Joshua 11:5

_AND WHEN ALL THESE KINGS WERE MET TOGETHER, THEY CAME AND PITCHED TOGETHER AT THE WATERS OF MEROM, TO FIGHT AGAINST ISRAEL._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

1-9 The wonders God wrought for the Israelites were to encourage them to act vigorously themselves. Thus the war against Satan's kingdom, carried on by preaching the gospel, was at first forwarded by miracles; but being fully proved to be of God, we are now left to the Divine grace in the usual course, in the use of the sword of the Spirit. God encouraged Joshua. Fresh dangers and difficulties make it necessary to seek fresh supports from the word of God, which we have nigh unto us for use in every time of need. God proportions our trials to our strength, and our strength to our trials. Joshua's obedience in destroying the horses and chariots, shows his self-denial in compliance with God's command. The possession of things on which the carnal heart is prone to depend, is hurtful to the life of faith, and the walk with God; therefore it is better to be without worldly advantages, than to...

Verse Joshua 11:5. _THE WATERS OF MEROM_] Where these waters were, interpreters are not agreed. Whether they were the waters of the Lake _Semechon_, or the _waters of Megiddo_, mentioned Judges 5:19, cannot be easily determined. The latter is the more probable opinion....

WATERS OF MEROM - i. e. “the upper waters,” the modern Bahr el Huleh, the lake Semechonitis, or Samochonitis of Josephus. This lake occupies the southern half of the Ard el Huleh, a depressed basin some 15 miles long and 3 or 4 miles wide lying between the hills of Galilee on the west and the lower spurs of Hermon on the east. The size of the lake varies with the season, and the northern side of it ends in a large swamp. The shape of the lake is triangular, the point being at the south, where the Jordan, which enters it on the north, again quits it. There is a considerable space of tableland along the southwestern shore, and here probably the troops of Jabin and his confederates were encamped, preparing to move southward when Joshua and his army fell suddenly upon them....

EXPOSITION THE PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.— JOSHUA 11:1 AND IT CAME TO PASS. The political constitution of Palestine was, humanly speaking, the cause of its overthrow. The division of the country into a host of petty states, and the consequent want of cohesion and concert, made its conquest a comparatively easy task. Had the kings of the north rallied round the standard set up in Central Palestine by Adoni-zedek, a far more formidable opposition would have been offered to Joshua at Gibeon. Calvin takes us, however, at once to the fountain head, and remarks how God fitted the burden to those who had to bear it. In spite of the great things God had done to them, they might have been driven to despair (and every one knows how weak their faith was) by the ove

AND WHEN ALL THOSE KINGS WERE MET TOGETHER,.... At some certain place, which Jabin had appointed: THEY CAME AND PITCHED TOGETHER AT THE WATERS OF MEROM: Josephus a says it was at Berotha; perhaps it should be Merotha, a city of upper Galilee, not far from Cedesa, the same he elsewhere calls b Meroth, These waters are the same with the lake Samachonitis, on which Hazor was situated; so that it was near Jabin where the rendezvous was. This lake is thought c to have its name from the Arabic word "Samacha", which signifies high, as Merom does in Hebrew. It was, as Josephus says d thirty furlongs broad, and sixty long, and its waters clayish. Jerom says e, in his time there was here a village called Merrus, twelve miles from the city Sebaste by Dothaim: here the kings and their armies met TO FIGHT AGAINST ISRAEL; so that they were the aggressors, which made the war still more lawful. a Ibi...

FURTHER CONQUESTS CHAPTER 11 _ 1. Jabin and his confederacy (Joshua 11:1)_ 2. The divine encouragement (Joshua 11:6) 3. The victory (Joshua 11:7) 4. The obedience of Joshua (Joshua 11:15) 5. The continued conflict with the kings (Joshua 11:16) The Kings of the north formed the second confederacy, headed by Jabin, King of Hazor. Jabin means “understanding” and Hazor, “an enclosure.” He with other kings, and with them “much people even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots

JOSHUA 11. DEFEAT OF JABIN AND HIS COALITION. Jabin, king of Hazor, gathers a vast army of Canaanites at the Waters of Merom (locality uncertain, p. 32). The coalition was utterly defeated, the king was slain, and his city burnt. In Judges 4, a king of the same name and the same city appears, who for twenty years mightily oppressed the children of Israel. Joshua's victory here seems to be inconsistent with the account given of Jabin in Judges 4. The original story of Barak's campaign (Judges 5) has no reference to Jabin, but only to Sisera. The prose narrative (Judges 4) combines the war against Sisera with that against Jabin, and makes the former the general of the latter. It is noticeable that the terms of the short narrative in which the battle is here described are very vague and general, and 8, with its statement that the Israelites pursued their enemies as far as Zidon in the N. an...

MET TOGETHER: i.e. by appointment. Compare Amos 3:3....

_at the waters of Merom_ i.e. "the Upper Waters;" the uppermost of the three lakes in the Jordan valley, called by the Greeks "Semechonitis," or Samochonitis (Jos. _Ant_. 5:5. 1), and by the Arabs "_Hûleh_." The lake is formed by the expansion of the descending Jordan, about 7 miles long by 5 in breadth, of a triangular shape, the point being at the south, where the Jordan, which enters it on the north, again quits it. It is surrounded by marshes and numberless streams bordered with thickets of papyrus. For the fullest and most graphic description of this lake, and the surrounding morasses, see Macgregor's _Rob Roy on the Jordan_, xii. xvii....