I was looking through my old notes on the Book of Joshua, and I came across an answer I wrote eight or so years ago on an Intro to the Old Testament exam in seminary. I’m reminded what a playfully vituperative essayist I was in those courses and why I probably deserved the grades I got. This one earned 3 of 5 points.
Q. Why is Joshua 11:10-23 written with hyperbolic rhetoric? Should we interpret the content of this passage literally? Explain your answer. (5 pts)
Although the formal structure of a literary unit does not outright determine its meaning, it does a lot to inform its interpretation. Pieces of literature may also draw from more than one formal template.
For example, as our professor has pointed out, Joshua 11:10-23 shares many of the features of an ANE military campaign summary, which suggests that such large numbers are, like the numbers in ANE military campaigns, hyperbolic. The passage in question includes parts of two chiastically-organized sections of the chapter.
See my suggested outline:
A. The kings join forces and march against Israel (11:1-5)
B. “I shall hand them all over” (11:6)
C. Joshua attacks (11:7)
B’. Yahweh delivers the kings into the power of the Israelites. (11:8-9)
A’. The kings are killed (11:10-15)
A. Joshua captures “all the land” (11:16-17)
B. The Hivites are spared (11:18-19)
C. They are devoted to cherem and receive no mercy (11:20)
B’. Some Gazites, Gathites, and Ashdodites are spared (11:22)
A’. Joshua captures “all the land” (11:23)
The final redactor of Joshua has demonstrated a preference for these simple, five-part structures in his descriptions of action-scenes. As is the case elsewhere in Joshua, these literary units make introductory and conclusory statements in A and A’; promise and fulfillment parallels or more simple similarity parallels in B and B’; and then a short action summary at the heart (C).
The focus of the action summaries throughout Joshua is never about retelling a heroic action, as it is in the epic tradition, but about Joshua’s obedience in its liturgical, military, and moral dimensions. Here, section C features active obedience (vv. 7, 20) and total devotion (v. 20).
So why is the rhetoric hyperbolic? The first important thing to do in answering this question is to distinguish hyperbole from exaggeration. The term, ‘hyperbole,’ denotes a quantitative discrepancy; the term, ‘exaggeration,’ not only implies ‘hyperbole,’ but also suggests a (base) motivation: exaggeration suggests machismo, bravado, simple duplicity.
Hyperbole could be symbolic; exaggeration, because of its emphasis on motive, lends itself toward suspicious interpretation and is less likely to be symbolic of anything but the motive of the writer.
I argue the hyperbole is symbolic rather than exaggerated.
Our professor has pointed out that the term kal, always translated “all,” appears twenty-four times in this passage. Throughout Scripture, the number 24 is describes priestly rulers. The protagonist of Psalm 72 is said to rule in 24 ways. David organizes the priests into 24 administrative orders or offices in 1 Chronicles 24. John sees 24 enthroned elders in Revelation 4.1-4, girded in white gowns and gold crowns.
I would argue hyperbolic rhetoric was used in order to demonstrate Joshua’s priestly-kingly obedience in moral, military, and liturgical matters. He leads Yahweh’s people in triumphant procession as the exemplary reader and bearer of the Book of Moses, the first Yeshua, Christ’s template. (Christ, who looked into the Book of Moses and also saw his mission of conquest outlined.)
My understanding of Scriptural historiography as primarily liturgical and symbolic leaves me significantly less concerned about its granular journalistic accuracy—in this case, the account’s correspondence to the details of historical battles.
What does interest me is the way it features the word “all” (kal). Yahweh has put all things under Christ’s feet, as He did Joshua’s. The eternal Son of God has always possessed all things as given him by his Father. All things were created through him, and in him all things hold together. Joshua prefigures Christ, and his all matters just as much. If Joshua must be read not only hyperbolically but, crudely, as an exaggeration, wouldn’t that give us cause to question whether the Christ of Scripture (or the Jesus of History?) is really creator and redeemer of all things.
Christian readers of Scripture ought to let all mean all as God is all in all.
To the second question, all literature, including Joshua, should be read literally.
Literal reading only means reading for a “direct report of facts” if the text’s purpose is to report facts directly. Reading Scriptural history, expecting it to give a disinterested and “direct report of facts,” will contort your reading.
Take, for example, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The first paragraph constructs an elaborate birth-pains metaphor to describe the identity of the nation and the role of its founders. In the first paragraph, he claims that the men buried at Gettysburg fought “nobly.” But he does not know their motives and cannot speak with the disinterested accuracy of a “direct report of facts.” Is Lincoln guilty of exaggeration? Is his speech unreliable?
Like Lincoln, the author/redactor of Joshua loves Israel with a true and critical appreciation, and he speaks, as many prophets and poets of history do, of the identity of the nation, its relationship with its God, and how each of its monumental moments ought to be remembered for the sake of its future well-being.