Lawrence Boadt has a good summary of Joshua
13-22….
The stage is now set for his [Joshua's] division of the land among
the tribes which follows in chapters 13-22. Many readers regard these chapters
as among the most uninteresting sections of the Bible with long lists of town
and place names, but they contain invaluable help to the historian and
geographer in locating many ancient cities and identifying the boundaries of
the tribes who lived in Palestine.
However, we must be cautious about the Book of Joshua’s
account of Israel’s invasion of the land. For one thing, the land area that
Joshua captures is far less than the land he divides among the tribes. No
mention is made in chapters 2-12 about taking Shechem or the central hill
country, nor of capturing any cities on the coastal plains, nor of taking many
major cities in the Jezreel Valley in the north. Despite his victories over the
kings of some major strongholds such as Megiddo, Taanach and Gezer, short
references in the second half of the book make it clear that Israel often
failed to drive out the Canaanites because they had walled cities and chariot
brigades (see 13:2-6; 15:63; 16:10; 17:11-13; 17:16-18). Many areas were only
half conquered, and the biggest victories seemed to be in the mountain areas on
the eastern part of the land. The Book of Joshua idealizes the early victories
but the reality at first fell far short of this account.
The reason for such an exalted telling of the story lies
in the religious purpose of the book. Israel was not fighting on its own; it
was God who gave the help and strength for this small band of tribes to
overcome much more powerful enemies. Even if the battles gave Israel control
over only a quarter of the land that the book describes, the victory was
unbelievable unless God had helped. The city and town lists given for each
tribe come from a later time when people were well established in the land and
probably describe the settled conditions of the Israelites near the time of
David about 1000 B.C. They reveal an Israel that claimed title to the whole
land of Palestine because they had won it with the help of God who fought on
their side. Just as the exodus story speaks about God as a warrior who fights
on behalf of his people (Ex 15), so the story of the conquest portrays God
directing the battles needed to gain a foothold in the territory controlled by
the Canaanites.
The people responsible for carrying on the ancient
traditions of the conquest emphasized that the victories came from God and that
Joshua and the tribes followed God’s directions carefully and always dedicated
their military victories as a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving for his aid.
This is the terrible custom of the “ban,” called in Hebrew a herem, in which the Israelites were to
slay everyone in the defeated towns. It was practiced to show that Israel put
all its trust in God alone during the war and sought nothing for itself.
Modern people are shocked by such brutality, but it is
necessary to remember that the ancient world did not share our outlook. Their
ethical principles often placed national survival above any personal goods, and
identified success in war or politics with the will of their god or gods. The
Book of Joshua is not the only ancient example in which the victors dedicated a
defeated enemy as a total sacrifice to the god in payment for victory. A black
stone that can be dated to the middle of the ninth century B.C., found in 1888,
carried an inscription of King Mesha of Moab that told how Mesha had fought
against certain towns of Israel and defeated them and made them all a herem in honor of the Moabite god
Chemosh… Naturally, if such policies were followed too often, very few people
would survive the many wars between small nations in the ancient Near East, so
we can be sure that the ban was rarely carried out in practice, and only in
moments of great peril. Indeed, since the purpose of the Joshua narrative is to
glorify Yahweh who gives Israel its victories and its lands, we can be
absolutely sure that the editors and authors have magnified the victories and
downplayed the defeats a great deal.[1]
While I may not agree with all that Boadt has to
say about the historical accuracy of the book of Joshua, his overall viewpoint
is probably correct and he agrees with the majority of scholars on this point.
That said, the reader may wonder what application
there is from the book of Joshua for us today. As I said earlier, I think there
are many points of application regarding spiritual warfare.
I particularly like
the portrait of Caleb, who at 85 years of age asked for the hill country to be
his, and he trusted the Lord to help him drive the giants out of the land.
Personally, I will be happy if I have only a portion of Caleb’s physical
strength and spiritual faith when I am 85.
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