Bible Strands
Joshua 10:4
“Come up and help me. We will attack Gibeon, because they have made peace with Joshua and the Israelites.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, sends a military summons to four allied Amorite kings to march against Gibeon after learning of Gibeon’s peace treaty with Joshua and Israel.
The words — עֲלֽוּ־ ('a.lu-) and וְעִזְרֻנִי (ve.'iz.Ru./ni) literally command “come up” and “help me,” framing the coalition’s mobilization as a direct response to Gibeon’s treaty.
The thread — The summons triggers the five kings’ combined advance in Joshua 10:5, directly references the covenant origin in Joshua 9:15, and mirrors the wartime mobilization language of Isaiah 8:9.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to see how a diplomatic treaty immediately provokes military calculation, forcing allies to choose between upholding the agreement or attacking its signatories.
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
Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel.
Cross-references
- Joshua 9:15 And Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.
- Joshua 10:1 Now Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai and devoted it to destruction—doing to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king—and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living near them.
- Isaiah 8:9 Huddle together, O peoples, and be shattered; pay attention, all you distant lands; prepare for battle, and be shattered; prepare for battle, and be shattered!
- Isaiah 41:5 The islands see and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approach and come forward.
- Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
- John 15:19 If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
- John 16:2 They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
- Acts 9:23 After many days had passed, the Jews conspired to kill him,
- Acts 21:28 crying out, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and against our law and against this place. Furthermore, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.”
- 2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,