Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
achievements interwoven, and that the collection was formed by degrees; so that the
reference to this work is neither a proof that the passage has been interpolated by a
later hand, nor that the work was composed at a very late period. That the passage
quoted from this work is extracted from a song is evident enough, both from the
poetical form of the composition, and also from the parallelism of the sentences. The
quotation, however, does not begin with wayo'mer (OT:559) ( and he said ) in v. 12b,
but with teet (OT:5414) bªyowm (OT:3117) ( in the day when the Lord delivered ) in
v. 12a, and vv. 13 and 14 also form part of it; so that the title of the book from which
the quotation is taken is inserted in the middle of the quotation itself.
In other cases, unquestionably, such formulas of quotation are placed either at the
beginning (as in Num 21:14,27; 2 Sam 1:18), or else at the close of the account,
which is frequently the case in the books of Kings and Chronicles; but it by no means
follows that there were no exceptions to this rule, especially as the reason for
mentioning the original sources is a totally different one in the books of Kings, where
the works cited are not the simple vouchers for the facts related, but works containing
fuller and more elaborate accounts of events which have only been cursorily
described. The poetical form of the passage in v. 13 also leaves no doubt whatever
that
vv. 13 and 14 contain the words of the old poet, and are not a prose comment made
by the historian upon the poetical passage quoted. The only purely historical
statement in v. 15; and this is repeated in v. 43, at the close of the account of the wars
and the victory. But this literal repetition of v. 15 in v. 43, and the fact that the
statement, that Joshua returned with all the people to the camp at Gilgal, anticipates
the historical course of the events in a very remarkable manner, render it highly
probable, it not absolutely certain, that v. 15 was also taken from the book of the
righteous.
In the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites to the children of Israel ("before,"
as in Deut 2:31,33, etc.),
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