Finishing the Fight: The Mopping Up of Giants Text: Joshua 11:21-23
Introduction: The Unfinished Task
We come now to the end of the grand, sweeping campaigns of Joshua. The southern coalition has been shattered. The northern confederacy has been routed. The text gives us this summary statement that the major battles are over. But as every soldier knows, winning the war and securing the peace are two different things. The heavy lifting was done, the back of the opposition was broken, but there remained significant pockets of resistance. And these were not just any pockets of resistance. These were the very thing that had terrified the first generation of spies and caused their hearts to melt like wax.
Forty years prior, the spies had come back from the land and given their infamous report. They said the land was wonderful, a land of milk and honey, but, they said, "the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there" (Num. 13:28). This was the sticking point. This was the fear that led to four decades of wandering in the wilderness. The Anakim. The giants. The very sight of them was enough to make the Israelites feel like grasshoppers.
So it is highly significant that the Holy Spirit, in summarizing the conquest, makes a special point of telling us what Joshua did about the giants. The main war was over, but the Lord was not going to leave this particular loose end untied. The very thing that caused the fathers to rebel in unbelief, the sons, under Joshua's leadership, were now sent to deal with directly. God has a wonderful sense of poetic justice. He doesn't just give us victory; He gives us victory over the very thing that scared us the most. He makes us go back and face our fears, but this time with His promises ringing in our ears.
This passage is about more than just a historical clean-up operation. It is a profound lesson in the nature of faith, obedience, and the thoroughness of God's redemptive work. God doesn't just conquer our sin in principle; He intends to conquer it in every last detail, in every fortified hill country of our hearts.
The Text
Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities.
There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained.
So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land was quiet from war.
(Joshua 11:21-23 LSB)
Cutting Off the Anakim (v. 21)
We begin with the specific action Joshua took.
"Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities." (Joshua 11:21)
The timing here is important. "At that time." This was after the major campaigns were concluded. This was a dedicated, focused mission. Joshua turns his attention to the giants who had taken refuge in the mountainous terrain, the natural fortresses. Hebron, Debir, and Anab were key cities in the southern hills. The Anakim were not just tall; they were strategically entrenched. They represented an ancient, formidable, and demonic opposition to God's purposes.
Now, who were these Anakim? They were part of the old Nephilim strain from before the flood (Gen. 6:4). While the flood dealt with that widespread corruption, pockets of this giganticism, this perverse strength, reappeared afterwards. They were a people marked by a proud and violent rebellion against heaven. When the spies saw them, they weren't just seeing tall basketball players; they were seeing the embodiment of a spiritual hostility that had deep roots. So for Joshua to "cut them off" was not just a military act; it was a spiritual cleansing of the land.
The phrase "devoted them to destruction" is the Hebrew word herem. This is a critical theological concept. This was not ordinary warfare. Herem means to consecrate something to God, usually through its complete destruction. It was a form of corporate capital punishment enacted by God, with Israel as His executioner. The Canaanite cultures, and particularly the Anakim, had reached a point of terminal spiritual cancer. Their idolatry, their child sacrifice, their sexual perversion was so profound that the land itself was vomiting them out (Lev. 18:25). God, in His patience, had given them centuries to repent (Gen. 15:16), but their iniquity was now full. Herem was God's righteous judgment against a civilization that had become utterly irredeemable and was a toxic threat to His redemptive plan for the entire world, which was to come through Israel.
This is a hard word for our soft generation. We want a God who is all mercy and no justice. But the God of the Bible is holy. He judges sin, and He does so fiercely. And here, He commands His people to be the instruments of that judgment. Joshua's obedience is total. He doesn't negotiate. He doesn't take prisoners. He devotes them to destruction, giants and their cities alike.
The Remnant of Rebellion (v. 22)
Verse 22 gives us a crucial detail, a detail that will have long-term consequences for Israel.
"There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained." (Joshua 11:22 LSB)
Joshua was thorough within the allotted inheritance of Israel. He cleared the hill country of Judah and Israel completely. The central spine of the promised land was cleansed of this particular threat. However, the task was not fully completed everywhere. In three cities of the Philistine coast, Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, some of the Anakim survived. These were on the periphery, not in the heartland that Israel was to immediately possess.
