The writer referred to Canaan as "the land of the sons of Israel"first here in Scripture (v. 22). The Anakim were the mighty warriors that the 10 spies had feared (Num. 13:28). Israel destroyed most of these.
"The hardening of their hearts [v. 20] was punitive. Their iniquity was now full (cf. Gen. 15:16). The long respite granted to them by a long-suffering God wrought no repentance in them."153
"Here is a biblical lesson which has always been difficult for the people of God to learn. Deuteronomy commanded Israel to obey God, destroy the inhabitants, have no mercy, make no covenant, make no marriages (7:1-3). Such a command had a divine purpose. It removed the temptations to follow other gods. From the days of the Judges and especially from the period of Solomon onward, the great temptation was to make political alliances through covenants and political marriages between royal families (1 Kgs 11:1-8; 16:31; 20:30-43). To protect Israel against the major sin of idolatry, God commanded her not to show mercy to the enemy. To enable her to keep his commandment, God caused her enemies to fight her rather than seek mercy and peace."154
Joshua subdued the whole land (v. 23) in the sense that there were no more pitched battles by the combined Israelite tribal forces following Joshua's conquests. God expected individual tribes to subdue the remaining towns and pockets of resistance from then on (cf. 13:1; Judg. 1:1).
"The taking of the wholeland does not imply that all the towns and villages to the very last had been conquered, or that all the Canaanites were rooted out from every corner of the land, but simply that the conquest was of such a character that the power of the Canaanites was broken, their dominion overthrown, and their whole land so thoroughly given into the hands of the Israelites, that those who still remained here and there were crushed into powerless fugitives, who could neither offer any further opposition to the Israelites, nor dispute the possession of the land with them, if they would only strive to fulfil the commandments of their God and persevere in the gradual extermination of the scattered remnants."155
"The error of contrasting Joshua's rapid campaigns (misread as permanent conquest) with slower occupation in Judges 1 misses the point entirely. And how often the proponents of this theory omit even to read Joshua 13! Thirty-one dead kinglets (Joshua 12) were not a conquest in depth, merely a cropping of the leadership. At the end of Joshua's career, there still remained very much land to be possessed' (13:1)--both the areas listed (13:2-6) largely unreached by Joshua's vigour, as well as the in-depth settlement of most of the districts already raided. That process was more painfully slow, even in Joshua's lifetime; cf. the remarks in Joshua 18:2-3 (Joshua's rebuke), besides the frustrated efforts recorded here and there (Josh. 15:63; 16:10; 17:12, 16)."156
The words of God to Moses to which the writer alluded (v. 23) are probably those in Exodus 23:27-33 (cf. Deut. 7:22). There God told Moses He would not drive all the Canaanites out of the land in one year but little by little. This is how the conquest of the land had advanced thus far and how it should have continued to its completion.
The major war with the Canaanites ended (v. 23), but minor battles and mopping up operations were still necessary. Not only did the Israelites obtain the land, but they defeated the Canaanite kings and broke their power.
"There has never been a greater war for a greater cause. The battle of Waterloo decided the fate of Europe, but this series of contests in far-off Canaan decided the fate of the world."157
