As told by the Deuteronomist, the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelite tribes was swift and decisive. No conquest of central Canaan (in the region of Shechem), however, is mentioned in the book; and some scholars interpret this to mean that the central hill country was already occupied either by ancestors of the later Israelite tribes prior to the time of Moses or by portions of Hebrew tribes that had not gone to Egypt. Because these people made peace with the tribes under Joshua, a conquest of the area apparently was not necessary. Archaeological evidence supports portions of Joshua in describing some of the cities (e.g., Iachish, Debir, and Hazor) as destroyed or conquered in the late 13th century bce, the approximate time of the circumstances documented in Joshua. Some of the cities so reported, however, apparently were devastated at some time prior to or later than the 13th century. Jericho, for example, was razed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1550 bce) and most likely had not been rebuilt as a strongly fortified town by the time of Joshua, though the site may well have been inhabited during this period. The city of Ai was destroyed about 600 years before; but it may have been a garrison site for the city of Bethel, which was destroyed later by the “house of Joseph.” Though many of the cities of Canaan were conquered by the Israelites under Joshua, historical and archaeological evidence indicates that the process of conquering the land was lengthy and not completed until David conquered the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem in the early 10th century bce. At any rate, the 13th century was an ideal time for a conquest of the area because of the international turmoil involving the great powers of the time: Egypt and Babylonia. A political vacuum existed in the area, permitting small powers to strengthen or to expand their holdings.

The introductory section of Joshua (chapters 1 and 2), in dealing with the Deuteronomist’s view of the ideal man of faith—one who is full of courage and faithful to the law that was given to Moses—relates the story of spies sent to Jericho, where they were sheltered by Rahab, a harlot, whose house was spared by the Israelites when they later destroyed the city. In the Gospel According to Matthew, in the New Testament, Rahab is listed as the grandmother of Jesse, the father of David (the architect of the Israelite empire), which may be the reason why this story was included in Joshua. Also in the New Testament, in the Letter to the Hebrews, Rahab is depicted as an example of a person of faith. After the return of the spies, who reported that the people of Canaan were “fainthearted” in the face of the Israelite threat, Joshua launched the invasion of Canaan; the Israelite tribes crossed the Jordan River and encamped at Gilgal, where the males were circumcised after a pile of stones had been erected to commemorate the crossing of the river. They then attacked Jericho and, after the priests marched around it for seven days, utterly destroyed it in a ḥerem; i.e., a holy war in which everything is devoted to destruction. Prior to the Israelites’ further conquests it was discovered that Achan, a member of the tribe of Judah, had broken the ḥerem by not devoting everything taken from Jericho to Yahweh. Because he had thus sinned in keeping some of the booty, Achan, his family, and all of his household goods were destroyed and a mound of stones was heaped upon them. The Israelite tribes next conquered Ai, made agreements with the people of the region of Gibeon, and then campaigned against cities to the south, capturing several of them, such as Lachish and Debir, but not Jerusalem or the cities of Philistia on the seacoast. Joshua moved north, first conquering the city of Hazor—a city of political importance—and then defeating a large number (31) of the kings of Canaan, though the conquests of their cities did not necessarily follow.

Division of the land and renewal of the Covenant

The division of the land among the tribes is recounted in chapters 13–22. Two sources were apparently used by the Deuteronomist in dealing with the division of the land: a boundary list from the pre-monarchical period (i.e., before the late 11th century bce) and a list of cities occupied by several tribes from the 10th to the 7th century bce. The tribes who occupied territories were: Reuben, Gad, Manasseh, Caleb, Judah, the Joseph tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh), Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan. Certain cities (e.g., Hebron, Shechem, and Ramoth) were designated Levitical cities. Though the Levites probably did not control the cities politically, as the priestly class they were of cultic significance—and therefore feared and respected—in cities that were the sites of sanctuaries.

As Moses had before him, Joshua gave a farewell address (chapter 23) to his people, admonishing them to be loyal to the Lord of the Covenant; and in the closing chapter (24), the Israelites reaffirmed their loyalty to Yahweh at Shechem: first having heard the story of God’s salvatory deeds in the past, they were asked to swear allegiance to Yahweh and to repudiate all other gods, after which they participated in the Covenant renewal ceremony. After the people were dismissed, Joshua died and was buried in the hill country of Ephraim; the embalmed body of Joseph that had been carried with the Hebrews when they left Egypt more than a generation earlier was buried on purchased land; and Eleazar, the priestly successor to Aaron (Moses’ brother), was buried at Gibeah.

Besides the obvious emphases on the conquest of Canaan and the division of the land, the Deuteronomist gave special attention to the ceremony of Covenant reaffirmation. By means of a regularly repeated Covenant renewal the Israelites were able to eschew Canaanite religious beliefs and practices that had been absorbed or added to the religion of the Lord of the Covenant, especially the fertility motifs that were quite attractive to the Hebrew tribes as they settled down to pursue agriculture, after more than a generation of the nomadic way of life.