It happened, when 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 that Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
The panic in view here doubtless came about, as Jamieson suggested, from the fact that, "The kings had probably reckoned on the swollen river as being, for a time at least, a sure barrier against the invasion, but they were completely paralyzed by what happened, which was incontestable proof that God was on the side of the invaders."[5]