The Book Of Joshua
Holman Bible Dictionary [1]
Authorship and Date The Former Prophets are all anonymous. That means that no author is mentioned in the book. Some Bible students think Joshua wrote the book except for the death reports ( Joshua 24:29-33 ); but the book gives no indication that Joshua had anything to do with writing the whole book, though he did write the laws on which the covenant renewal was based ( Joshua 24:26 ).
It is also difficult to date the writing of books like this. Some Bible students suggest a time about a hundred years after Joshua's death, or at least by the time of the beginning of the monarchy. A date around 1045 B.C. would place it within the lifetime of Samuel, who was in a sense the last of the judges and the one who anointed the first two kings. Other Bible students think the Book of Joshua only reached its present form when the Former Prophets were collected together during the Exile.
The events of the book apparently took place in the last half of the thirteenth century, from about 1250 to 1200 B.C., though some would date the Exodus and the conquest earlier, in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Contents The Book of Joshua tells the story of a significant Bible event, the conquest of the land of Canaan. It tells this story in light of the theological themes of the Book of Deuteronomy, and thus the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings are often spoken of as the Deuteronomic History.
The book has only two main parts, and an appendix:
I. The Conquest of the Land, 1–12.
II. The Settlement of the Land, 13–22.
III. Joshua's Farewell Addresses, 23–24.
The Book of Joshua standardizes the conquest stories to some extent. For example, the accounts are from the standpoint of the general who led the entire nation, whereas the Book of Judges is more from the standpoint of the foot soldier who did the actual fighting.
A surface reading of the Book of Joshua would give the impression that the invasion was complete and final. However, numerous passages ( Joshua 13:13; Joshua 15:63; Joshua 16:10; Joshua 17:12-13 , Joshua 17:16-18 ) agree with the Book of Judges to show that it was up to the individual clans to root out the many pockets of Canaanite resistance still scattered throughout the land. The difference is between occupation and subjugation, the former in the Book of Joshua and the latter in the Book of Judges.
Through it all, the emphasis of the book is on the Lord's mighty acts. Joshua was rightly celebrated as an effective military leader. The people were generally obedient and courageous. However, the glory goes to God alone ( Joshua 3:10; Joshua 4:23-24; Joshua 6:16 ). He is the true hero of the book.
Nature of the Covenant in the Book of Joshua The Lord's covenant with His people was always more universalistic and inclusive than we usually realize. We see this clearly in the Book of Joshua. Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, was accepted, along with her family, as a part of the covenant community ( Joshua 2:9-13; Joshua 6:22-23 ,Joshua 6:22-23, 6:25 ). It may well be that people related to the Hebrews who lived in the Shechem area voluntarily joined in their fellowship of faith ( Joshua 8:30-35 ). The people of Gibeon and its four-city league of cities were accepted, and even became associated with Temple service ( Joshua 9:3-27 ). The covenant was not limited by race or nation; it was open to anyone of faith.
Holy War in the Book of Joshua The Hebrews did not divide life up into sacred and secular spheres as we do. To them all of life was holy, in the sense that it was lived under the direction of the Lord. They saw the Lord at work on behalf of His people in every area of life. Thus the soldiers were holy. They were under strict religious regulations. Religious ceremonies prepared them for battle ( Joshua 5:2-11 ).
The Lord received the credit for all victories. All of the spoils of battle belonged to Him ( Joshua 6:18-19 ). None was to be taken for personal use. This is related to the idea of cherem or ban. It might seem ruthless or even immoral by our modern Western standards, but it was a part of the world of that day. A certain city, for instance Jericho in Joshua 6:1 , was placed under the ban. It was devoted to destruction in the name of the Lord. Everything in it was to either be destroyed or else placed in the Lord's service in the tabernacle.
The ban was a common practice in the Semitic world and was also known among the Greeks. Some suggest that it served to control looting and that it offered an enemy encouragement to surrender without a struggle.
Moral Problems of the Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is filled with war, conquest, and destruction. Its teaching is that the Lord allowed his people to conquer the land of Canaan, to take possession of the area He had promised to the patriarchs.
But why would the Lord allow one nation to attack and defeat another? Several factors need to be taken into consideration in studying a book that has so little of loving your enemy or turning the other cheek.
One must begin by admitting that Joshua lived centuries before Christ appeared to reveal the Father's will fully and completely. We should not expect to find completed Christian truth in a book written so long before Christ came.
