Bible Strands
Joshua 10:20
So Joshua and the Israelites continued to inflict a terrible slaughter until they had finished them off, and the remaining survivors retreated to the fortified cities.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Joshua 10:19-21 places this verse mid-battle as Joshua commands the Israelite army to pursue the Amorite forces and prevent their escape to fortified cities. The moment captures the immediate execution of that command after the Lord throws the enemy into confusion.
The words — The Hebrew כַּלּוֹת (kha.Lot) denotes completion or finishing, while מַכָּה גְדוֹלָה (ma.Kah ge.do.lah) literally means a great defeat or slaughter. These terms frame the military action as a concluded, decisive judgment rather than a prolonged campaign.
The thread — The pattern of complete destruction until the enemy is finished appears in Joshua 8:24 and is later codified in Deuteronomy 20:16 regarding conquered cities. Joshua 10:10 also establishes the preceding divine confusion that enables this total defeat.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that divine deliverance requires complete execution of the commanded action. It presents a straightforward principle: obedience to the directive results in the total removal of the opposing force.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were consumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced cities.
Cross-references
- Joshua 8:24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai who had pursued them into the field and wilderness, and when every last one of them had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and put it to the sword as well.
- Deuteronomy 20:16 However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.
- Joshua 10:10 And the LORD threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, pursued them along the ascent to Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah.
- 2 Samuel 20:6 And David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom. Take your lord’s servants and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and elude us.”
- 2 Chronicles 13:17 Then Abijah and his people struck them with a mighty blow, and 500,000 chosen men of Israel fell slain.
- Jeremiah 8:14 Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the LORD our God has doomed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.