Joshua 12: Appendices of the Conquests

Joshua 11.16-23: Summary of Joshua's Conquests
Joshua 12: The Kings Conquered by Moses / The Kings Conquered by Joshua

The warfare ended, the biblical author recaps all the conquering that Israel has done in the promised land.

Summary of Joshua's Conquests: Joshua 11.16-23
The biblical author recounts all the land that Joshua took: the hill country, the Negeb, Goshen, the lowland, the Arabah, "the hill country of Israel." This last reference is what is known as an anachronism, something misplaced in time. Israel would be a known territory to the biblical author, but it did not exist during the time when Joshua would have been conquering it. This reference only could have been made once Israel as a nation had settled down in one place.

Joshua waged war for a long time against these kings, and not one town made peace with the Israelites with the exception of the inhabitants of Gibeon.

Further conquest is described: the Anakim from the hill country, Hebron, Debir, Anab, the hill country of Judah and the hill country of Israel. Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim, along with their towns.

Conquest finally concludes:

So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war.
(Josh. 11.23)

I like this last line, the way it personifies the land that needs a rest from the bloodshed. The land as an entity has witnessed all the bloodshed, and just as the Israelites get a break, so does the ravaged land.

The Kings Conquered by Moses: Joshua 12.1-6
This section recounts the kings of the land that the Israelites defeated east of the Jordan. Click on the link above to read them all.

The Kings Conquered by Joshua: Joshua 12.7-24
The biblical author next recounts the kings on the west side of the Jordan that the Israelites defeated, 31 kings in all.

It is apparent that the list of kings conquered by Moses and the list of kings conquered by Joshua come from two distinct sources. This attests to the patchwork authorship of the bible. Why else would such similar lists be written in such different fashions.