Joshua’s words of lament echo the various complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16:3; Numbers 11:4–6; Numbers 14:2–3; Numbers 20:3–5). The certainty of the past appears preferable to the difficulty of the present, as Joshua wishes they had remained east of the Jordan River. Joshua was perhaps reflecting on fact that the kings of the east have already been conquered (Numbers 21:21–35) and that Israel could easily live there.1
7 And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord GOD, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan!