February 4, 2012 – Joshua 15:13 – 15:47

There are a lot more cities listed here than there were in the conquering narrative. It made me wonder about their status. God put most of the cities that were attacked under a ban in which they were killed. It appeared that most of these were the large fortified cities. These towns mentioned may have been smaller villages that surrounded them. I suppose there are 3 explanations. One, when Israel came, these smaller villages went to the closest large fortified city for protection and were killed under the ban. Two, when Israel came through, these villages were killed under the ban and just not big enough to mention. Three, these villages were left until all the land around them was taken and then surrendered. The last doesn’t seem to follow God’s instruction. Israel was meant to get rid of the inhabitants so as to get rid of their temptation. The fact that some peoples are mentioned that stuck around and became servants or were not destroyed logically implies that if this is not described, they were destroyed. With the closeness of all the larger cities that were destroyed and these smaller ones being in the surrounding areas, I think the first option with a couple of instances of the second is the likely explanation.