Catholic Commentary
The Terror of the Canaanite Kings
1When all the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard how Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, their heart melted, and there was no more spirit in them, because of the children of Israel.
Joshua 5:1 reports that the kings of Canaan—both inland Amorite rulers and coastal Canaanite leaders—heard of the miraculous drying of the Jordan River and became paralyzed with fear and despair. Their spiritual collapse before Israel's conquest begins demonstrates the power of God's intervention and fulfills earlier predictions about Canaanite terror.
Before Israel swings a single sword, God has already broken the enemy's will—the true victory belongs to the one who commands creation itself.
The First-Person Intrusion: "Until We Had Crossed Over"
One of the most textually striking features of this verse is the sudden shift from third-person narrative to first-person: "until we had crossed over." This anomalous pronoun has perplexed commentators for centuries. Ancient manuscripts vary (some read "they"), and it may reflect an embedded eyewitness source, a liturgical memory, or an authorial identification with the community. St. Jerome, in his commentary on Joshua, reads the "we" as the voice of the inspired author entering into the communal experience of crossing — the Church, as it were, speaking with one voice of her founding passage through the waters.
Typological Sense
The entire scene operates on a rich typological register. The Jordan crossing, now completed, is the type of Christian Baptism — a theme developed extensively by Origen of Alexandria in his Homilies on Joshua. As Israel crossed the Jordan and the enemies' power was broken, so in Baptism the Christian crosses into a new order of existence and the power of sin and death is — in principle — shattered. The "melting" of the kings' hearts before Israel's God anticipates the ultimate defeat of every spiritual power hostile to the People of God.
Catholic tradition, particularly through the patristic allegorical readings of Origen and his successors, sees in this verse a disclosure of the spiritual logic underlying all of salvation history: divine action precedes and enables human response. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "God's initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man" (CCC §2022). The melting of the Canaanite kings' hearts is the negative image of this truth: even those outside the covenant cannot remain neutral before God's mighty deeds. They are moved — here, to terror rather than faith.
Origen, in Homiliae in Iesum Nave (Homily 4), reads the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites as figures of the demonic powers that held the human soul captive before Christ — the true Joshua (a name identical in Hebrew to "Jesus") — crossed the Jordan of death and resurrection. Christ's Paschal Mystery is the event that causes all powers of darkness to "melt." This reading is echoed by St. Ambrose of Milan in De Mysteriis, where the Jordan crossing figures the baptismal passing from slavery to freedom.
The dual geography — highland and coastal kings — was read by medieval commentators such as the Venerable Bede as signifying the full breadth of sin's dominion: the proud, elevated sins of the spirit (the interior kings) and the base, sensual sins of the flesh (the coastal kings). Both are undone by the same divine power. The First Vatican Council's affirmation that God "can be known with certainty from created things by the natural light of human reason" (Dei Filius, Ch. 2) finds a sobering corollary here: the Canaanite kings knew enough to fear, but knowledge without the obedience of faith (cf. Romans 1:18–23) led only to despair, not salvation.
For the Catholic today, this verse is a bracing corrective to spiritual discouragement. Before Israel fought a single battle, the victory was already trembling in the enemy's chest. How often do we wage interior struggles — against habitual sin, against doubt, against worldly pressure — as though the outcome is in genuine doubt? Joshua 5:1 insists that the enemies of our sanctification have already been thrown into disarray by the Paschal Mystery. The cross and resurrection of Christ are the Jordan crossing that has already shaken every power arrayed against us.
Practically, this means that the Catholic who approaches confession, the Eucharist, or the daily Liturgy of the Hours is not entering battle against an unshaken enemy. The demonic "kings" that preside over our besetting vices have heard the report of what God has done in Christ and in Baptism. The spiritual counsel here is not complacency but confidence: fight with the assurance of one whose God has already dried the river. Rahab's example, embedded in this same narrative, presses the further question: will we, like the Canaanite kings, hear God's deeds and merely despair — or will we, like her, hear and believe?
Commentary
Literal Sense: The Geography and the Coalition
Joshua 5:1 opens with a panoramic view of Israel's adversaries, deliberately divided into two groups: "the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan westward" — that is, the hill-country peoples of the Cisjordanian interior — and "the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea," meaning the coastal lowland rulers. This dual enumeration is not merely geographical; it signals that the entire Land, from highland to shoreline, is now gripped by the same fear. The phrase "beyond the Jordan westward" marks a subtle but important narrative shift: the perspective is now that of a writer who stands east of the Jordan, looking back — or possibly the perspective has already become that of the settled Israelite, for whom the Jordan itself defines the boundary of the inheritance.
The Verb "Heard" (שָׁמְעוּ, shaméu)
The word "heard" (Hebrew: shaméu) is laden with theological irony throughout the Old Testament. Israel is called above all to Shema — to hear and obey the Lord. Here, the Canaanite kings hear, but their hearing produces only paralysis and despair, not conversion. Hearing without faith yields terror; hearing with faith yields life. This contrast will echo in the very next chapter, when Rahab — herself a Canaanite — hears the same report and responds not with melting dread but with an act of covenant faith (Joshua 2:9–11).
"Dried Up the Waters of the Jordan"
The specific cause of the kings' terror is the miracle of the Jordan crossing (Joshua 3–4). The Hebrew verb hôvîsh ("dried up") deliberately recalls the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21), and the text is at pains to draw this connection: just as Egypt had heard of the drying of the Red Sea forty years earlier, now Canaan hears of the drying of the Jordan. One divine act echoes and amplifies the other. Yahweh's power over water — the primordial chaos symbol — demonstrates His sovereign dominion over creation and over the fate of nations.
"Their Heart Melted… No More Spirit in Them"
The idiom "heart melted" (וַיִּמַּס לְבָבָם, wayyimmas levavam) is a recurring formula in the conquest narrative and in ancient Near Eastern war literature, signifying the complete collapse of will and courage. The parallel phrase "no more spirit in them" (לֹא־הָיָה בָם עוֹד רוּחַ) reinforces total demoralization. Remarkably, this is precisely what Rahab had reported to the Israelite spies in Joshua 2:11 — the narrative loops back, confirming her testimony. The word ("spirit/breath") deepens the image: these kings are, in a profound sense, already spiritually lifeless before the campaign begins.