• Hebrew test – “Jehovah saves”.
• Greek text – “Jesus”.
• English text – “Joshua”.

• He is the military commander of Israel. See Joshua 1:2-5.
• He is the administrator of Israel and he distributes the land to the Israelites. See Joshua 1:6.
• The historical setting of the book of Joshua.

• The conquest of the land of Canaan. (Chapters 1-12) This section can be divided into two sub-divisions

1. Preparations for the conquering of the land. (Chapters 1-5).
2. The three major campaigns, during which they conquer the land (Chapters 6-12).

a. The centre campaign – Joshua slices the land into two by taking the land in the middle of Canaan. We read about this in chapters 6-9. Joshua takes Jericho and Ai.

b. The southern campaign – Joshua now conquers the southern part of the land. This is mentioned in Joshua chapter 10.

c. The northern campaign – Joshua now conquers the northern part of the land. This is mentioned in chapter 11. The summary of the campaign is mentioned in chapter 12. The land has been almost totally conquered.

• The distribution of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel. (Chapters 13-21).

1. Joshua distributes to 2 1/2 tribes the property on the other side of the Jordan river. (Chapter 13). The tribes are Reuben, Gad and Manasseh. (Manasseh is a half tribe. See verse 29).
2. Joshua distributes property to the tribe of Judah. (Chapters 14-15). Judah is to be the central tribe of Israel and it is through this tribe Christ is to come.
3. Joshua distributes property to Manasseh and Ephraim who are two half tribes, being the children of Joseph. (Chapters 16-17).
4. Joshua distributes property to the other 7 tribes. (Chapters 18-19).
5. The cities of refuge are set up. (Chapter 20).
6. The Levites (The priests of God) are ordained. (Chapter 21).
7. An epilogue. (Chapters 22-24).

• The moral problem of annihilating the Canaanites – See Joshua 6:21. Many people do not agree with this event. Liberalists say that this is a religious primitive reaction. We must recognise that this war is a Holy war, and there are several distinctive features of what a Holy war is:-

1. It begins at Yahweh’s initiative. God starts these wars, it is His idea.
2. There is a basic pattern. God gives the command and the people of God obey that command.
3. In each Holy war God fights for Israel. This is found throughout the book of Joshua. Eg. At Jericho.
4. It is fought for moral reasons and purposes. See Deuteronomy 9:5; 20:18; 12:31. God says to Moses that the Canaanites must be destroyed because of their moral corruption. God did not give the land to Abraham because the iniquity of the people in that land was not yet full. See Genesis 15:16. God is moving through Israel to judge the Canaanites. Their religion was extremely immoral. Eg. Sacrificed children to their gods. God wipes them out because He does not want them to contaminate others.
5. It demands obedience. Sometimes the Israelites are disobedient and they reap the consequences. (Eg. Achan in chapter 7).

• The moral problem of Rahab’s lie – See Joshua 1-6. Two spies came to her home but then the enemy soldiers came. Rahab told the soldiers that the Israelite spies had gone away up into the mountains. She had lied. In Hebrews she is commended for her faith in James she is an example of being justified by works. How do we look at this lie? There are two ways of looking at Rahab’s lie:-

1. It is legitimate. She was doing the lesser of two evils. Whatever she did was going to be wrong. If she gave the Israelites over that was wrong, and if she lied then that was wrong. So she did the lesser of two evils, she saved the lives of the spies. She was recognising a higher obligation. She had two obligations. To tell the truth to the soldiers and also to save the Israelites. She assumed faithfulness to the higher obligation. It is possible in the Old Testament that there was a “war ethic” and a “peace ethic”. In times of war lying and deceiving was considered justified. See Judges when David feigns madness. See 1 Kings 2:5.
2. It is illegitimate – God commended her for her faith and not her lie.

• The sun standing still – See Joshua 10:16. This may have been an eclipse of the sun, it is not clear from the Hebrew text. The Canaanites were sun and moon worshippers. The disappearance of these two would have terrified them. There is no scientific evidence to say that there is a missing day.