The Commissioning of Joshua

Chapter 1 opens the book after the death of Moses narrated in the closing verses of Deuteronomy. God addresses Joshua son of Nun directly and gives him the command to cross the Jordan and take the land. The speech draws heavily on Deuteronomic language: every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you. The boundaries named — from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the Euphrates to the great sea — are the widest formulation of the land promise in the Hebrew Bible. The commissioning formula, be strong and courageous, appears three times in this chapter and will appear throughout the book at every major turning point. Joshua is not presented as a charismatic figure who generates his own authority; he is presented as a man who has been given a task and a promise, and whose strength consists in trusting the promise.

Joshua immediately exercises authority. He commands the officers to go through the camp and instruct the people to prepare provisions; in three days they will cross the Jordan and take the land God is giving them. He then turns specifically to the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh, who had already received their territory east of the Jordan under Moses, and tells them: your wives and children may stay in the land Moses gave you, but your warriors must cross over armed and help your kin until they too have rest in the land. The eastern tribes respond with a public oath of loyalty, explicitly modelled on their loyalty to Moses. The chapter closes on this communal pledge. Before a single step has been taken toward the Jordan, the book has established the command structure, the divine mandate, and the collective commitment that the subsequent narrative will test.