord had withdrawn His help from His people because of their apostasy from Him, and had given them up to the power of their enemies to chastise them for their sins. - The distribution of the land for an inheritance to the Israelites took place "according to their divisions by their tribes." מחלקות denote the division of the twelve tribes of Israel into families, fathers' houses, and households; and is so used not only here, but in Joshua 12:7 and Joshua 18:10. Compare with this 1-Chronicles 23:6; 1-Chronicles 24:1, etc., where it is applied to the different orders of priests and Levites. "And the land rested from war:" i.e., the war was ended, so that the peaceable task of distributing the land by lot could now be proceeded with (vid., Joshua 14:15; Judges 3:11, Judges 3:30; Judges 5:31).
At that time - In that war, but in divers years. The mountain - Or, mountains, the singular number for the plural; these barbarous and monstrous persons either chose to live in the dens or caves, which were frequent in the mountains of those parts, or else they were driven thither by the arms and success of the Israelites. From Debir - From the territories belonging to these cities, as we have often seen in this history, cities mentioned for the country subject to them. The mountains of Israel - It doth not follow from hence, that this book was written by some other person long after Joshua's death, even after the division of the Israelites into two kingdoms. of Israel and Judah; but only that this was one of those clauses which were added by Ezra or some other prophet; though that be not necessary: for since it was evident to Joshua, from Genesis 49:10, &c. that the tribe of Judah was to be the chief of all these tribes, and some dawnings of its eminency appeared in that time, in their having the first lot in the land of Canaan, Joshua 15:1, and the largest inheritance, Joshua 19:9, it is no wonder that it is mentioned apart, and distinguished from the rest of the tribes of Israel, though that also be one of them. But how could Joshua utterly destroy these, when Caleb and Othniel destroyed some of them after Joshua's death? Joshua 14:12; Judges 1:10-12. This might be, either Because these places being in part destroyed and neglected by the Israelites, were repossessed by the giants, and by them kept 'till Caleb destroyed them. Or rather Because this work, though done by the particular valour of Caleb, is ascribed to Joshua as the general of the army, according to the manner of all historians; and therefore it is here attributed to Joshua, though afterwards, that Caleb might not lose his deserved honour, the history is more particularly described, and Caleb owned as the great instrument of it, Joshua 14:6-15 and Judges 1:12-20.
*More commentary available at chapter level.