The next phase of the narrative was a record of Israel’s invasion of the land. As discussed earlier, of the several models proposed the conquest model has the best textual support. The biblical records in the Book of Joshua showed that the military conquest was achieved in three geographical phases, namely the central, southern and northern campaigns.
1. Central Campaign (Joshua 6-9)
The central campaign began with the conquest of Jericho. Jericho was chosen because the destruction of this important city represented the “entire takeover of the land” (Howard 1998:167). The destruction of Jericho was also a case of “holy war” where God exercised His sovereignty to judge a rebellious people (Merrill 2012:305, 312). The battle plan was to penetrate right through the heart of Canaan and capture the heavily fortified city of Jericho (Josh 6). This would in effect divide the land into two halves, preventing reinforcement from either side, thus making the conquest easier. The conquest of Jericho illustrated that God would fulfil His promise to give them the land if Joshua and the people obey His command (Butler 1983:72). The way Jericho was captured clearly asserted that it…show more content… With an attack imminent, Joshua had to lead his troops to defend Gibeon because they were bound by treaty to do so. Instead of waiting for the enemies to attack, Joshua led an army to strike the enemies first. Joshua's military action was aided by divine intervention because God rained hailstones from the sky and killed the retreating armies. On that day, the sun and the moon stood still to provide light for Joshua to finish destroying the enemies (Josh 10:11-14). While the nature of the cosmic changes was a miracle that could not be easily explained, the point was that the faith of Israel was greatly strengthened by it (Lasor et al