There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle.
19. There was not a city that made peace, etc This sentence appears, at first sight, contradictory to what is everywhere said in the books of Moses, that the Israelites were not to enter into any league with those nations, or make any terms of peace with them, but, on the contrary, to destroy them utterly, and wipe out their race and name.
The Canaanites' refusal to seek peace was their fatal blindness. God hardened hearts already bent on war; they chose enmity with Israel when they might have made terms, as Gibeon did. Hardness of heart is the sinner's ruin, and those left to their own stubborn pride are already marked for destruction.
AI summary
Commenting on Joshua 11:15-23
There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel,.... Though, according to the Jews, Joshua, upon his first landing in Canaan, sent letters and messages to all the inhabitants of the land, offering them peace on certain terms; particularly that he sent three messages, or proposed three things to them; that those who had a mind to flee might flee; that...