The Sinews of Unbelief Text: Joshua 11:6-9
Introduction: The Arsenal of Unbelief
We come now to the final great set piece battle in the initial conquest of Canaan. The southern confederacy was dealt with at Gibeon, and now the northern kings, led by Jabin of Hazor, have mustered an intimidating, overwhelming force. The text tells us earlier that it was a people "as the sand that is on the seashore in multitude, with very many horses and chariots" (v. 4). This was the ancient equivalent of a combined arms force of tanks, air power, and a massive infantry. This was the Shock and Awe of the Bronze Age. From a purely human, military perspective, Israel, a nation of foot soldiers, should have been terrified. They were technologically and numerically outclassed in every conceivable way.
And this is precisely how our spiritual enemies arrange themselves against us. The world, the flesh, and the devil do not come at us with flimsy arguments and shabby temptations. They muster their most impressive forces. They assemble their chariots of intellectual respectability, their horses of cultural power, their innumerable armies of social pressure. And the first objective of this display is to produce fear. The goal is to make the people of God feel small, outdated, and overwhelmed, so that they will either surrender in fear or, perhaps more subtly, begin to covet the enemy's weapons.
The central issue in this passage, and for us, is the basis of our confidence. Where does our trust lie? Is it in the tangible, the visible, the technologically impressive? Or is it in the bare word of the living God? God is about to give Israel a great victory, but it comes with a very strange and specific command. He is not just going to teach them how to win a battle; He is going to teach them how to handle a victory. And in this, He is going to perform radical surgery on their hearts, cutting away the sinews of unbelief that would tempt them to trust in the strength of horses and the utility of chariots.
The Text
Then Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give all of them over, slain, before Israel; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire."
So Joshua and all the people of war with him came upon them suddenly by the waters of Merom, and they fell upon them.
And Yahweh gave them into the hand of Israel, so that they struck them down, and they pursued them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim and the valley of Mizpeh to the east; and they struck them until there was no survivor remaining for them.
And Joshua did to them as Yahweh had said to him; he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.
(Joshua 11:6-9 LSB)
The Divine Word: Promise and Command (v. 6)
The first action in the battle is not a military maneuver, but a divine utterance. God speaks to Joshua.
"Then Yahweh said to Joshua, 'Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give all of them over, slain, before Israel; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.'" (Joshua 11:6)
God's word to Joshua has three parts. First, the exhortation: "Do not be afraid." This is a constant refrain in Scripture because we are constantly prone to fear. Fear is a form of practical atheism. It is looking at the size of the enemy's army instead of the size of our God. It is a failure of faith that paralyzes obedience. God commands our emotions because our emotions are responsive to what we believe. If we believe the enemy is ultimate, we will fear. If we believe God is ultimate, we will have courage. God is not offering a suggestion; He is issuing a command. Stop being afraid.
Second, the promise: "for tomorrow at this time I will give all of them over, slain." Notice the certainty. God speaks of a future event in the past tense of His decree. From God's perspective, the battle is already over. The victory is secured. Joshua's task is not to win the victory, but to go and collect it. This is the nature of the Christian life. We do not fight for victory; we fight from a victory already won for us by Christ on the cross. Our obedience is not a desperate attempt to achieve a result, but a confident response to a result that has been guaranteed.
Third, the peculiar command: "you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire." This is the heart of the lesson. Why not keep the horses and chariots? They are valuable military assets. A pragmatic general would see this as an opportunity to upgrade his army, to fight fire with fire. But God's ways are not our ways. Horses and chariots were the symbol of pagan military might. To trust in them was the quintessential mark of the nations. As the Psalmist says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God" (Psalm 20:7). God is commanding Israel to utterly destroy the temptation to adopt the world's methods and to trust in the world's power. He is inoculating them against military materialism. To hamstring a horse is to cut the tendon in its back leg, making it permanently useless for war. It is an act of deliberate disarmament. God wanted His people to be utterly and continually dependent on Him, and not on the normal instruments of power.
The Human Response: Sudden Obedience (v. 7)
Joshua's response to the divine word is immediate and total.
