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Tim Bulkeley's 5 minute Bible
The story of the Israelites versus king Jabin of Hazor begins enough hugs reduction that begins
impressively
When Jabin king of Hazor heard of this,
he sent word to Jobab king of Madon,
to the kings of Shimron
and the king of Acshaph,
and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth,
and in the lowland,
and in Naphoth-dor to the west,
to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites,
the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country,
and the Hivites under Hermon
in the land of Mizpah.
They came out, with all their troops, a great army, in number like the sand
on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots.
All these kings joined their forces,
and came and camped together at the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel.
You've probably never heard such an impressive list of enemies
Of course some of them are the usual suspects
the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites
Well, just their own they sound like a list
of the enemies of Israel
the peoples whom God chased out before them
but then there's all the others
the people we've never heard of
who was king Jobab of Madon
who was king Achshaph
or rather where was Achshaph
that someone was king of t Who was he?
What's this Naphoth-dor to the west
Yep, all these peoples and kings
the ones who are familiar, the usual suspects
and those who had never heard of before all of them gather
and in verse four we discover
not much to our surprise
that when they came out with all their troops they were a great army
the text then uses a horrible cliche
"they were as numerous as the sand on the seashore"
sometimes cliches work
sometimes just using a cliche underlines what you're saying
in this case the horrible cliche of sand on the seashore underlines that
what's being said is a horrible cliche
Israel's enemies are huge, numerous
and powerfully impressive
it's the little guy against the big guy
a cliche
so we use a cliche to describe it
and they've got very many horses and chariots
the military technology to Israel needed from the peoples of the plain
So, all these kings joined their forces and came and camped together they were united
they came with one purpose
to fight with Israel
and then it gets dead simple
after all this complexity
verse 6
And the LORD said to Joshua,
don't be afraid of them for tomorrow at this time I will hand over all of them
slain to Israel
you shall hamstring their horses, and burn their chariots with fire."
Notice how God promises that the very technology they fear, the very equipment they fear
will be made useless
afterwards
not before
but afterwards
and then of course
as we find out from verse seven
it all happens just as God says: So Joshua came suddenly upon them with all his fighting force, by the waters of Merom, and fell upon them.
it's as simple as that
all that fanfare
and the fight is over in a couple of verses
I don't think that's the historians clumsy desire
to make a compendious list
I don't think that's the primitive like of piling things up
repeating itself
No, I think was a serious theological point being made
God bless