DH1a
Deuteronomistic History (Part I): Joshua, Judges 1–3
Joshua 1:9 is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible for encouragement (or its parallels in Deut 31:6, 8).
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Josh 1:9, ESV).
In context, however, this verse encourages Joshua to begin a mission of massacring Canaanites. Most Christians don’t know or simply don’t care about its context. But now that we know, should we stop encouraging one another with this verse? We will return to this question at the end of the module after we observe how biblical torah/teaching actually operates.
Historical Reconstructions of the “Conquest”
A note to students: this module is more detailed for two reasons:
(a) It tackles one of the major historical problems in the OT and comes to a conclusion that many readers may find surprising.
(b) It tackles one of the thorniest ethical problems in the OT: divinely sanctioned violence that includes massacre and genocide.
While students are not expected to remember these details for exams, they should walk through the evidence in order to come to terms with these key issues of historicity and morality in the Bible.
Trying to figure out “what actually happened” when Israel took possession of the land of Canaan is not as simple a task as might first appear. As we have seen with the Pentateuch and especially the book of Exodus, the OT reflects other priorities than simply presenting a straightforward chronological sequence of events with cause-and-effect links—what we might call “history”. Torah means “instruction”—for the people of God concerning their identity, God’s expectations of them and their expectations of God.
Biblical Accounts
The scroll of Joshua is not all of one piece. Its introduction and conclusion reflect the framing of the Deuteronomistic historian (DtrH), especially with their charge to keep Mosaic torah. The tribal allotment lists (Josh 13–21) differ from the military conquest narratives (Josh 6–12), as they record the tribes’ failure at “dispossessing” the Canaanites, as does the military summary found in Judges 1. (Judges 1:10–36 is drawn from the same source also attested in Joshua 15:13–19; 17:11–13; 16:10; 9:47–48).
1-5 Entering the land: Joshua as a second Moses (DtrH introduction)
1 Yahweh’s charge to Joshua as Moses’ successor
2 Spying out Jericho, Rahab’s faithfulness
3 Consecration and crossing through the Jordan River
4 12 memorial stones
5 Circumcision, Passover, Commander of Yahweh’s army
6-12 Military Conquests
6:1-8:29 Central campaign: Jericho and Rahab’s faithfulness, Ai and Achan’s coveting
8:30-35 Joshua’s altar at Ebal and the reading of the covenant
9-10 Southern campaign: Gibeonites, the 5-king coalition (DtrH summary: Josh 10:40–42)
11 Northern campaign: Hazor (DtrH summary: Josh 11:16–23)
12 List of defeated kings
13-21 Allotting the Tribal Inheritance
13:1-7 Land yet to be taken (Philistine coast, Phoenicia, the Lebanon range)
13:8-32 Allotment for the Transjordan tribes
14-17 Allotment for Judah and Joseph
18-19 Allotment for the 7 other tribes
20-21 Cities of refuge and cities for Levites (DtrH summary: Josh 21:43–45)
22-24 DtrH conclusion
22 Return of the Transjordan tribes and “the altar of witness”
23 Joshua’s charge to leaders: keep the Torah of Moses, or else
24 Covenant at Shechem
The OT contains several accounts of Israel’s entry into Canaan, each with its own distinctive theological and thematic emphasis.
Unlike Judges 1 and Exodus 15, Joshua 1-12 alone portrays Israel’s occupation of Canaan as a military conquest. But all three agree the Israelites first settled in the unoccupied hill country.
● The conquest account in Joshua 6–12 claims a unified, complete military (blitzkrieg) conquest. In all three campaigns—central, southern, and northern—each city they “struck with the sword and every person in it” (Josh 8:24; 10:28; 11:10–14, etc.). The book’s three summaries claim “all the land,” and that “all that breathed he devoted” (Josh 10:40–42), “and all their kings he captured, struck, and put to death” (Josh 11:16–17), and “all the land … they possessed and settled” (Josh 21:43–45).
