Joshua 10:28 Meaning: The Hardest Part of Joshua's Conquest

Three Hebrew words in this verse carry the weight of what happened. The verb behind “utterly destroyed” is hecherim, from the root charam, to ban, to devote to God as a sacred offering, often through total destruction. It was not random violence but a religious act, treating the city as something set apart for God's judgment. The phrase “left no one remaining” uses the Hebrew sarid, meaning a survivor or remnant. The writer insists no one slipped away, the destruction was complete. And the word for “souls” is nefesh, the same word used for the living creatures God created in Genesis. It speaks of persons, each one a life. These three words together show us that what happened at Makkedah was not a massacre in the ordinary sense, but a solemn, purposeful act under God's direct command. It troubles us, as it should. It forces us to ask what God's holiness requires when a culture has filled up its measure of sin.

Christians across traditions have wrestled with verses like this one. Many Reformed commentators, following Matthew Henry, see the Canaanite destruction as God's righteous judgment on nations that had committed terrible sins over centuries, child sacrifice, cult prostitution, and other practices that defiled the land. Wesleyan writers point out that Joshua was acting under a direct divine command that does not apply today, and that the long day of battle (the sun standing still) shows God's special intervention in this unique moment. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox readers often emphasize the historical character of this event, reserving the literal use of the sword to the Old Testament theocracy, while seeing in it a type of the final judgment when God will separate evil from good. Anglicans like those behind the Cambridge Bible note the rapid succession of victories and interpret them as God fighting for Israel, not as human aggression. All traditions agree that this passage must be read through the lens of Christ, who bore judgment for sinners and calls his people to a different kind of warfare, spiritual, not physical.

A common misreading is that Joshua was acting on his own bloodlust, or that God is cruel and arbitrary. In fact, the text repeatedly says that Yahweh delivered the cities into Israel's hand (see verses 30, 32). Joshua was following the specific command God gave through Moses: that when the Lord delivered the Canaanite cities, Israel was to “utterly destroy them” and show no mercy (Deuteronomy 7:2; 20:16-17). This was a judgment on a culture that had filled up its sin over hundreds of years. It was not a general command for all time, but a unique act of God's justice in history.

The repetition in these conquest verses is hard to read: all the souls, no survivors, as he did to Jericho. But that very repetition asks us something today. When we see something in Scripture that disturbs us, do we run from it, or do we let it press us deeper? This week, you might sit with a hard passage instead of skipping to the New Testament. Ask God: what does your holiness look like here? Let the weight of judgment make you grateful for the mercy you have received. Because the same God who commanded destruction at Makkedah also provided a way of escape through the cross. The severity of the one makes the sweetness of the other more real.