Joshua 11:18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 18. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings— Joshua did not make all these conquests in one single campaign; Josephus says, that he was five years about them; Hist. Jud. lib. 5: cap. 2 and some make him out to have employed six years in them. Caleb was forty years old when he was sent to discover the land of Canaan, in the year of the world 2514, and in the second year after the departure from Egypt. Now, at the end of the war he was eighty-five years old, according to his own account, chap. Joshua 14:10. Consequently, the war ended in 2559, and probably towards the end of the year. But it had begun the 10th day of the first month of the year 2554, by the passage over Jordan, and soon after that followed the siege of Jericho; from this date, to the end of the year 2559, we find exactly six years; the first of which Joshua seems to have employed in the conquest of south Canaan, and the five others in the conquest of all the territories situated on the north of that country.