Strengthen your faith in God's word

After the battle at Gibeon and the sun standing still, “Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal” (Joshua 10:15). But the next verses tell of the five kings hidden in the cave at Makkedah, and “all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace” (10:21), and then of the taking of the cities of the south; only after these, in the same words, “Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal” (10:43). The Septuagint leaves out verse 15; the KJV keeps it, as the Hebrew has it.

Preferred: Verse 15 closes the account of the day at Gibeon by telling where Joshua and Israel came at last, and verse 16 goes back to take up the five kings. Verse 43 says it again in its place, after the cities taken, “though the same is said, ver. 15. before the history of those facts” (Gill). Scripture often tells the end of a matter before its middle: David “took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem” (1 Samuel 17:54), though Jerusalem was taken years later.

Also given: Gill’s first answer: Joshua purposed to return to Gilgal, and made ready to, but was stayed by the news of the kings hidden at Makkedah. And Haley gives the view of several writers that verses 12 to 15 are all the quotation from the book of Jasher, whose account of the campaign ended with the return.