The largest city near to the camp at Gilgal was Jerusalem, among the mountains, where its king, Melchizedek, in the days of Abraham, five hundred years before, had been a priest of the Lord, and had blessed Abraham, as we read in Story Six in Part First. But now, in the days of Joshua, the people of that city worshipped idols and were very wicked.
When the king of Jerusalem heard that the Gibeonites, who lived near him, had made peace with Israel, he sent to the kings of Hebron and Lachish and several other cities, and said to them:
"Come, let us unite our armies into one great army and fight the Gibeonites and destroy them; for they have made peace with our enemies, the people of Israel."
As soon as the people of Gibeon heard this they sent to Joshua, saying:
"Come quickly and help us; for we are your servants; and the king of Jerusalem is coming with a great army to kill us all, and destroy our cities. The whole country is in arms against us; come at once, before it is too late!"
Joshua was a very prompt man, swift in all his acts. At once he called out his army, and marched all might up the mountains. He came suddenly upon the five kings and their army at a place called Beth-horon. There a great battle was fought, Joshua leading his men against the Canaanites. He did not give his enemies time to form in line, but fell upon them so suddenly that they were driven into confusion, and fled before the men of Israel.
And the Lord helped his people b a storm which drove great hailstones down on the Canaanites; so that more were killed by the hailstones than by the sword. It is written in an old song that on that day Joshua said before all his men:
"Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon.
And thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon,
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,
Until the people had taken vengeance upon their enemies."
If ever in all the history of the world there was a battle when the sun might well stand still, and the day be made longer, to make the victory complete, it was that day more than any other. For on that day the land was won by the people of the Lord. If Israel had been defeated and destroyed, instead of Canaan, then the Bible would never have been written, the worship of the true God would have been blotted out, and the whole world would have worshipped idols. The battle that day was for the salvation of the world as well as of Israel. So this was the greatest battle in its results that the world has ever seen. There have been man battle where more men fought, and more soldiers were slain, than at the battle of Beth-horon. But no battle in all the world had such an effect in the years and the ages after, as this battle.
After the victory Joshua followed his enemies as they fled, and killed many of them, until their armies were broken up and destroyed. The five kings who had led against Joshua were found hidden in a cave, were brought out and were slain, so that they might no more trouble the Israelites. By this one victory all the part of the land of Canaan on the south was won, though there were a few small fights afterward.
Then Joshua turned to the north, and led his army by a swift march against the kings who had united there to fight the Israelites. As suddenly as before he had fallen on the five kings at Beth-horon, he fell upon these kings and their army, near the little lake in the far north of Canaan, called "the waters of Merom." There another great victory was won; and after this it was easy to conquer the land. Everywhere the tribes of Canaan were made to submit to the Israelites, until all the mountain country was under Joshua's rule.
In the conquest of Canaan, there were six great marches and six battles; three in the lands on the east of the Jordan, while Moses was still living, the victories over the Amorites, the Midianites, and the people of Bashan, on the northeast, and there on the west of the Jordan, the victories at Jericho, at Beth-horon, and Lake Merom, under Joshua.
But even after these marchings and victories, it was a long time before all the land was taken by the Israelites.
The Old Man Who Fought against the Giants
Joshua xiv: 1, to xix: 51.
The great war for the conquest of Canaan was now ended, though in the land some cities were still held by the Canaanite people. Yet the Israelites were now the rulers over most of the country, and Joshua prepared to divide the land among the tribes of Israel.
One day the rulers of the tribe of Judah came to Joshua's tent at Gilgal, and with them came an old man, Caleb, whom you remember as one of the twelve spies sent by Moses from Kadesh-barnea to go through the land of Canaan. (See Part First, Story Thirty.) This had been many years before, and Caleb was now, like Joshua, an old man, past eighty years of age. He said to Joshua:
"You remember what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, when we were in the desert at Kadesh-barnea, and you and I with the other spies brought back our report. I spoke to Moses the word that was in my heart, and I followed the Lord wholly, when the other spies spoke out of their own fear, and made the people afraid. On that day, you remember that Moses said to me, 'The land where your feet have trodden and over which you have walked shall be yours, because you trusted in the Lord.'
"That was forty-five years ago," Caleb went on to say, "and God has kept me alive all those years. To-day, at eighty-five years of age, I am as strong as I was in that day. And now I ask that the promise made by Moses be kept, and that I have my choice of the places in the land."
"Well," said Joshua, "you can take your choice in the land. What part of it will you choose?"
And Caleb answered:
"The place that I will choose is the very mountain on which we saw the city with the high walls, where the giants were living then, and where other giants, their sons, are living now, the city of Hebron. I know that the walls are high, and the giants live there. But the Lord will help to take the cities, and to drive out the people who live in them. Let me have the city of Hebron."
This was very bold in so old a man as Caleb, to choose the city which was not yet taken from the enemies, and one of the hardest cities to take, when he might have chosen some rich place already won. But Caleb at eighty-five showed the same spirit of courage, and willingness to war, and faith in God, that he had shown in his prime at forty years of age. Then Joshua said to Caleb, "You shall have the city of Hebron, with all its giants, if you will gather together your men, and take it." And the old soldier brought together his men, and led them against the strong city of Hebron, where was the tomb of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (See Stories Ten, Eleven and Nineteen.) By the help of the Lord, Caleb was able to drive out the giants, tall and mighty as they were. They fled from Caleb's men and went down to the shore on the west of the land, and lived among the people of that region, who were called the Philistines; while Caleb, and his children, and his descendants long after him, held the city of Hebron in the south of the land.
After this, by the command of the Lord, Joshua divided the land among the tribes. Two tribes and half of another tribe had already received their land on the east of Jordan; so there were nine tribes and a half tribe to receive their shares. Judah, one of the largest, had the mountain country west of the Dead Sea, from Hebron to Jerusalem; Simeon was on the south toward the desert; Benjamin was north of Judah on the east, toward the Jordan, and Dan north of Judah on the west, toward the Great Sea.
In the middle of the country, around the city of Shechem, and the two mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, where Joshua had read the law to the people (see Story Three in this Part), was the land of the tribe of Ephraim. This was one of the best parts of all the country, for the soil was rich and there were many springs and streams of water. And here, near Mount Ebal, they buried the body of their tribe-father Joseph, which they had kept in its coffin of stone, unburied, ever since they left Egypt, more than forty years before. As Joshua himself belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, his home was also in this land.