Joshua 10:17

And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:15-27 None moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel. This shows their perfect safety. The kings were called to an account, as rebels against the Israel of God. Refuges of lies will but secure for God's judgment. God punished the abominable wickedness of these kings, the measure of whose iniquity was now full. And by this public act of justice, done upon these ringleaders of the Canaanites in sin, he would possess his people with the greater dread and detestation of the sins of the nations that God cast out from before them. Here is a type and figure of Christ's victories over the powers of darkness, and of believers' victories through him. In our spiritual conflicts we must not be satisfied with obtaining some important victory. We must pursue our scattered enemies, searching out the remains of sin as they rise up in our hearts, and thus pursue the conquest. In so doing, the Lord will afford light until the warfare be accomplished.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The thread of the narrative, broken by the four intermediate verses, Joshua 10:12-15, is now resumed from Joshua 10:11.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jos 10:16-27. The Five Kings Hanged.

16-27. these five kings … hid themselves in a cave—Hebrew, "the cave."

at Makkedah—The pursuit was continued, without interruption, to Makkedah at the foot of the western mountains, where Joshua seems to have halted with the main body of his troops while a detachment was sent forward to scour the country in pursuit of the remaining stragglers, a few of whom succeeded in reaching the neighboring cities. The last act, probably the next day, was the disposal of the prisoners, among whom the five kings were consigned to the infamous doom of being slain (De 20:16, 17); and then their corpses were suspended on five trees till the evening.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And it was told Joshua,.... Either by some of his own people, or by some of the inhabitants of the land in his interest, who had observed it:

saying, the five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah: this seems to make it appear that they were others, and not Joshua's soldiers, that found them; for had they, no doubt they would have seized them, and brought them before him, or slain them, unless they chose first to know his will concerning them, next expressed.

Geneva Study Bible

And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. in a cave] “lurkinge in the spelunk,” Wyclif; in one of the numerous limestone caves, with which the district abounds, though the article here, both in the Hebrew and the LXX., seems to intimate that it was a well-known cave, overshadowed probably by a grove of trees (comp. Joshua 10:26). Many such caves, large and dry, and often branching out into chambers, are found in the lime and chalk rocks of Palestine. Comp. (i) the cave in which Lot dwelt after the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19:30); (ii) the cave at Rimmon (Jdg 20:47), which could contain six hundred men in its spacious recess; (iii) David’s cave of Adullam, where he concealed “his brethren, and all his father’s house” (1 Samuel 22:1); (iv) the cave of Engedi, which Saul entered, and in the sides of which “David and his men remained” (1 Samuel 24:3); (v) Obadiah’s cave, in which he concealed “an hundred prophets” (1 Kings 18:4). “The caves of Syria and Palestine are still used, either occasionally or permanently, as habitations.… The shepherds near Hebron leave their villages in the summer to dwell in caves and ruins, in order to be nearer to their flocks and fields. Almost all the habitations at Om-keis, Gadara, are caves.” See Smith’s Bible Dict. Art. Caves.

Joshua 10:17

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave that was a Makkedah. When they were discovered there, Joshua ordered large stones to be rolled before the entrance to the cave, and men to be placed there to watch, whilst the others pursued the enemy without ceasing, and smote their rear (vid., Deuteronomy 25:18), and prevented their entering into their cities. He himself remained at Makkedah (Joshua 10:21).