The Hebrew people saw paganism as a poison. Pagan religious views were a spiritual infection that was both highly contagious and deadly. It could be controlled only by strict quarantine and eradication. Holy war became God's method in that setting to achieve this purpose. Holy war was not set up as an eternal example (compare Deuteronomy 20:16 ).
One element in the explanation for the holy wars of Joshua is judgment on sin. The iniquity of the Amorites (Canaanites) was at last full ( Genesis 15:16 ). The catch to this arrangement is that if the other nations could be judged for their sins, the Hebrew people could, too, and later were. See Conquest; War; Joshua .
Outline
I. God Brought Victory to a People of the Book ( Joshua 1:1-12:24 ).
A. To possess the promise, God's people must be faithful to the book ( Joshua 1:1-18 ).
B. God uses unexpected persons to fulfill His promises ( Joshua 2:1-24 ).
C. God exalts His leaders and proves His presence so all people may know Him ( Joshua 3:1-4:24 ).
D. God's people must worship Him to prepare for the victories He promises —( Joshua 5:1-15 ).
E. Divine power, not human might, provides victory for God's people ( Joshua 6:1-27 ).
F. A disobedient people cannot expect God's victories ( Joshua 7:1-26 ).
G. A repentant people receive a strategy for victory from God ( Joshua 8:1-35 ).
H. Human cunning and disobedience cannot overcome the purposes of God ( Joshua 9:1-27 ).
I. God fights for His people ( Joshua 10:1-43 ).
J. God fulfills His promises, giving victory to an obedient people ( Joshua 11:1-12:24 ).
II. God Divides the Spoils of Victory According to the Needs of His People ( Joshua 13:1-21:45 ).
A. The complete rest is still incomplete ( Joshua 13:1-7 ).
B. History shows God's provision for His people ( Joshua 13:8-33 ).
C. God rewards heroes of faith ( Joshua 14:1-15 ).
D. God fulfilled His promise of land to His people ( Joshua 15:1-17:13 ).
E. God provided for specific needs of His people ( Joshua 17:14-18 ).
F. God called a hesitant people to action to receive the promised gift ( Joshua 18:1-10 ).
G. God gave the land to an obedient people ( Joshua 18:11-19:48 ).
H. God and His people rewarded their faithful leader ( Joshua 19:49-51 ).
I. God decreed legal protection for the accused among His people ( Joshua 20:1-9 ).
J. God provided for the needs of His priests ( Joshua 21:1-42 ).
K. God fulfills all His promises ( Joshua 21:43-45 ).
III. God Calls His Victorious People to Unity in Worship and Devotion ( Joshua 22:1-24:33 ).
A. God's rest, commandments, and blessing unify His people ( Joshua 22:1-6 ).
B. Worship unifies God's people forever despite geographical barriers ( Joshua 22:7-34 ).
C. Israel had to be faithful to God's direction or face the loss of His gifts ( Joshua 23:1-16 ).
D. God calls His people to remember the history of God's faithfulness and choose to serve only Him ( Joshua 24:1-28 ).
E. Faithful leaders keep a people faithful ( Joshua 24:29-33 ).
Dan Gentry Kent
Fausset's Bible Dictionary [2]
"The doomsday book of Palestine," especially Joshua 13-23. Authenticated by Scripture references to the events recorded in it ( Psalms 78:53-65; Psalms 28:21; Habakkuk 3:11-13; Acts 7:45; Hebrews 4:8; Hebrews 11:30-32; James 2:25). Joshua after destroying the kings, so that Israel had rest from war in the open field, divided generally the land; but this is quite consistent with the after statements that years passed before the process of division was completed and the allotments finally settled. Joshua was directed to divide land not yet in Israel's actual possession ( Joshua 13:1-14; Joshua 13:5). God designed that Israel should occupy the land by degrees, lest the beasts should multiply and the land be desolate ( Exodus 23:28-30); for instance, though the kings of Jerusalem and Gezer were slain, their people were not rooted out until long after.
