Joshua inherited an impossible job—replace the greatest prophet in history and lead a nation of former slaves into enemy territory. According to Josephus, he did not hesitate for a single day.
The moment the thirty-day mourning for Moses ended, Joshua ordered the Israelites to mobilize. He dispatched spies to Jericho, the first fortified city standing in their path. These men slipped inside undetected and surveyed every weak point in the walls. When the king of Jericho got word that Hebrew spies were hiding in the inn of a woman named Rahab, he sent soldiers to seize them—but Rahab hid the men under stalks of flax drying on her roof and lied to the king's messengers. In exchange, the spies swore to spare her family when the city fell. She was to hang scarlet threads from her window as a signal.
The Jordan River itself posed the first great obstacle. It ran strong, with no bridges and no ferry boats. But God parted the waters. The priests carrying the Ark entered first, and the river dried up before them—just as the Red Sea had dried up for Moses a generation earlier (Joshua 3:15-17). Josephus notes that the Israelites crossed on the very day that the river was at flood stage, making the miracle unmistakable.
Then came Jericho. Joshua ordered the Ark carried around the city walls for six days, with priests blowing rams' horns. On the seventh day, they circled seven times. The walls collapsed—and the Israelites poured in, destroying everything except Rahab and her household, exactly as promised (Joshua 6:20-25).
What followed was a relentless campaign across Canaan. Joshua defeated thirty-one kings in total. He burned Hazor to the ground. He conquered the hill country, the Negev, and the coastal lowlands. Josephus describes the Gibeonites tricking Joshua into a peace treaty by disguising themselves as travelers from a distant land—wearing worn-out shoes and carrying moldy bread. When Joshua discovered the deception, he honored the treaty anyway but made them servants.
At the end of twenty-five years of leadership, Joshua gathered the people at Shechem and delivered his final warning: everything you have came from God. Forget that, and you will lose it all. He died at 110 years old and was buried at Timnah in the territory of Ephraim. Eleazar the high priest died around the same time, passing the priesthood to his son Phineas.