¹ tn Heb “has given the land to you.” Rahab’s statement uses the Hebrew perfect, suggesting certitude.

² tn Heb “terror of you has fallen upon us.”

³ tn Or “melting away because of.”

⁴ tn Both of these statements are actually subordinated to “I know” in the Hebrew text, which reads, “I know that the Lord…and that terror of you…and that all the inhabitants….”

⁵ tn Heb “Now, swear to me by the Lord.”

sn To swear an oath in the Lord’s name would make the Lord the witness and guarantor of the promise attached to the oath. If the person making the oath should go back on the promise, the Lord would judge him for breaking the contract.

⁶ tn Heb “with the house of my father.”

⁷ tn Heb “true sign,” that is, “an inviolable token or pledge.”

⁸ tn Heb “Surely the Lord has given into our hand all the land.” The report by the spies uses the Hebrew perfect, suggesting certitude.

⁹ tn Heb “are melting away because of us.”

¹⁰ tn Or more literally, “to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel.”

¹¹ tn Heb “feared.”

¹² tn Heb “all the days of his life.”

¹³ tn Heb “had feared.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “rolled away.”

¹⁵ sn One might take the disgrace of Egypt as a reference to their uncircumcised condition (see Gen 34:14), but the generation that left Egypt was circumcised (see v. 5). It more likely refers to the disgrace they experienced in Egyptian slavery. When this new generation reached the promised land and renewed their covenantal commitment to the Lord by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the Lord’s deliverance of his people from slavery, which had begun with the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, reached its climax. See T. C. Butler, Joshua (WBC), 59.

¹⁶ sn The name Gilgal sounds like the Hebrew verb “roll away” (גַּלַל, galal).

¹⁷ tn Heb “I have given into your hand Jericho.” The Hebrew verb נָתַתִּי (natatti, “I have given”) is probably best understood as a perfect of certitude, indicating the certainty of the action. The Hebrew pronominal suffix “your” is singular, being addressed to Joshua as the leader and representative of the nation. To convey to the modern reader what is about to happen and who is doing it, the translation “I am about to defeat Jericho for you” has been used.

¹⁸ tn An alternative reading is “and they said.” In this case the subject is indefinite and the verb should be translated as passive, “[the army] was told.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “the people.”

²⁰ tn Heb “pass by.”

²¹ tn Heb “and he made the ark of the Lord go around the city, encircling one time.”

²² tn Heb “and they entered the camp and spent the night in the camp.”

²³ tn Heb “the people.”

²⁴ tn Or “the shout.”

²⁵ tn Heb “for the Lord has given to you the city.” The verbal form is a perfect, probably indicating certitude here.

²⁶ tn The Hebrew text adds “with fire.”

²⁷ tn Heb “the treasury of the house of the Lord.” Technically the Lord did not have a “house” yet, so perhaps this refers to the tabernacle using later terminology.

²⁸ sn Tearing one’s clothes was an outward expression of extreme sorrow (see Gen 37:34; 44:13).

²⁹ tn Or “elders.”

³⁰ tn Heb “and fell on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel.”

³¹ sn Throwing dirt on one’s head was an outward expression of extreme sorrow (see Lam 2:10; Ezek 27:30).

³² tn Heb “poured out,” probably referring to the way the silver pieces poured out of their container.

³³ tn Heb “the city.”

³⁴ tn Heb “I have commanded you.”

³⁵ tn Heb “This is what we will do to them, keeping them alive so there will not be upon us anger concerning the oath which we swore to them.”

³⁶ tn Heb “I have given them into your hand.” The verbal form is a perfect of certitude, emphasizing the certainty of the action.

³⁷ tn Heb “and not a man [or “one”] of them will stand before you.”

³⁸ tn Or perhaps “and don’t get discouraged!”

³⁹ tn Heb “he”; the implied subject may be Israel, or Joshua (as the commanding general of the army).

⁴⁰ tn Heb “and he struck them down with the edge of the sword, he annihilated them.”

⁴¹ tn Heb “was old, coming into the days.” This expression, referring to advancing in years, also occurs in the following clause.

⁴² tn The MT reads “with him,” which is problematic, since the reference would be to the other half of the tribe of Manasseh (not the half mentioned in v. 7).

⁴³ tn Heb “received their inheritance, which Moses had assigned to them beyond the Jordan.”

⁴⁴ tn Heb “and I brought back to him a word just as [was] in my heart.”

⁴⁵ tn Heb “which he had sworn to give to their fathers.”

⁴⁶ tn Or “possessed.”

⁴⁷ tn Heb “the house of Israel.” Cf. NCV “the Israelites”; TEV “the people of Israel”; CEV, NLT “Israel.”

⁴⁸ tn Heb “not a word from all the good word which the Lord spoke to the house of Israel fell; the whole came to pass.”

⁴⁹ tn Heb “You have kept all which Moses, the Lord’s servant, commanded you, and you have listened to my voice, to all which I commanded you.”

⁵⁰ tn Heb “Was the sin of Peor too insignificant for us, from which we have not made purification to this day? And there was a plague in the assembly of the Lord.”

⁵¹ tn Heb “Is it not [true that] Achan son of Zerah was unfaithful with unfaithfulness concerning what was set apart [to the Lord] and against all the assembly of Israel there was anger?”

⁵² tn The second half of the verse reads literally, “and he [was] one man, he did not die for his sin.” There are at least two possible ways to explain this statement: (1) One might interpret the statement to mean that Achan was not the only person who died for his sin. In this case it could be translated, “and he was not the only one to die because of his sin.” (2) Another option, the one reflected in the translation, is to take the words וְהוּא אִישׁ אֶחָד (vÿhu’ ’ish ’ekhad, “and he [was] one man”) as a concessive clause and join it with what precedes. The remaining words (לֹא גָוַע בַּעֲוֹנוֹ, lo’ gava’ ba’avono) must then be taken as a rhetorical question (“Did he not die for his sin?”). Taking the last sentence as interrogative is consistent with the first part of the verse, a rhetorical question introduced with the interrogative particle. The present translation has converted these rhetorical questions into affirmative statements to bring out more clearly the points they are emphasizing. For further discussion, see T. C. Butler, Joshua (WBC), 240.

⁵³ tn Heb “many days.”

⁵⁴ tn Heb “the Lord had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around.”

⁵⁵ tn Heb “was old, coming into the days.” This expression, referring to advancing in years, also occurs in the following verse.

⁵⁶ tn Heb “not a man has stood before you.”

⁵⁷ tn Heb “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord to serve him.”

⁵⁸ sn Like witnesses in a court of law, Israel’s solemn vow to worship the Lord will testify against them in the divine court if the nation ever violates its commitment.

⁵⁹ tn Heb “after these things.”