»The Land Remains to be Possessed«

Starting out from the observation that, in the conquest account of the book of Joshua, Joshua is said to have given the land to Israel for an inheritance while no such action is reported in any detail, the present paper first highlights the specific profile of the Deuteronomistic Joshua story. Building on the picture that emerges as well as on the well-founded position that the land distribution account did not originally belong to this story, it then focuses on the way the account was incorporated. To this end, it scrutinizes the first introduction found in Josh 13:1–7, arguing that vv. 1, 7 originally meant to present the following chapters as an explication concordant with the thrust and implications of the earlier conquest account and the Deuteronomistic Joshua story as a whole. To illustrate this case, the conclusion of that story, Judg 2:6–10, is brought to bear on the interpretation of the incorporated section's introduction, Josh 13:1, 7.