And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah.
Read Chapter 10
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
City, or territory. (Calmet)
The kings had sought their own safety in flight, leaving their people to make their escape as well as they could. But their cowardly behaviour only brought upon them a more dishonourable death. Josue and some of the forces stopped in the environs of Maceda, while the rest pursued after the fugitives, and slew all that had not strength to enter the fenced cities. (Haydock)
Then all the army assembled round their leader, took Maceda, and completed the victory of that most memorable day, by the ignominious death of the five kings. (Calmet)
God permitted some to escape, lest the land should be overrun with wild beasts; (Exodus xxiii. 29,) and to instruct us that his children must suffer tribulation, to prevent the growth of vice. (Worthington)
For if the armed host of the Lord was represented by the trumpets of the priests, we may see in Jericho a type of the overthrow of the world by the preaching of the gospel. And to pass over endless details (for it is not my purpose now to unfold all the mysteries of the Old Testament), five kings who previously reigned in the land of promise and opposed the gospel army were overcome in battle with Joshua. I think it is clearly to be understood that before the Lord led his people from Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch had the dominion, and that to these, as to five princes, everything was subject. And when they took refuge in the cave of the body and in a place of darkness, Jesus entered the body itself and killed them, that the source of their power might be the instrument of their death. - "Against Jovinianus 1.21"
