The Book of Joshua

A Covenant Fulfilled

The book of Joshua is named for its main character, Joshua. The book tells the story of how God fulfilled His covenant to give the children of Israel their promised land of Canaan.

In Hebrew, “Joshua” means “the Lord saves” or “the Lord gives the victory.” The Greek form of this name translated into English is “Jesus.” This name has interesting symbolism since the book of Joshua is the record of Joshua leading the children of Israel into their promised land, and Jesus Christ leads us into the “promised land” of eternal life.

A Book of Wars

The book of Joshua gives many accounts of how the children of Israel fulfilled the covenants of the Lord by conquering their enemies in war. We may wonder how God can say to a people, “Thou shalt not kill,” and then tell those same people to destroy the entire population of certain cities. While we do not completely know the mind of God in these matters, we do know the following:

The events in the book of Joshua occurred at a time when nations fought in the name of their god. When the Israelites triumphed over the Canaanites by the power of the Lord, their victory was a witness that He is the true and living God. You will notice that nearly every account in the books of Joshua and Judges shows how the Israelites won their battles in some miraculous way, helping both the Israelites and their enemies know that the Lord God had won the battle, not any man or strategy. In addition, the Lord did not allow Israel to become rich through capturing the goods of the people they conquered (as you will read in Joshua 7).

The Lord often reminded the Israelites that the land belonged to Him, but was given to them for their use as His people. The destruction of the wicked and idolatrous nations of Canaan is a lesson to all people that this is one way God may punish the wicked, and it reminds us of the great destruction of the wicked that will occur at the time of judgment.
The prophet Nephi taught that the Lord “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world” (2 Nephi 26:24). The prophet Ezekiel recorded that the Lord does not delight in the death of the wicked (see Ezekiel 18:32; 33:11). Therefore, when the Lord commanded the Israelites to drive out or destroy the Canaanites, He was doing what was most beneficial to all involved, based on their circumstances.
The iniquity of the Canaanites had reached a fulness (see Leviticus 18:3, 24–25; Deuteronomy 18:10–12; 1 Nephi 17:32–35). This fulness means they were willing to kill the prophets and the Saints (see 2 Nephi 26:3). While Saints in all days are expected to live in ways different from the world around them, in this case it would be very difficult for the Israelites to live the righteous life the Lord asked of them if they were side-by-side with the extraordinary wickedness of the Canaanites. When the wickedness of a society is so great that the rising generations have no opportunity to choose to live righteously, then God mercifully destroys the society from the earth for the sake of future generations. We learned this from the story of Noah and the Flood.
God’s ways are not our ways (see Isaiah 55:8–9). When we consider that it is His work “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) and that He is the Creator and has power over His creations, including the ability to save them, then we can have faith that God’s actions help fulfill His work. Because we are limited in our understanding, we are not able to see things from God’s point of view.

Getting Ready to Study Joshua

One of the early themes of the book of Joshua is that of strictly following the Lord’s instructions. When the armies of Israel were obedient, they were successful. When they were not, they failed. The consequences of obedience helped the Israelites realize that it was the Lord’s help that gave them the victory.

The book of Joshua can be divided into three general sections:

The conquering of Canaan
How Joshua divided the land
Joshua’s final instructions and testimony