8 Joshua: Book of Conquest Joshua is a book about a land and a people The land is an inheritance promised by God, waiting to be occupied The people are the elect nation of God, facing human obstacles in the way of taking the land And the obstacles are the occasion for battle—a holy war—designed by God to oust the idolatrous and corrupt enemies from the land It is for this that Joshua is called the “Book of Conquest.” Joshua’s narrative about winning the rest land of Canaan resumes the history of Israel at the point where Deuteronomy ends The sequence of the Pentateuch books is this: In Genesis, God brings Israel to birth,1 and promises to give it the land of Canaan.2 In Exodus, He delivers His people from oppression in a foreign land (Egypt), and starts them on their way to the promised land, giving them laws to live by (as recorded both in Exodus and Leviticus) Numbers records the journey of Israel through the wildernesses up to the gate of Canaan, while Deuteronomy describes nal preparations for entering the land At this point Joshua picks up the story, describing the conquest of the land and the division of its territories to the tribes of Israel In a real sense, Joshua is the climax of a progressive history as well as the commencement of a new experience for Israel Thus, its historical nexus gives it a strategic place in the Old Testament Scriptures I PREPARATION FOR STUDY Review the discussion in chapter of the Old Testament canons of the Protestant and Hebrew Bibles As noted there, the arrangement of the thirty-nine books of the Protestant Old Testament can be traced back to the Greek Septuagint version (third and second centuries B.C.) The books are arranged in such an order that four groups appear: (1) Pentateuch, (2) history, (3) poetry and ethics, and (4) prophecy In this arrangement, Joshua is the rst of the twelve historical books ... in the Old Testament Scriptures I PREPARATION FOR STUDY Review the discussion in chapter of the Old Testament canons of the Protestant and Hebrew Bibles As noted there, the arrangement of the. .. describing the conquest of the land and the division of its territories to the tribes of Israel In a real sense, Joshua is the climax of a progressive history as well as the commencement of a new... is called the “Book of Conquest.” Joshua’s narrative about winning the rest land of Canaan resumes the history of Israel at the point where Deuteronomy ends The sequence of the Pentateuch books