Yehoshua 12: One King, One King, One King

At the end of the chapter, the Navi lists the 31 kings defeated as part of the conquest of Canaan. The kings are listed in column fashion and each king is listed with the number one after. Why are they listed in this way? Why not count them sequentially? Radak explains that each king was not a ruler of only one city, but was the ruler of one main city and many affiliated cities. The one next to each name is referring to the one kingdom that each ruled over. The cadence of this list matches the list of Esav’s descendants in Genesis 36:17, “These are the chieftains of Esav’s sons: From the sons of Elifaz, Esav’s firstborn, are: the chieftain Teiman, the chieftain Omar, the chieftain Tzefo, the chieftain Kenaz, etc.”אֵלֶּה אַלּוּפֵי בְנֵי־עֵשָׂו בְּנֵי אֱלִיפַז בְּכוֹר עֵשָׂו אַלּוּף תֵּימָן אַלּוּף אוֹמָר אַלּוּף צְפוֹ אַלּוּף קְנַז…(Genesis 36:15–17) This is also similar to how conquest epics were written in the ancient near east, with each defeated king listed separately. Malbim denotes the one as a way to focus on how each king individually was a moral threat to the Israelites and was responsible for God’s anger against the Canaanites. Another possibility is that the Navi is crafting a simple song of thanks to God. The structure of the song is the same as Moshe’s last song with two columns. The number one after each king is meant to denote the fact that each king and each victory was significant in itself. But in the end, the poem ends with “these kings were 31” to emphasize the enormity of the task and the enormity of the victory. מֶלֶךְ שְׁלֹשִׁים וְאֶחָד כֻּלָּם(Joshua 12:24) Building on this, perhaps Joshua is trying to send a Midrashic message. Joshua and the people defeated each of these kings, but they did not do it alone. God (One) was present for each and every battle with the people.