The Successor Who Took the Land

Joshua is the figure through whom the Hebrew Bible completes what Moses began: the entry into the Promised Land. Son of Nun and Moses's attendant, he is one of the twelve scouts sent into Canaan and one of only two who bring back a faithful report, and so one of only two of his generation permitted to enter the land. Commissioned as Moses's successor, he leads Israel across the Jordan on dry ground, an echo of the Red Sea crossing, and directs the conquest, most famously at Jericho, whose walls fall after the people march around them and the priests blow the shofar. The book that bears his name recounts the campaigns and the division of the land among the tribes, and closes with his covenant-renewal at Shechem: "Choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Modern archaeology has complicated the historicity of a swift military conquest, and scholars debate how the account relates to the actual emergence of Israel in Canaan. As a religious figure, Joshua is the type of the faithful successor and the completion of the Exodus: the promise made to the patriarchs finally possessed.