And Joshua said, alas! O Lord God
What a miserable and distressed condition are we in! have pity and compassion on us; who could have thought it, that this would have been our case?
wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver
us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us:
who are mentioned either for the whole people of the land of Canaan; or rather, because the people of Israel were now in that part of the country which they inhabited: these words discover much weakness, diffidence, and distrust, and bear some likeness to the murmurs of the children of Israel in the wilderness; but not proceeding from that malignity of spirit theirs did, but from a concern for the good of the people and the glory of God, they are not resented by him:
would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan;
in which he seems to cast the blame, not upon the Lord but upon himself and the people, who were not content to dwell on the other side, but were desirous of a larger and better country; and now ruin seemed to be the consequent of that covetous disposition and discontented mind.