● But the next book, Judges, opens with the question, “Who will go up first for us against the Canaanites to do battle with them?” (Jdg 1:1), as though the conquest was just launching. It describes a prolonged occupation that proceeds tribe by tribe, marked mostly by failures. Judah succeeds in battle in a few cities and “possessed” the hill country, but did “not possess” the valleys. The Joseph tribes defeated Bethel, but the remaining northern tribes did “not possess” the Canaanite cities in Gezer, the Jezreel Valley, and along the northern coast and Galilee region (esp. Jdg 1:1–2, 19–21, 27–34).
● According to Joshua’s summary account, “these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the Israelites defeated,” including the kings of Gezer, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor (Josh 12:7–24).
● But according to Judges (Jdg 1:27, 29) and the parallel allotment lists in Joshua (Josh 16:10; 17:11–13), “Manasseh did not dispossess” Taanach, Dor, and Megiddo” and “Ephraim did not dispossess the Canaanites dwelling in Gezer.”
● According to the Bible’s oldest account, the Song of the Sea, when the Canaanites “heard” that Yahweh’s “right hand shattered” the Egyptians (Exod 15:6, 12), his “arm” merely petrified them:
“Terror and trembling fell upon them; with the greatness of your arm they were still as a stone, until your people, Yahweh, passed by …. You brought them in and planted them in the hill country of your heritage” (Exod 15:14–17).
In this ancient hymn, the Israelites infiltrate the highlands without any sign of conflict.
All these accounts agree, however, that the Israelites settled the hill country of Canaan, not its valleys—because the Canaanites had “chariots of iron” (Josh 17:15–18; Jdg 1:19, 34). Joshua’s advice to “clear the forest” in the hill country to make it arable implies this region was unoccupied. The sole claim that Israelites “took possession” of any real estate in Judges 1 appears in Judah’s occupation of the hills (Jdg 1:19). Canaanite technology apparently limited the extent of Israel’s settlement. Another archaic poem in the Bible, the Song of Moses, also locates early Israel “on the high places of the land” (Deut 32:10–14).
Archaeology
The archaeological record indicates a widespread collapse of ancient kingdoms around 1200 BCE, including the Canaanite city states under Egyptian control. Only three give evidence of military destruction. The culture largely remained Canaanite.
In Canaan, the land of the Israelite settlement, everything changed after around 1200 BCE. In fact, throughout the ancient world of the Mediterranean and the Near East, there was a crisis like none before. In the late Bronze Age, the kingdoms of the Minoans and Mycenaeans in the Aegean, the Hittites in Asia Minor (Turkey), Mitanni, Assyria, and Babylonia in Mesopotamia, and Egypt and its Canaanite city states, were all interconnected by international trade routes.
But then trade diminished, markets crashed, peoples migrated (such as the Sea Peoples/Philistines), and kingdoms crumbled. The causes are varied and have been much debated, but there was likely a “perfect storm” including drought, earthquakes, and famine. 1550–1200 BCE, roughly, marks the Empire/New Kingdom period in Egypt, which is contemporary to the Late Bronze Age in Canaan. After 1200 BCE the Egyptians withdrew their administrative control over Canaan, and the Canaanite city-state system collapsed. Most scholars therefore believe the earliest the Israelites could enter Canaan is the Iron I period (1200–1000 BCE).
Although the Canaanite city states were in decline, only Hazor north of Galilee, Bethel in the central hills, and Lachish in the southern lowlands (Shephelah, though later in 1150 BCE) bear archaeological evidence of military destruction. The sites on the coastal plain, the lowlands (Shephelah), and river valleys—the prime real estate—remained Canaanite after 1200 BCE.
After 1200 BCE there was an explosion of hill country settlements, probably a mixture of Canaanite peasants and pastoralists migrating from Transjordan. Their descendants eventually became “Israel.”
