The Hivites in Joshua

New Life Version of the Holy Bible

Joshua Chapter 11.

19 There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon. They took them all in battle. 20 For the Lord made their hearts hard to meet Israel in battle, so Israel might destroy all of them. They would not be shown pity but would be destroyed, just as the Lord had told Moses.

The Hivites were one of the Canaanite nations (tribes) dispossessed by the children of Israel and their name means “Villager” and they inhabited central Palestine.  They were supposed to be peaceful people and so that explains when meeting the ferocity of Joshua and his army, they gave up relatively easily unlike the other tribal “nations” which fought him.

Gibeon is one of their four cities.  True it is rather confusing with the later judge of a similar name, Gideon, but remember that Gideon was the son of an Israelite and a Canaanite mother, and so the similarity is not as striking.  Perhaps that is why, his name is changed to the Hebrew Jerubaal “he who conquers the Canaan god Baal”.

BTW.In the VOICE translation, the Lord becomes the Eternal One.  It is odd reading that at first.  I really did not understand the reference.

Today we are using the New Life version which is supposed to be a “simplified” version of the Bible and uses a limited vocabulary of about 850 words, not including proper names. This was done to make the text easier to read and understand, a goal that the Ledyards, a husband and wife team who were missionaries in the Canadian Artic,  felt was not adequately met by existing English translations of the Bible. Some things about the NLV are:

1. This translation is gender-correct (which is the same as the King James Version). All pronouns referring to God are capitalized. Short sentences are used with the subject usually preceding the predicate.
2. No contractions are used. Many paragraphs are preceded with captions which summarize the content.
3. There are no  foot-notes.
4. Most Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are followed by the reference
5. Words have one meaning.  Here’s an example for the word “great” which in the dictionary can be ambiguous.
   1. The wording from Isaiah 29:6 NKJ
      1. You will be punished by the Lord of hosts
         With thunder and earthquake and great noise,
         With storm and tempest
         And the flame of devouring fire.
   2. Becomes in the New Life version 29.6
      1.  You will be visited by the Lord of All, with thunder and earth-shaking and loud noise, and with wind and storm and a destroying fire.

You can buy it here.

Related articles

• Joshua 11. Joshua conquers the entire land (bummyla.wordpress.com)