‘ So Joshua took all that land, the hill country, and all the South, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland and the Arabah, and the hill country of Israel, and the lowland of the same, from Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir, even to Baal-gad, in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon, and all their kings he took, and smote them and put them to death.'
With some important exceptions he had defeated the inhabitants throughout all the land. The central and southern highlands, the Negeb, the land of Goshen, the Shephelah, and the Jordan Rift (the Arabah). Also the Northern hill country and lowlands. And he had destroyed all their kings. (There is no mention of the Coastal Plain or of the plain of Esdraelon and Jezreel). Thus was the way paved for the children of Israel to take possession of the land. It is true that much of it they would have to retake, for the inhabitants who survived, and others from wandering tribes always on the lookout for an opportunity would repossess the land and the cities once Joshua and his army moved on, but their strength had been broken. The opportunity was there and the presence of Israel in the land was secure.
Note the expressions ‘the hill country of Israel and the lowland of the same'. Israel were already announcing their presence by a renaming of parts of the land. The renaming may have been by the inhabitants of the land after these parts had been captured and settled by Israel, a reluctant recognition of their presence.
Mount Halek was probably Jebel Halaq, forty kilometres (twenty five miles) south of Beersheba, near the south east border of Judah where it touches the border of Edom (‘goes up to Seir'). Baalgad was in the far north of Israel's territories at the foot of and to the west of Mount Hermon. It may be Tell Haus or Hasbeiyah, both in the Wadi et-Teim.