John Gill Commentary Joshua 11

And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor had heard [these
things]

The taking of Jericho and Ai, the defeat of the five kings, and the conquest of the southern part of the land of Canaan; he was alarmed by them, and sent to all the northern kings to join with him against Israel. He the rather took this upon him, because as Adonizedek king of Jerusalem was the principal king in the southern part of the land, so was he in the northern part; see (Joshua 11:10). Hazor fell to the tribe of Naphtali, (Joshua 19:36). It was situated, as Josephus

that he sent to Jobab king of Madon ;
of which place we nowhere else read but in (Joshua 12:19); though Brocard ^F17 finds a place near Dan, called Madan by the Turks at this day:

and to the king of Shimron ;
not Samaria, as many think, for that was built by Omri, king of Israel, and had its name from Shemer, the owner of the hill on which it was built some hundreds of years after this; besides Samaria was in the tribe of Ephraim, this in the tribe of Zebulun, (Joshua 19:15); and is called Shimronmeron, (Joshua 12:20); and in the Jerusalem Talmud ^F18 Simoniah, and here in the Septuagint version Symoson:

and to the king of Achshaph :
a city which fell to the lot of the tribe of Asher, (Joshua 19:25). The Septuagint calls it Aziph, as if it was the same with Achzib, or Ecdippa, now called Zib: but Achshaph and Achzib are manifestly distinguished, (Joshua 19:25Joshua 19:29).

Jerom says ^F19 , in his time it was a little village, and went by the name of Chasalus, eight miles from Diocaesarea, at the foot of Mount Tabor. The Arabic version adds a fourth king that Jabin sent to, called "the king of Mausel"; but we read not of any such place in the land of Canaan.

FOOTNOTES:

• F14: says, on the lake Samachonitis, the same with the waters of Merom, (Joshua 11:5) . According to Adrichomius ^F15 , it was four miles from the castle Theron to the north, six miles from Caesarea Philippi to the southwest, and nine miles from the great sea to the east; and was, in the times of Christ, one of the ten principal cities of the region of Decapolis, in which he preached, (Matthew 4:25) ; and is now called Antiopia; and in the Arabic version here it is called Caesarea, and, according to Bunting ^F16 , it lay eighty miles from Jerusalem to the north:
• F15: Theatrum Terrae Sanct. p. 102.
• F16: Travels of the Patriarchs p. 101.
• F17: Apud Fuller's Pisgah Sight, B. 2. c. 4. p. 114.
• F18: Megillah, fol. 70. 1.
• F19: De loc. Heb. fol. 88. C. D.

And to the kings that [were] on the north of the mountains ,
&c.] Of Libanus and Antilibanus, with others near them; so Josephus ^F20 says, the kings about Lebanon being Canaanites, fought against them, i.e. the Israelites; for Lebanon lay to the north of the land:

and of the plains south of Cinneroth ;
or Gennesaret, of the land and lake of which we read in the New Testament, (Matthew 14:34) (Mark 6:53) (Luke 5:1) ; and seems to have respect chiefly to the famous plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, of which (See Gill on Hosea 1:5);

and in the valley ;
which may more especially design the valley of Jezreel, as it is called in the above place, and distinguish it from other plains; it was two miles broad, and ten long:

and in the borders of Dor, on the west ;
which fell to the lot of the tribe of Manasseh, (Joshua 17:11) ; which Pliny ^F21 calls Dorum, and mentions it along with the promontory of Carmel; so Josephus says ^F23 , in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel, is a city called Dora, four days' journey distant from Judea; that is, that part of the land of Israel particularly so called; some copies read Idumea. According to Jerom {x}, it was nine miles from Caesarea of Palestine, as you go to Tyre; and in his time a desert. It was a haven in the Mediterranean sea, and lies three leagues from the castle of the "pilgrims" near Mount Carmel; and, as a traveller says, is now so decayed, that there is nothing more extant than a large and high tower, which the inhabitants still call Dorteite ^F25 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F20: Antiqu. l. 5. c. 1. sect. 18.
• F21: Nat. Hist. l. 5. c 19.
• F23: Contr. Apion. l. 2. c. 9.
• F25: Rauwolff's Travels, par. 3. c. 1. p. 211. Ed. Ray.

[And to] the Canaanites on the east and on the west
That is, that particular nation of the seven so called, part of which dwelt in the eastern part of the land, by the dead sea, and by the coast of Jordan, (Numbers 13:29) ; and others dwelt on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, which was to the west of the land:

and [to] the Amorite, and [to] the Hittite, and [to] the Perizzite :
which were scattered about in several parts of the country:

and the Jebusite in the mountains ;
in the mountainous part of Judea, in the mountains about Jerusalem, and which they still inhabited, and did to the times of David:

and [to] the Hivite under Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh ,
so described to distinguish them from the Gibeonites, who were also Hivites. Mizpeh is the place, as Kimchi thinks, where the people of Israel are often said to meet together; which he supposes they did, on account of the great salvation wrought here in Joshua's time. Hermon was a mountain that adjoined to Lebanon, where it is certain some of the Hivites dwelt, (Judges 3:3) .

And they went out
The several kings and people sent to; these went out from the places they inhabited:

they and all their hosts with them ;
the kings of those several places, with their armies:

much people, even as the sand that [is] upon the seashore in multitude ;
a proverbial expression, to denote an exceeding great number:

with horses and chariots very many ;
being supplied with horses from Egypt, and their chariots were chariots of iron; see (Judges 4:3) ; Josephus ^F26 gives us the number of this great army, and says it consisted of three hundred thousand footmen, ten thousand horse, and thirty thousand chariots; some copies read only twenty thousand; and these chariots were armed with iron hooks or scythes, to cut down men as they drove along, and so were very terrible.

FOOTNOTES:

• F26: Antiqu. l. 5. c. 1. sect. 18.

And when all those kings were met together

At some certain place, which Jabin had appointed:

they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom : Josephus ^F1 says it was at Berotha; perhaps it should be Merotha, a city of upper Galilee, not far from Cedesa, the same he elsewhere calls ^F2 Meroth, These waters are the same with the lake Samachonitis, on which Hazor was situated; so that it was near Jabin where the rendezvous was.

This lake is thought ^F3 to have its name from the Arabic word "Samacha", which signifies high, as Merom does in Hebrew. It was, as Josephus says

to fight against Israel ;

so that they were the aggressors, which made the war still more lawful.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: Ibid. (Antiq. l. 5. c. 1. sect. 8.)
• F2: De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 20. sect. 6.
• F3: Reland. Palestin. Illustrat. tom. 1. p. 262.
• F4: thirty furlongs broad, and sixty long, and its waters clayish. Jerom says ^F5 , in his time there was here a village called Merrus, twelve miles from the city Sebaste by Dothaim: here the kings and their armies met
• F5: De loc. Heb. fol. 93. D.