Theopedia

Joshua

This is the biblical figure Joshua. For the canonical book of the Old Testament, see Book of Joshua.

Joshua (Hebrew Yehoshua, “Yahweh is salvation”) was the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, who succeeded Moses as leader of Israel and led the conquest and division of the land of Canaan, narrated in the Book of Joshua. Moses had renamed him from Hoshea (Num. 13:16), and the name carries the same meaning as “Jesus,” a link later Reformed writers read as more than coincidence.1

Life and leadership

Joshua was born in Egypt during Israel’s slavery there and belonged to the tribe of Ephraim (Num. 13:8). He served as Moses’ assistant (Ex. 24:13; 33:11) and commanded Israel’s forces against Amalek in the Sinai wilderness (Ex. 17:8-13). When Moses sent twelve men to scout Canaan, Joshua and Caleb alone urged the people to trust God’s promise and enter the land, against the ten who advised against it (Num. 14:6-9).

Moses commissioned Joshua publicly before Israel, at God’s command, as his successor:

“Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, ‘Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.’” Deuteronomy 31:7-8 (NIV)

Under Joshua, Israel crossed the Jordan, took Jericho and Ai, and defeated a series of southern and northern coalitions, after which he allotted the conquered land among the tribes (Josh. 6-21). Near the end of his life Joshua gathered Israel at Shechem, reviewed God’s dealings with them, and called them to covenant faithfulness:

“Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)

Puritan commentators read this pledge as a pattern for household religion: Thomas Watson takes “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” as a call for the head of a family to choose God’s worship for the whole household, not merely for himself.2 Joshua died at 110 and was buried at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim (Josh. 24:29-30).

Traditional authorship of the book

Jewish tradition ascribed the Book of Joshua to Joshua himself, apart from its final five verses recounting his death.3 Elijah Porter Barrows notes that this leaves a real difficulty: the book also records events that seem to postdate Joshua, including the Danite migration of chapter 19, which parallels Judges 18 and would place at least part of the narrative after his lifetime.3 Barrows judges that, absent evidence the Danite notice is a later insertion into an otherwise Joshua-authored text, the book was more likely completed by “some unknown prophetical man” writing soon after Joshua’s death, an elder who had outlived him, since the narrator can still speak of Rahab as living among Israel (Josh. 6:25).3 The recurring notice that some feature “remains to this day” (Josh. 4:9; 7:26) fits either possibility: a brief formula naturally added by a writer close enough to Joshua’s own time to speak of his own days as still current. Benedict Pictet reaches a similar judgment from the same evidence, that the book “was not entirely written by Joshua” but “appears to have been composed out of his records” (Josh. 24:26).4

Joshua as a type of Christ

John Gill treats Joshua as a type of Christ, beginning with the shared name: “their names agree, both signify a Saviour; Joshua is called Jesus” (Heb. 4:8, KJV).5 On Gill’s reading, Moses could lead Israel only to the border of Canaan and no further, a picture of the law’s own limits, while Joshua led the people into the land itself, foreshadowing Christ opening the way into God’s promised inheritance.5 Gill adds that the rest Joshua gave Israel in Canaan was itself only typical, since Scripture later speaks of a further rest still to be had (Heb. 4:8-9), and that the scarlet cord Rahab tied at her window pictured the blood of Christ, by which she and her household were spared when Jericho fell (Josh. 2:18; 6:22-23).5

The conquest under Joshua brought a real, but not final, fulfillment of the land God had promised Abraham. Bruce Waltke describes the possession of Canaan under Joshua as “already” accomplished in one sense and “not yet” complete in another, since later generations still had land left to take and the fuller rest Scripture promises remained future.6

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 15, “The Servant Savior: Christ’s Humiliation”: “Moses intentionally gave to Hoshea the son of Nun the name Joshua (Num. 13:8, 16), and in Matthew 1:21, Joseph, at the express command of the angel, gave to his son the name Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins.” ↩

  2. Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity (London, 1692), “Of the Commandments”: “as for me and my House, we will serve the Lord. That is, we will choose the Lord to be our God.” ↩

  3. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), chap. 20: “Jewish tradition ascribes it to Joshua himself, except the last five verses. But it records some transactions which, according to the most obvious interpretation of them, occurred after Joshua’s death.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), book 1: “This book was not entirely written by Joshua, since many things are related in it which happened after his death. It is not even certain that Joshua himself was the writer of the book, although it appears to have been composed out of his records.” ↩

  5. John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity; or, A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by George Keith, 1769), book IV, chap. 3: “Joshua, the successor of Moses, was also a type of Christ… their names agree, both signify a Saviour; Joshua is called Jesus (Heb. 4:8).” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Bruce K. Waltke with Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology, quoted in Oren Rhea Martin, “Bound for the Kingdom: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 169-70. ↩