"So Joshua and all the people of war with him came upon them suddenly by the waters of Merom, and they fell upon them." (Joshua 11:7 LSB)
Faith acts. Joshua did not form a committee to debate the wisdom of God's command. He did not conduct a risk assessment. He received the word of the Lord, and he moved. The text says he came upon them "suddenly." This indicates a swift, decisive attack, likely after a forced march. This is what faith looks like. It is not passive resignation; it is energetic, active obedience based on the promise of God. He believed God's promise that the enemy was already defeated, and he acted accordingly. He moved with the kind of speed and decisiveness that you can only have when you know the outcome in advance.
The mention of a specific place, "the waters of Merom," anchors this event in real history. This is not a floaty spiritual allegory. This was a real battle, with real swords and real blood, in a real location. The faith we are called to is not a flight from reality, but an engagement with reality on the terms defined by the God who created it.
The Divine Action: The Lord's Victory (v. 8)
The narrative is careful to assign the ultimate cause of the victory to the right person.
"And Yahweh gave them into the hand of Israel, so that they struck them down, and they pursued them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim and the valley of Mizpeh to the east; and they struck them until there was no survivor remaining for them." (Joshua 11:8 LSB)
Israel fought, but "Yahweh gave them into the hand of Israel." This is the doctrine of concursus. God works through means, and the means He used here was the army of Israel. But the effective, dispositive power was His alone. Our efforts are real, and they are necessary, but they are never ultimate. God grants the victory.
And the victory was total. The pursuit was relentless, covering a huge swath of territory all the way to Great Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. This was not a mere tactical retreat by the enemy; it was a rout. And the command for herem, for total judgment, was carried out: "they struck them until there was no survivor remaining." This was not ethnic cleansing; it was divine judgment. God had given the Canaanite cultures centuries to repent, as He promised Abraham (Genesis 15:16), and their iniquity was now full. Israel was the instrument of a judgment that was righteous, just, and long overdue. To have spared them would have been an act of disobedience, a failure to execute the righteous sentence of the divine Judge.
The Human Obedience: Precise Faithfulness (v. 9)
The chapter could have ended with the previous verse. The military victory was complete. But the Holy Spirit includes this crucial summary statement.
"And Joshua did to them as Yahweh had said to him; he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire." (Joshua 11:9 LSB)
This is the seal of true faith. Joshua not only won the battle, he obeyed the difficult and counter-intuitive part of the command. It is one thing to obey God when it makes perfect pragmatic sense. It is another thing entirely to obey when the command seems wasteful or foolish. Think of the temptation. "Lord, surely we can keep just a few of the chariots. For defensive purposes, of course. For national security." But Joshua's obedience was not partial. It was exact. "Joshua did... as Yahweh had said to him."
He crippled the war horses. He set fire to the state-of-the-art military hardware. This was an act of profound theological worship. It was a declaration in wood, leather, and horseflesh that Israel's trust was not in military technology but in the living God. This act of destruction was in fact an act of construction; it was building a foundation of faith and dependence on God for the new nation. By destroying the instruments of worldly power, he was consecrating Israel to a different kind of power altogether.
Conclusion: Crippling Our Idols
The application for us is direct and sharp. We are in a spiritual war. And we are constantly tempted to adopt the horses and chariots of our enemies. We are tempted to trust in the weapons of the world to advance the kingdom of God.
What are our horses and chariots? For some, it is the chariot of political power, believing that if we can just pass the right laws or elect the right candidate, the kingdom will be built. For others, it is the horses of marketing and pragmatism, watering down the gospel to make it more appealing to the masses, measuring success by numbers and budgets instead of faithfulness. For others, it is the war horses of intellectual pride, relying on our own cleverness and apologetic systems more than on the simple, foolish proclamation of the cross.
God's command to us is the same as it was to Joshua. "Do not be afraid." The victory is already won in Christ. But as you go out to fight from that victory, you must hamstring your idols. You must burn the chariots of worldliness. You must cripple your reliance on any source of strength, security, or significance that is not the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
This requires a ruthless, Joshua-like obedience. It means choosing the foolishness of God over the wisdom of men. It means trusting in prayer more than in programs. It means relying on the power of the Spirit more than on the power of personality. It means being willing to look foolish, weak, and wasteful in the eyes of the world. But it is the only path to true spiritual victory. We must do as the Lord has commanded us, and trust in His name alone.