The General Fear Of Israel (Joshua 9:1-2).
As a result of the news getting around of the presence of the Israelites, and of what they had already done, the independent Canaanite cities became very much afraid and began to plot what they could do in order to oust these ‘strangers'. Each began to muster its forces with the intention of resisting Israel's presence in the land, for they were quite well aware that in the end it could spell disaster for themselves. And some even began to get together in confederacies.
‘ And so it was that when all the kings who were Beyond Jordan, in the hill country and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the Great Sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard of it.'
Note here the use of Beyond Jordan (compare ‘Beyond Jordan westward' - Joshua 5:1). It would seem that the name could apply to land on both sides of the River regardless of where the speaker was. It was a region on either side of the Jordan, especially the land in the Jordan Rift, the Arabah. The point of the whole description here is to include the whole of Canaan. The Arabah, the hill country (central mountain range), the lowlands (the Shephelah - the lower slopes to the south and the south west), the coastal plain, right to the Mediterranean (the Great Sea) and up to the Lebanon Range (compare Deuteronomy 1:7).
The kings of all these people heard ‘about it'. Was this about the children of Israel and their arrival? Or was it about the covenant ceremony and the absorption of a Shechem which was already somewhat feared because of its previous activities? Or was it about the writing of the Law of YHWH on the stones, a sign of taking possession of the land for their warlike God. Or was it about the defeat of Ai and Bethel? Or was it about all four? ‘It' does in fact probably mean ‘all that was happening'.
For the idea compare Joshua 5:1. These six nations are also mentioned in Joshua 11:3; Joshua 12:8 compare Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 23:23; Exodus 33:2; Exodus 34:11; Deuteronomy 20:17; Judges 3:5 but given in differing orders. In Joshua 3:10; Joshua 24:11; Deuteronomy 7:1, the Girgashites are added. They reveal something of the mixed nature of the ‘Canaanite' population.
‘That they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua, and with Israel, with one accord.'
This was not intended to indicate that they formed a huge alliance, although some did form alliances, but that each in his own way gathered his forces ready to meet this new threat and consulted with neighbours, while also making wider contact with others. They were all of one mind, acting at the same time, although semi-independently. The whole country was stirred by what it was hearing. It is, however, quite possible that messengers gradually passed between them all, in spite of the difficulty of travel, so that there was specific spoken general agreement between them.
Their aim was to fight ‘Joshua and Israel', Joshua as the great general and leader and Israel as the people of God (and in their eyes as the intruders). The mention of both brings out that the latter is being stressed. A nation would normally be assumed without mention when its leader was mentioned. But the reason for it was partly because Israel had to be faced on two fronts, on the one hand as a large army under Joshua, and on the other as a people as a whole gradually encroaching and settling in different areas.