Joshua 11 · a question people ask
"Joshua took the whole land" (11:23). Then why does 13:1 say very much land remains?
The book says both. This chapter: "So Joshua captured all that land" (11:16), and "So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD spoke to Moses" (11:23). Two chapters later the LORD tells Joshua, "You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed" (13:1). The land that remains includes places and peoples this chapter names: "the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites" (13:3), where a Gittite is, in Strong's words, an "inhabitant of Gath"; the land "from Baal Gad under Mount Hermon to the entrance of Hamath" (13:5), where this chapter's conquest reached "even to Baal Gad" (11:17); and "from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, even all the Sidonians" (13:6). This chapter itself says that of the Anakim some remained "in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod" (11:22). The book sets 11:23 and 13:1 side by side and doesn't say how they fit together. The chapters on the tribes' land go on to name places not yet taken (15:63, 16:10, 17:12).
The verses
“So Joshua captured all that land, the hill country, all the South, all the land of Goshen, the lowland, the Arabah, the hill country of Israel, and the lowland of the same,”
“There were none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some remain. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD spoke to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land had rest from war.”
“from Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir, even to Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon. He took all their kings, struck them, and put them to death.”
“Now Joshua was old and well advanced in years. The LORD said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed.”