Joshua: The Challenge of the Promised Land

The Book of Joshua enumerates the great challenges faced by the ancient Israelites as they enter and settle their promised land, a lengthy process that ultimately takes hundreds of years. Exhausted from their forty-year journey in the desert, the people must overcome earlier failures, confront hostile coalitions on the battlefield, struggle with the inimical cultural values pervasive in Canaan, and make the difficult transition from a nomadic to a settled way of life. Difficult as this may sound, there is yet one burning issue that overshadows the whole enterprise: What are the hallmarks of successful leadership?