The slackness of Israel to extirpate the accursed Canaanites was also a cause of non-immediate possession ( Joshua 11:16; Joshua 11:23; Joshua 12:7; Joshua 12:10-12; compare Joshua 15:63; Joshua 16:10; Joshua 17:1; Joshua 17:16; Joshua 18:1; Joshua 18:3; Joshua 19:51). Joshua is based on the Pentateuch (to which it is joined by the conjunction "now" or "and" at its beginning), "now" but distinct from it. Compare Joshua 13:7 with Numbers 34:13; Numbers 13:17 with Numbers 32:37; Numbers 13:21-22 with Numbers 31:8; Numbers 13:14; Numbers 13:33; Numbers 14:4, with Deuteronomy 18:1-2; Numbers 18:20; Numbers 21 with Numbers 35.
Unity . The book evidently is that of an eye witness, so minute and vivid are the descriptions. The narrative moves on in one uninterrupted flow for the first 12 chapters of Joshua. Jehovah's faithfulness is exhibited in the historical fulfillment of His covenanted promises, with which the book opens ( Joshua 1:2-9, the programme of the book).
I. The promise, Joshua 1:2-5, is fulfilled (Joshua 2-12), the conquest of the land by Jehovah's mighty help, "from the wilderness and this Lebanon unto ... Euphrates ... and the great sea (the Mediterranean) toward the going down of the sun." The limit, the Euphrates, was not actually reached until Solomon's reign ( 1 Kings 4:21), and the full realization awaits Christ's millennial reign ( Genesis 15:18; Psalms 72:8); but the main step toward its fulfillment was taken. Joshua's conquests, though overwhelming at the time, could only be secured by Israel's faithfully following them up.
II. The promise, Joshua 6-7, that Joshua should divide the land is recorded as fulfilled (Joshua 13-22).
III. The means of realizing this two-fold promise, "only be very courageous to do ... all the law ... turn not to the right hand or to the left ... this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein ... for then thou shalt have good success .... Be strong and of a good courage for the Lord thy God is with thee wheresoever thou goest" ( Joshua 1:7-9), are urged upon the people in detail by Joshua as his last testimony ( Joshua 23:24). The connection and method traceable throughout prove the unity of the book. The variety in the style of the historical compared with the topographical parts is what we should expect. The "three days" ( Joshua 1:11) are not the time within which the crossing actually took place, but the time allowed to the people to prepare for crossing: prepare victuals to be able to leave Shittim within three days, so as to be ready to cross Jordan.
The spies sent from Shittim to Jericho (the key of Canaan) on the same day as Joshua gave this charge to Israel had to hide three days after leaving Jericho, so that they could not have returned until the evening of the fourth day after they were sent ( Joshua 2:22). The morning after this Israel left Shittim for Jordan, where they halted again; three days afterward they crossed, i.e. eight days intervened between their being sent and Israel's crossing. The drying up of Jordan is the counterpart of the drying up of the Red Sea under Moses, Joshua's master and predecessor. Throughout the warlike and the peaceful events of this book, comprising a period of 25 years (compare Joshua 14:7-10) from 1451 to 1426 B.C., God's presence is everywhere felt. Joshua is His conscious and obedient agent.
Author . That Joshua wrote the book is probable because
(1) he certainly wrote one transaction in it ( Joshua 24:26), and scarcely any but Joshua himself is likely to have written the parting addresses, his last legacy to Israel (Joshua 23-24).
(2) None but Joshua could have supplied the accounts of his communion with God ( Joshua 1:1 ff; Joshua 3:7; Joshua 4:2; Joshua 5:2; Joshua 5:9; Joshua 5:13; Joshua 6:2; Joshua 7:10; Joshua 8:1; Joshua 10:8; Joshua 11:6; Joshua 13:1-2; Joshua 20:1; Joshua 24:2).
(3) Joshua was best qualified by his position to describe the events, and to collect the documents of this book; it was important that the statement of the allotments should rest on such a decisive authority as Joshua.
(4) He would be following his master and predecessor Moses' pattern in recording God's dealings with Israel through him; Joshua 24:26 looks like his own subscription, as Moses in Deuteronomy 31, both being followed by an appendix as to the author's death.
(5) In Joshua 5:1; Joshua 5:6, he uses the first person, "we passed over"; and in Joshua 6:25, "Rahab dwelleth in Israel even unto this day"; both passages imply a contemporary writer.
