Joshua 5:1 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

The Amorites were the principal of those nations which occupied the hill country of Judaea (Genesis 10:16 note); the Canaanites of those that dwelt on the coast and low lands. These words are therefore equivalent to “all the kings of the highlanders, and all the kings of the lowlanders:” i. e. the kings of all the tribes of the country.

Until we were passed over - The use of the first person has been noted here, and in Joshua 5:6 (compare Acts 16:10), as suggesting the hand of one who himself shared in what he describes. But the text as read (though not written) by the Jewish authorities here, has the third person; as have some manuscripts, Septuagint, Vulgate, etc.: and a change of person like this in Hebrew, even if the text stand, does not of itself warrant the inference. (Compare Psalms 66:6.)

Joshua 5:1

1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.