Archaeological surveys in Canaan attest to an explosion of sites in the central hill country after 1200 BCE: from 88 in the Late Bronze Age to 678 in Iron I and with a rise in population estimated from 50,000 to 150,000. 633 or 93% of the Iron I settlements were new villages (a hectare in size or less) in these “frontier” regions in the highlands of Canaan (tribal territories of Ephraim and Manasseh) and in Transjordan (Reuben, Gad, and Moab).
With the collapse of the city-state markets, herders of sheep and goats could no longer trade for agricultural produce and so settled in the empty spaces of the highlands to practice subsistence farming (Stager, pp. 97, 100, 105).
The archaeological record presents no clear evidence as to where these settlers came from. Their material culture, especially the pottery, shows some continuity with Late Bronze Canaanite culture, so they may have been peasants from the fallen Canaanite city states (now unemployed in the collapsed economy) or refugees from the invading Sea Peoples/Philistines. But the magnitude of this population explosion must also be explained as a migration of new immigrants, possibly from Transjordan.
Although not unique to these hill country settlements in Canaan, their archaeological “assemblage” includes some novel technologies for this geographic region.
● Lime plastered cisterns (for catching and storing rainwater) and storage pits (lined with stones for foodstuffs)
● Terraces (for farming plots, esp. in later Iron I)
● Collared-rim storage jars
● Pillared/Four-room houses
The four-room house was the dominant architectural blueprint in both the Iron I period and the Iron II period (1000–587 BCE), the era of the Israelite monarchy. In fact, some of Israel’s later large public buildings were patterned after this blueprint. So however ambiguous the material culture and identity of the highland settlers in Iron I, their descendants certainly coalesced into what became known as Israel in the time of the monarchy (Iron II).
Archaeology and the Bible: New Hill Country Villages
The Bible and archaeology agree that Israel first settled the hill country frontier. Since the Canaanites persisted in the cities and plains, Israel’s occupation was primarily an infiltration. Joshua 1-11 alone portrays an invasion.
On this point archaeology and the Bible’s divergent accounts all agree: the early Israelites first settled in the hill country frontiers of Canaan. This real estate corresponds to the tribal allotments of the prominent tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. (Settlements in Judah’s allotment emerged later.)
The key sacred sites mentioned in Joshua and Judges are located there: Shiloh in Ephraim (Josh 18:1, 8–10; 19:51, Jdg 18:31; 21:19; 1 Sam 1:3) and Shechem in Manasseh (which sits between Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, Josh 24:1, 25, 32).
Invasion by Conquest? Neither the oldest account of the Israelite occupation in Canaan, the “Song of the Sea” (Exod 15), nor the opening chapter of Judges claim widespread military destruction of Canaanites cities. The archaeological record agrees: aside from the new highland villages, the population and its material culture essentially remained Canaanite (esp. pottery). In this respect, the Joshua 6–12 account stands alone. Of the thirty-one city-state kings listed as defeated in Josh 12:7–24, twenty have been identified with archaeological tells, but only three—Lachish, Bethel, and Hazor—show evidence of destruction (Stager, p. 97). The walls of Jericho, according to the consensus of archaeologists, came tumbling down at the end of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1550 BCE), more than two centuries before the Israelites emerged in the highland villages. Ai (which means “the ruin”) was destroyed even earlier: near the end of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2400 BCE).
Gezer. The strategic city of Gezer, located at a key crossroads (see 1 Kgs 9:15), serves as a telling example. Joshua 6–12 claims, “Joshua struck” the king of Gezer “and his people until there was not a survivor remaining” (Josh 10:33; 12:12). But both the allotment list in Joshua and the opening chapter in Judges agree that the tribe of Ephraim “did not dispossess the Canaanites dwelling in Gezer” (Josh 16:10; Jdg 1:29). Even by the time of Solomon in the 10th century BCE, it was Egyptian forces, not Israelite, that succeeded in “capturing” Gezer, which Solomon then fortified (1 Kgs 9:15–16).
