An Overview of The Book of Joshua
The book of Joshua can be split into three sections. From chapter 1 to chapter 12 Israel conquers the land, from chapter 13 to chapter 21 Israel divides the land, and from chapter 22 to chapter 24 Israel begins to settle the land. The first section can easily be split again into three sections covering the three phases of Israels conquest. The three phases are The Central Campaign which is from chapter 6 to chapter 9, The Southern Campaign in chapter 10, and The Norther Campaign in chapter 11.
The earthly leader of this new nation is Joshua who has just been appointed as such by Moses in the end of Deuteronomy and is confirmed by God in the beginning of the book of Joshua. The book opens with God telling Joshua His expectations and the role Joshua is to play as Israel’s leader. A phrase that God uses three times when telling Joshua His expectations for him is, “be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6,7,9 NASB95).
This is not a hollow command with no beneficial instruction or explanation, God guarantees success in verses 3-6, God also tells Joshua what he must do to have success in verse 7 and 8 which tell Joshua, “ be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left…This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it;” Then God ends in verse 8 with one more reason to “Be strong and courageous!” which is that “the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” This opening shows that, “Joshua became, in effect, the new Moses, for the same God who empowered Moses now empowered him.” (Encountering the Old Testament, 3rd edition p.301)
The largest section of the book of Joshua is the first section on Israel’s conquest of the land. The Central Campaign records the victories over Jericho, Ai, Bethel, as well as a treaty with Gibeon. This campaign starts strong with Israel’s defeat of Jericho, (Chapter 6) but then falters at Ai due to Achan taking what had been forbidden to take from Jericho, (Chapter 7). After that is sorted, they defeat Ai, (Chapter 8) but the Gibeon’s convince Israel they were from a distant land and form a treaty through deceit (Chapter 9) thus ending the central campaign. This campaign both demonstrated God’s power but also the consequences of disobedience.
Chapter 10 then covers The Southern Campaign and the victory over a coalition of southern kings who mobilized to attack Gibeon. Despite the treaty with the Gibeonites being one formed under deceit we see the weight God puts behind our words, if we say something we will be held to it. The Gibeon’s had been on the chopping block for destruction so it would have been easy to pull back and allow their destruction but that would have been going back on the treaty. By being obedient to the treaty God rewarded them with a victory over the southern kings.
Then chapter 11 covers the northern campaign, and a second coalition of kings mobilized this time with the goal of wiping out Joshua and his army, but this attack failed as well. This campaign went the smoothest because it was the only one that did not have obvious markers of disobedience as seen in Achan and the treaty with Gibeon. This demonstrated Joshuas growth in obedience and as a leader. This is seen in Joshua 11:15 where he is given high praise where it says, “Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses.”
A common criticism of this section of Joshua is that it condones genocide. It does not, and I highly recommend the paper by David M. Howard Jr. Destruction and Dispossesion of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua, in it he says, “a careful reading of the biblical texts reveals that God’s commands were more focused on driving the Canaanites out of the land than they were on killing every last, living person. This point is too often misunderstood or ignored, whether by Christian apologists trying to justify the “total” exterminations or by non-Christians accusing Israel and the God of the Bible of barbaric “genocide.” But, as we’ve seen, there was no genocide in the sense commonly understood.” Throughout the campaign they only fought those who stayed behind or attacked them, yet all the cities had the options to convert like Rahab in Joshua 6 or they could leave like the Amorites in Numbers 21:32 who were dispossessed but not killed while in verses 33-34 they kill the king of Bashan, his sons, and his people because they attacked Israel.
After Israel got a foothold in the land they divided and settled the land. Because they did this does not mean they had finished conquering. Now though the bulk of the conquering was for the individual tribes in their assigned lands. This is seen in the repeated idea after listing a tribe’s inheritance the book then tells us how successful they were at driving the Canaanites out demonstrating this expectation. The first allotted section was Caleb’s at Hebron, an area he wanted because of the enemies there which he wanted to drive out. The last allotted section was Joshua’s at Timnath-Serah, in this way the only two men who spied out the land 45 years earlier and had the faith to be willing to go in and take it bookended the allotment of the land. The Levites were not given a specific tribal area but instead they had forty-eight cities which included the six refuge cities spread among the other tribes.(Joshua 21) This was to allow them to more easily aid the nation in spiritual matters and disputes that would arise.
In chapter 24 Joshua speaks to Israel proclaiming God’s word. He reminds them of God’s faithfulness from Abraham to their present circumstance. Joshua then challenges them to, “fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:14) Joshua states that him and his family would serve the Lord and the rest of Israel proclaimed the same. (24:15) This point Joshua emphasized telling them that they were witnesses against themselves reminding them of the seriousness of disobedience. Their success in their military campaign came from God because of their obedience, the book ends with their affirmation that they will continue obeying. This ending of the book feels like foreshadowing of what is to come in Judges and the moral rollercoaster the children of Israel is about to go on.
References
Arnold, B., Beyer, B., and Elwell, W. Encountering the Old Testament, 3rd edition.
Howard, D. M., Jr. (2024). Destruction and Dispossession of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua. Themelios, 49(3), 589–606.