So Joshua took the whole land Which either the Canaanites or the Anakims possessed; that is, subdued it, so that none rose up against him, though many places were not yet in the possession of the Israelites. According to all that the Lord said unto Moses See Deuteronomy 31:7-8. God had promised to drive out the nations before them: and now he had fulfilled his promise. Our successes and enjoyments are then doubly comfortable when we see them flowing to us from God's faithfulness to his promise. This is according to what the Lord hath said Just as our obedience is the more acceptable when it has an eye to the precept. And if we make conscience of our duty, we need not question the performance of the promise. And the land rested from war None of the lords of the Philistines, nor any others, presumed to give them any disturbance, so that they now became “peaceable possessors of that fine land of promise, and thought only how to divide it among them, as we shall see in chap. 13.
Here begins the seventh year, reckoning from their first seed-time, after the passage over Jordan; the first sabbatical year celebrated by them after Joshua had brought them into rest; that rest which is a type of the eternal rest, which the great Joshua of the new covenant prepares for his people in heaven, Hebrews 4:8-9. &c. From this same epocha we are to reckon the jubilees.” Dodd. See on Leviticus 25:8-10.