Joshua

Just as Exodus is the story of God leading His people out of Egypt, so Joshua is the story of God leading His people into the Promised Land. After many years of slavery in Egypt and 40 years in the desert, the Israelites were finally ready to enter the land promised to their fathers.

Where Deuteronomy ends, the book of Joshua begins: the tribes of Israel are still camped on the bank of the Jordan River. Moses had been disqualified from leading the Israelites across the Jordan and into the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 32:48-52). That privilege and task will now belong to Joshua.

As Israel anticipated entering the land occupied by their enemies, it was a case of “destroy or be destroyed.” In commanding the Israelites to annihilate the Canaanites, God was performing surgery in order to remove a cancer from human society. He was not murdering an innocent primitive people, as some liberal critics of the Bible used to say. God had been extremely patient with the Canaanite tribes. They had had hundreds of years to repent after the witness of Melchizedek, Abraham, and many other God-fearing people who had lived among them. Since the Canaanites did not repent, God used Israel like a broom to sweep away their filth and purify the land. He did not drive the Canaanites out simply to make room for Israel. He also did so to remove this cancerous society and its malignant influence on the ancient world’s peoples.^{^[1]}

The purpose of the Book of Joshua is to give an official account of the fulfillment……of the Lord’s promise to the patriarchs….. to give Israel the land of Canaan…….the Promised Land.

^[1] Dr. Thomas L. Constable, Notes on Joshua, 2025 Edition (published by Sonic Light), 10.