JOSHUA (IlliLltr, 1)&14., or whose help is Yehovah, Yehova,h is\help ; comp. the German name Gotilzi ; Sept., N. T., and Joseph., 'PT:robs). I. The son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, the assistant and successor of Moses. His name was originally =171 (Hoshea), salvation (Num. xiii. S); and it seems that the subsequent alteration of it by Moses (Num. xiii. 16) was significant, and proceeded on the same principle as that of Abram into Abraham (Gen. xvii. 5), and of Sami into Sarah (Gen. xvii. 15).
According to the Tsentaeh David, Joshua was born in Egypt, in the year of the Jewish era 2406 (p.c. 1537). In the Bible he is first mentioned as being the victorious commander of the Israelites in their battle against the Amalekites at Rephidim (Exod. xvii. 8-16). He distinguished himself by his courage and intelligence during and after the exploration of the land of Canaan, on which occa sion he represented his tribe, which was that of Ephraim (Num. xiii., xiv.) Moses, with the divine sanction, appointed him to command the Israelites, even during his own lifetime (Num. xxvii. 18-23 ; Dent. iii. 28 ; xxxi. 23). After the death of Moses he led the Israelites over the Jordan, fortified a camp at Gilgal ( Josh. ix. 6 ; x. 6-43), conquered the southern and middle portions of Canaan (vi. -x.), and also some of the northern districts (ix.) But the hostile nations, although subdued, were not en tirely driven out and destroyed (xiii. ; xxiii. 13 ; i. 27-35). In the seventh year after enter ing the land, it was distributed atnong the various tribes, which then commenced individually to com plete the conquest by separate warfare (xv. 13, seq. ; xvi. io ; XVii. 12, seq.) Joshua died Ho years old (a c. 1427), and was buried at Timnath serah (Josh. xxiv.), on Mount Ephraim. Accord ing to the Archaologia or Antiquities of Josephus, (v. 1. 29), Joshua commanded the Jews twenty-five years, but, according to other Jewish chronologers, twenty-seven years. The Tsenzack David, on the years of the Jewish era 2489 and 2496, remarks :— It is written in the Seder Olam that Joshua judged Israel twenty-eight years, commencing from the year 2488, hnmediately from the death of Moses, to the year 2516. This, however, would not be known to us but for cabbalistic tradition, but in some de gree also by reasoning,' etc. Hottinger (Smegnza, P. 469) says According to the Mizirask, Rahab was ten years old when the Israelites left Egypt ; she played the whore during the forty years in which the Israelites were in the desert. She be
came the wife of Joshua, and eight prophets descended from her, viz., Jeremiah, Mahasia, Han amael, Shallum, Baruch, Ezekiel. Some say also that Huldah the prophetess was her descendant.' Some chronologers have endeavoured to reduce the rule of Joshua to seventeen, and others to twenty-one years.
There occur some vestiges of the deeds of Joshua in other historians besides those of the Bible. Pro coplus mentions a Phoenician inscription near the city of Tingis in Mauritania, the sense of which in Greek was HP-Cif' ea "LEV 01 cbtry6vres cirO 7rpocrdnrov XrierroD nieni Natrii—` We are those who fled before the face of Joshua the robber, the SOD of Nun' (De Bell. Vandal., ii. to). Suidas (sub voce Xametp) &racy Xapavatot oOs loicuEev kilarrjs—` We are the Canaanites whom Joshua the robber persecuted.' Compare Fabricii Codex Pseudepigraphus reteris Testamenti, i. 889, seq., and the doubts respecting this statement in Dale, De Orzine el Progressu Ida/atria, p. 749, seg.
The Samaritans, who for dogmatical purposes endeavoured to depreciate the authority of persons mentioned in the latter books of the O. T., such as Eli, Samuel, Zerubbabel, and others, had no such interest to attack the person of Joshua. Eulogius, according to Photius (Coeiex, p. 230), states : l'ap.apeo'dn, rd rXijOos oi 'incroOv TO), Nauij fry= 'rept or, 111/000-ijs etre, rpog57jrnv avaariicrez Key/os, etc.—(Comp. Lampe, Comnzent. in Evangelium Yohannis, p. 74.S.) The Samaritans even endeavoured to exalt the memory of Joshua by making him the nucleus of many strange legends which they embodied into their Arabic book of Joshua, a woik which seems to have been compiled in the middle ages, and is quoted by the Rabbinical chroniclers of that period, R. Samuel Schullam (yitchasin, 354; Shalsheleth Hakkabbalah, p. 96), Hotting,er (Historia Ori erztalis, p. 6o, sq.), Zunz (Gottesa'lenstliche Fortrlige der Yuclen, p. 14o). Reland supposed that this book was written at an earlier period, and aug mented in the middle ages ; but it is more likely that the whole is a late compilation.
A letter of Shaubech, -11Vel, king of Armenia Minor, in the Samaritan book of Joshua (chap.
xxvi.), styles Joshua 5)11ttp5N /Via PCr