Joshua 10:21

And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.

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

Joshua himself remained at Makkedah with the guards set before the cave. The other warriors would not return from the pursuit until the evening of the overthrow of the Amorites; and the execution of the kings and the capture of Makkedah itself belong, no doubt, to the day following Joshua 10:27-28.

None moved his tongue - See the marginal reference and note.

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

To the camp; to the body of the army which were encamped there with Joshua to besiege that place.

None moved his tongue; not so much as a dog, as it is expressed, Exodus 11:7. Not only their men of war could not find their hands, but they were all so confounded, that they could not move their tongues in way of insultation and reproach, as doubtless they did when the Israelites were repulsed and smitten at Ai; but now they were silenced as well as conquered; they durst no more provoke nor injure the Israelites.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace,.... Sound and well, as not one killed or missing, so not one wounded, as the Vulgate Latin version,"sound and in full number:"

none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel; as to curse them, reproach them, and speak ill of them, for invading them, and using them in the manner they did, such was the terror that was upon them. It may be supplied, "not a dog moved" his tongue, as in Exodus 11:7; as it was with them when they came out of Egypt, so it was when they entered the land of Canaan. It seems to be a proverbial expression, as Ben Gersom observes, signifying that no harm was done to them by word or deed.

Geneva Study Bible

And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in {g} peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.

(g) Or in safety, so that none gave them as much as an evil word.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. to the camp] Which had been already formed round the royal hiding-place.

none moved his tongue] “And no man aзens the sones of Yrael was hardy to grucche, ether to make priuy noise,” Wyclif. Comp. Exodus 11:7, “But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - Makkedah. Because Joshua, in his resolute pursuit of the enemy, had not forgotten the important intelligence reported to him concerning the kings. Most likely the pursuit lasted one or two days. After the return to Makkedah the execution of the kings was carried out with much ceremony (ver. 24), and their bodies hung up before all Israel, not so much as a memorial of the victory, as to impress upon the Israelites the duty of exterminating their enemies, a duty which the after history of the twelve tribes shows them to have been very prone to forget. None moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel. Literally, He did not sharpen against the children of Israel, against a man, his tongue. The Hebrew construction here is somewhat unusual. Houbigant and Maurer suppose that לֵis a mistake of the copyist and that אִישׁ is the subject of the sentence. They would translate as the LXX., "no man muttered with his tongue against the children of Israel." But Keil and Rosenmuller prefer a rendering agreeing with that of the Authorised Version, node moved (or sharpened) his tongue against the children of Israel, not against a single man of them. And this is a far more forcible way of expressing the awe in which they were held. A still stronger expression is to be found in Exodus 11:7; cf. Judith 11:19. Joshua 10:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the great battle and the pursuit of the enemy were ended, and such as remained had reached their fortified towns, the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace, i.e., without being attacked by anybody. "There pointed not (a dog) its tongue against the sons of Israel, against any one" (see at Exodus 11:7). לאישׁ is in apposition to ישׂראל לבני, and serves to define it more precisely. It is possible, however, to regard the ל as a copyist's error, as Houbigant and Maurer do, in which case אישׁ would be the nominative to the verb.