Military destruction at Hazor. The one site that gets special mention in both Joshua and Judges, as a major battle with destruction, is Hazor.
Yet, all the cities standing upon their tell/mound Israel did not burn, except Hazor alone did Joshua burn (Josh 11:13).
The archaeological remains of Hazor’s Canaanite palace testify to a massive fire that shattered its basalt walls.
One of the Bible’s oldest passages and most detailed Iron I battle account, the “Song of Deborah” (Jdg 5:1–31), mirrors the archaeological picture. Normal trade routes were abandoned (Jdg 5:6). A loose confederation of ten tribes (Judah is not mentioned; cf. Deut 33:7), calling themselves “the people of Yahweh,” engage in battle in the Jezreel Valley against Sisera, the commander of Hazor’s army (Jdg 4:2). The Israelite tribes residing in the central hill country participate in the battle (Jdg 4:14–15a, 18), but those in Transjordan and along the coast do not (Jdg 5:15b–17). The participating tribes are described as “going down” “into the valley” (Jdg 5:11–15), perhaps suggesting their villages lay in the hill country.
In conclusion, since the new Iron I population (1200-1000 BCE) took residence in the frontier highlands, not atop Canaanite cities or in the prime real estate of the valleys, the Israelite migration into Canaan appears to have been an infiltration primarily, not an invasion.
Deuteronomistic History: A Series of Tests of Israel’s Loyalty
What then are we to make of the invasion account in Joshua 6–12, which diverges from other accounts in the Bible? We need to remind ourselves of what we discovered in the opening module, “How is the OT meant to be read?”
To make sense of Joshua 1-12 we must recall that biblical narratives were shaped as literature, torah, and edited traditions. Readers must attend to the cues embedded in their genres, torah lessons, and editorial “frames.”
Three features of the Bible are particularly relevant.
First, we must respect that the Bible is literature. An essential feature that makes biblical narrative so compelling and enduring is its literary artistry. Readers must attend not only to its contents but also to its literary form/genre and thematic purpose. We shall discover that the books of Joshua and Judges are markedly different in their genre and theme.
Second, we must respect that the OT is Torah, that is, “instruction” for the people of God. It might be helpful for us to think of the Bible as a series of Torah or Sunday school lessons or sermons. Readers must keep their focus on the question, what lessons does this biblical passage teach? How does it remember Israel’s past to construct our identity as the people of God in the present? The aims of the genres of torah and history do not always align. History aims to record particular events of the past. Torah aims to teach enduring lessons for the people of God in their present. Torah may recast historical figures as literary types so they can become models for how to live in the present (e.g., how the Chronicler recast 1-2 Samuel’s opportunistic David as a pious Jew). We shall discover that the DtrH constructs a positive lesson in Joshua and a negative one in Judges.
Third, the books we read in the Bible were originally scrolls that scribes composed from the sacred traditions shared with the people of God. As such, they were not simply authors, they were editors. The ancient scribes (a) collected traditional materials, written and oral, (b) edited and shaped them, and then (c) set them within their “frame.”
One of the ways these ancient editors incorporated their received traditions was to interweave strands of texts that were originally separate and may have come from diverse social circles (e.g., JEDP). In so doing they provide readers with a fuller spectrum of theological perspectives. The DtrH explicitly acknowledges his dependence on sources for writing his narrative about the kings of Israel and Judah (1 Kgs 14:19, 29). We shall discover how he interwove these sources on a larger scale in the books of Joshua and Judges.
How these editors framed their portraits of tradition is often where their imprint is most evident. The introduction provides the lens through which listeners and readers are to view the story. And the conclusion summarizes what they should take away from it. These cues may appear in the “bookends” at the beginning and end, and also at section-breaks within books.
In light of these considerations, any discrepancies that we may perceive should not be regarded as errors (as between Joshua and Judges 1). Because the scribal editors regarded these traditions as sacred, they respectfully incorporated them without trying to harmonize them. They are not loose ends but part of the fabric of the Scriptures.