Keil gives a list of phrases and forms peculiar to this book and the Pentateuch, marking its composition in or near the same age. Judges 3:1-3; Judges 1:27-29, repeat Joshua 13:2-6; Joshua 16:10; Joshua 17:11, because Joshua's description suited the times described by the inspired writer of Judges. The capture of Hebron and Debir by Judah and its hero Caleb is repeated in Judges 1:9-15 from Joshua 15:13-20. Possibly the account of the Danite occupation of Leshem or Laish is a later insertion in Joshua 19:47 from Judges 18:7. So also the account ( Joshua 15:63; Joshua 18:28) of the joint occupation of Jerusalem by Israel and the Jebusites may be an insertion from Judges 1:8; Judges 1:21.
In the case of an authoritative record of the allotment of lands, which the book of Joshua is, the immediate successors who appended the account of his death (probably one or more of the elders who took part in Joshua's victories and outlived him: "we," Joshua 5:1; Joshua 5:6; Joshua 24:31; Judges 2:7) would naturally insert the exact state of things then, which in Joshua's time were in a transition state, his allotments not having been taken full possession of until after his death. The expulsion of the Jebusites from Jerusalem at the beginning of David's reign proves that Joshua and Judges were written before David. The Gibeonites were in Joshua's time ( Joshua 9:27) "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the sanctuary "even unto this day," but Saul set aside the covenant and tried to destroy them; so that the book of Joshua was before Saul. The only Phoenicians mentioned are the Sidonians, reckoned with the Canaanites as doomed to destruction; but in David's time Tyre takes the lead of Sidon, and is in treaty with David ( Joshua 13:4-6; 2 Samuel 5:11).
Easton's Bible Dictionary [3]
This book resembles the Acts of the Apostles in the number and variety of historical incidents it records, and in its many references to persons and places; and as in the latter case the epistles of Paul (see Paley's Horae Paul.) confirm its historical accuracy by their incidental allusions and "undesigned coincidences," so in the former modern discoveries confirm its historicity. The Amarna tablets (see Adonizedec ) are among the most remarkable discoveries of the age. Dating from about B.C. 1480 down to the time of Joshua, and consisting of official communications from Amorite, Phoenician, and Philistine chiefs to the king of Egypt, they afford a glimpse into the actual condition of Palestine prior to the Hebrew invasion, and illustrate and confirm the history of the conquest. A letter, also still extant, from a military officer, "master of the captains of Egypt," dating from near the end of the reign of Rameses II., gives a curious account of a journey, probably official, which he undertook through Palestine as far north as to Aleppo, and an insight into the social condition of the country at that time. Among the things brought to light by this letter and the Amarna tablets is the state of confusion and decay that had now fallen on Egypt. The Egyptian garrisons that had held possession of Palestine from the time of Thothmes III., some two hundred years before, had now been withdrawn. The way was thus opened for the Hebrews. In the history of the conquest there is no mention of Joshua having encountered any Egyptian force. The tablets contain many appeals to the king of Egypt for help against the inroads of the Hebrews, but no help seems ever to have been sent. Is not this just such a state of things as might have been anticipated as the result of the disaster of the Exodus? In many points, as shown under various articles, the progress of the conquest is remarkably illustrated by the tablets. The value of modern discoveries in their relation to Old Testament history has been thus well described:
"The difficulty of establishing the charge of lack of historical credibility, as against the testimony of the Old Testament, has of late years greatly increased. The outcome of recent excavations and explorations is altogether against it. As long as these books contained, in the main, the only known accounts of the events they mention, there was some plausibility in the theory that perhaps these accounts were written rather to teach moral lessons than to preserve an exact knowledge of events. It was easy to say in those times men had not the historic sense. But the recent discoveries touch the events recorded in the Bible at very many different points in many different generations, mentioning the same persons, countries, peoples, events that are mentioned in the Bible, and showing beyond question that these were strictly historic. The point is not that the discoveries confirm the correctness of the Biblical statements, though that is commonly the case, but that the discoveries show that the peoples of those ages had the historic sense, and, specifically, that the Biblical narratives they touch are narratives of actual occurrences."
Copyright Statement These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., DD Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain.
Bibliography Information Easton, Matthew George. Entry for 'Joshua, the Book of'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/j/joshua-the-book-of.html. 1897.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia [4]
A book of the Bible, is closely connected with the Pentateuch, and now regarded as the continuation and completion of it, constituting along with it what is called the Hexateuch, or sixfold book; it covers a period of 25 years, and contains a history of Israel under the guidance of Joshua, commencing with his appointment as leader and concluding with his death.
