‘ But as for the cities that stood on their tells, Israel did not burn any of them except Hazor only. That Joshua did burn.'
The saving of all these cities, as he had saved the others in the South, was probably in the hope that when Israel eventually occupied them they would find cities in good condition for living in as YHWH had promised (Deuteronomy 6:10). Joshua was an idealist. He could not believe that Israel would finally disobey God and that these cities would therefore be turned against them. Some suggest that the writer was saying that he took all the cities of the kings apart from the ones that stood on their tells and were thus walled, inaccessible, heavily defended and would require long sieges to take them. This is not, however, what the surrounding picture suggests, and it would surely have said that he did not ‘take' them.