This is not a criticism of Joshua, who did what he was commanded to do. But it is a foreshadowing of future trouble. The work of conquest is not entirely finished. A remnant of the giants remains. And where do we next meet a famous giant? Hundreds of years later, a nine-foot menace named Goliath comes out to defy the armies of the living God. And where is he from? He is from Gath (1 Sam. 17:4). The very place where the Anakim remained.
This is a permanent lesson for the people of God. Incomplete obedience, even in the outlying areas of our lives, will always come back to haunt us. The sin we tolerate on the coastlands of our heart will one day march up to the central valley and challenge our faith. The remnant of rebellion you allow to live in the "Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod" of your private life will eventually produce a Goliath that the whole community has to face. God calls for total conquest, a complete mortification of sin, root and branch. We are to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Rom. 13:14).
The Promised Rest (v. 23)
The chapter concludes with a glorious summary statement, a fulfillment of God's long-standing promise.
"So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land was quiet from war." (Joshua 11:23 LSB)
First, notice the faithful obedience. "Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh had spoken to Moses." Joshua's greatness was not in his innovative strategies, but in his dogged, faithful obedience. He simply did what God told Moses, who told him. This is the pattern of all true spiritual success. It is not about our cleverness; it is about our faithfulness to the Word of God. God gives the commands, and His people are to execute them without addition or subtraction.
Second, notice the gracious gift. "Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel." Israel did not ultimately win this land by their own strength. It was an inheritance, a gift from God. Yes, they had to fight. Faith without works is dead. But the fighting was the instrument by which they took possession of a gift already given. God had deeded the land to Abraham centuries before. The conquest was simply the process of evicting the squatters. So also with our salvation. It is a free gift of grace, an inheritance (Eph. 1:11), but we are called to fight the good fight of faith to lay hold of it (1 Tim. 6:12).
Finally, notice the resulting peace. "Thus the land was quiet from war." This is the goal of all of God's warfare. He is not a God of chaos, but of peace. He fights in order to establish a righteous rest. This rest was a foretaste of the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God (Heb. 4:9). It was a temporary, earthly picture of the final peace that will fill the whole earth when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers it as the waters cover the sea. When the enemies of God are defeated, His people enjoy rest.
Our Joshua and Our Giants
This entire narrative is a shadow, and the substance is Jesus Christ. Joshua's name in Hebrew is Yehoshua, which is precisely the name Yeshua, or Jesus, in English. He is our Joshua, the Captain of our salvation, who leads us into our true inheritance.
And we too have giants to face. We are not fighting the Anakim with swords of steel, but we are engaged in spiritual warfare against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age (Eph. 6:12). Our giants are the entrenched patterns of sin in our lives, the towering strongholds of pride, lust, bitterness, and unbelief that have taken refuge in the hill country of our hearts.
Like the first generation of Israelites, we often look at these giants and feel like grasshoppers. We say, "This sin is too big. This addiction is too strong. I've been defeated by it too many times." And so we are tempted to wander in a wilderness of defeat and resignation.
But our Joshua has already won the decisive victory. On the cross, He broke the back of the enemy's power. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (Col. 2:15). The war is won. But now, He calls us, like Joshua's men, to go into the land and conduct the mopping-up operations. He calls us to take the victory He won in principle and apply it in practice to every corner of our lives.
He commands us to "cut off" the Anakim. This is the language of radical mortification. "Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5). We are to show no mercy. We are to devote these sins to utter destruction. We are not to negotiate with them or try to manage them. We are to kill them.
And we must be thorough. We must not leave any remnant in Gaza or Gath. We cannot say, "I will deal with my pride, but I will keep this little pet bitterness." That remnant of rebellion will grow up to be a Goliath that will defy you and your God. Our Joshua leads us into a total conquest, granting us the grace to cleanse the land of our hearts completely.
As we obey, as we faithfully swing the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, against our sins, we will begin to possess our inheritance. And what is that inheritance? It is the peace of God, the quiet from war in our souls. It is the Sabbath rest that comes when Christ rules and reigns over every province of our lives. The giants will fall. The land will be quiet. For our Joshua, Jesus, has promised, "I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).