25. Joshua and the Israelites did (Joshua 10:23,40) or did not (Joshua 15:63) capture Jerusalem?

(Category: misread the text)

The short answer is, not in this campaign. The verses given are in complete harmony and the confusion arises solely from misreading the passage concerned.

In Joshua 10, it is the _king_ of Jerusalem that is killed: his city is not captured (verses 16-18 and 22-26). The five Amorite kings and their armies left their cities and went to attack Gibeon. Joshua and the Israelites routed them and the five kings fled to the cave at Makkedah, from which Joshua's soldiers brought them to Joshua, who killed them all. Concerning their armies, verse 20 states: 'the few who were left reached their fortified cities', which clearly indicates that the cities were not captured. So it was the kings, not their cities, who were captured.

Joshua 10:28-42 records the rest of this particular military campaign. It states that several cities were captured and destroyed, these being: Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron and Debir. All of these cities are south-west of Jerusalem. The king of Gezer and his army were defeated in the field whilst helping Lachish (v.33) and in verse 30 comparison is made to the earlier capture of Jericho, but neither of these last two cities were captured at this time. Verses 40 & 41 delineate the limits of this campaign, all of which took place to the south and west of Jerusalem. Importantly, Gibeon, the eastern limit of this campaign, is still approximately 10 miles to the north-west of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is, therefore, not stated as captured in Joshua 10. This agrees completely with Joshua 15:63, which states that Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites in Jerusalem.

Problem: The text declares that “these are the kings of the land whom the children of Israel defeated.” However, many of these cities were not captured until later (cf. Josh. 15:63; 17:12; Jud. 1:22, 29).

Solution: There is a difference between defeating a king’s army on the field of battle and later destroying his capital city. Once defeated in battle, the king and his remaining troops would retreat to their stronghold where it was much more difficult to root them out. Sudden victory and permanent vanquishing are two different things. So understood, there is absolutely no contradiction between these texts.

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