The men of Jericho fought against you - See the notes on Joshua 3:1-16 (note) and Joshua 6:1 (note), etc. The people of Jericho are said to have fought against the Israelites, because they opposed them by shutting their gates, etc., though they did not attempt to meet them in the field.

And ye went over Jordan,.... In a miraculous manner, the waters parting to make way for the host of Israel:

and came unto Jericho; the first city of any size and strength in the land, which was about seven or eight miles from Jordan; See Gill on Numbers 22:1,

and the men of Jericho fought against you; by endeavouring to intercept their spies, and cut them off; by shutting up the gates of their city against Israel; and it may be throwing darts, arrows, and stones, from off the walls of it at them. Kimchi thinks that some of the great men of Jericho went out from thence, to give notice and warning to the kings of Canaan of the approach of the Israelites, and in the mean time the city was taken; and that these afterwards joined with the kings in fighting against Joshua and the people of Israel:

the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; the seven nations of Canaan; this they did at different times, and in different places:

and I delivered them into your hand; these nations and their kings.

The last and greatest benefit which the Lord conferred upon the Israelites, was His leading them by miracles of His omnipotence across the Jordan into Canaan, delivering the Lords (or possessors) of Jericho," not "the rulers, i.e., the king and his heroes," as Knobel maintains (see 2 Samuel 21:12; 1 Samuel 23:11-12; and the commentary on Judges 9:6), "and all the tribes of Canaan into their hand," and sending hornets before them, so that they were able to drive out the Canaanites, particularly the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, though "not with their sword and their bow" (vid., Psalm 44:4); i.e., it was not with the weapons at their command that they were able to take the lands of these two kings. On the sending of hornets, as a figure used to represent peculiarly effective terrors, see at Exodus 23:28; Deuteronomy 7:20. In this way the Lord gave the land to the Israelites, with its towns and its rich productions (vineyards and olive trees), without any trouble on their part of wearisome cultivation or planting, as Moses himself had promised them (Deuteronomy 6:10-11).

And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the {e} men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.

(e) Because it was the chief city, under it he contains all the country: else they of the city fought not.

24:11 Deliver them - Namely, successively; for in these few words he seems to comprise all their wars, which being so fresh in their memory, he thought it needless particularly to mention.

24:1-14 We must never think our work for God done, till our life is done. If he lengthen out our days beyond what we expected, like those of Joshua, it is because he has some further service for us to do. He who aims at the same mind which was in Christ Jesus, will glory in bearing the last testimony to his Saviour's goodness, and in telling to all around, the obligations with which the unmerited goodness of God has bound him. The assembly came together in a solemn religious manner. Joshua spake to them in God's name, and as from him. His sermon consists of doctrine and application. The doctrinal part is a history of the great things God had done for his people, and for their fathers before them. The application of this history of God's mercies to them, is an exhortation to fear and serve God, in gratitude for his favour, and that it might be continued.