It is now time for an only moderately interesting digression. One may have noticed the interchangeable use of the following terms: Israelites, Hebrews, Jews, Semites, or, as they are called in an ancient Egyptian dialect, People Who Make Acceptable Fodder for the Great Crocodile. There is a reason for this use of names, and to explain it, it becomes necessary to journey to Heaven once more for another interesting dialogue between God and Zeus. It (the conversation) began on a Friday, no particular Friday, but it was just your ordinary run-of-the-mill thank-God-it's-Friday Friday (by the way, an even less moderately interesting digression would be to say that God in no way started that T.G.I.F. rubbish; in fact, he was opposed to it, because he'd slaved his butt off for more days than just Friday and so he felt he should be thanked equally for them all). Back to the conversation, Zeus was talking about how revered he was, and how so many different peoples loved him. God was feeling a bit envious, because all he had was a bunch of smelly, sheep-herding Jews. Finally, he got fed up with Zeus and said, "Look buddy. So you have many faithful worshippers in the boy-loving Greeks and in the surrounding islands, and I suppose that gazing into the future to see the Romans worshipping you under the pseudonym Jupiter has to count too, but I'm not exactly Mr. Nobody, you know. I've got the Jews, of course, my chosen people, but I've also got the..." Here he paused to come up with some names. "...the Hebrews, and the Israelites, and even the Semites are starting to pay closer attention to me in my supreme majesty, so why don't you just take a thunderbolt and shove it up your divine..." Here the conversation degenerated a wee bit, but one may find it interesting to note that it was right then, as a result of this spirited discussion, that the lost paradise of Atlantis so infamous in modern times actually became lost.
So Moses was dead, and since these were Jews/etcetera, command of the Israelites did not pass, as might seem logical, to Moses' children, but rather to this up-and-coming young go-getter named Joshua. Joshua was a brave lad, a strong lad, every father's dream, every mother's nightmare. In the right light, preferably that of an extinguished campfire, Joshua looked almost handsome.
The first major city that had to be taken in the conquest of Canaan was Jericho. The walls were high and thick and daunting to all but Joshua. God had spoken to him, and so he knew that victory would be his. For six days, his men marched around the city, playing trumpets, dancing, basically having a good time; meanwhile, Joshua and several dozen of his closet friends set to work building a giant wooden sheep, hollow so that the whole of the Israelite army might fit inside it. On the seventh morning, the people of Jericho, looking over their high and thick and daunting walls and expecting to see the continued bizarre behavior of the Israelite army, found instead this giant sheep. Of course, Canaanites not being ones to look a gift sheep in the mouth, took the gift into their city, whereupon the Hebrews broke free, slaughtered every man, woman, child, and sheep in the city, and burned it to the ground. The victory was theirs, and Joshua was, understandably, somewhat happy.
Because of this happiness, Joshua took to bed the wife of a friend. They were drunk, so they felt it would be excusable. Days passed with no reprisal from God, and the army prepared to march on Ai, another large city in eastern Canaan. This time, the Ai-ites attacked first, and the Hebrews ran screaming into the hills. Joshua was, understandably, somewhat discouraged.
"God!" he cried out in despair. "Why have you forsaken us?"
God's reply came. "Well I dunno. Perhaps because of a certain indiscretion between you and the wife of Abdiciah. Have you forgotten my commandments again so soon? How does another forty years in Sinai sound?"
Joshua paled. Horrible memories still plagued his sleep, of the sand and the heat and the sand and the sand. "No, no, anything but that."
"Very well. You must to go to Abdiciah and apologize, which means telling him what you did."
"But..."
"Forty years is nothing to God, Joshua."
"Yessir." Joshua pouted as he walked away.
Before the fall of Ai, Joshua addressed his troops. "My men," he said with his swollen jaw, "you have all been told the plan. I must trust you to carry it through, since, as you can see, my eyes are too swollen to see properly."
"What happened sir?" a young private shouted.
Joshua glanced at who appeared, with his vision so impaired, to be Abdiciah. He swallowed loudly. "I ran across a group of Ai-ite terrorists, eight in all, and they're all dead, but I was severely outnumbered." He heard Abdiciah snort loudly, and blushed fiercely. "Anyway, kill every Ai-ite pig you find. Abdiciah will lead the charge." Joshua smiled; the first charge troops never survived, and so would he get revenge on Abdiciah, all within the boundaries of God's laws.
Ai fell, Abdiciah died, Joshua took Abdiciah's wife for his own, and things were looking up. After Ai, cities trembled at the sight of the marauding army. Kings died horrid deaths. Mothers in remote lands used the Israelite army to frighten their children into behaving: "eat you broccoli or the Hebrews will come for you." Just as God had promised, the land soon fell, from this lake in the north to that desert in the south, from this sea in the west to that river in the east, and even a little bit more here and there.
With Canaan distributed out among the tribes of Israel in accordance with God's wishes, Joshua, his work primarily done, took a nice break for some carefree drunken debauchery, and then, like so many Jewish leaders before him, died. This tendency of humans to die was one of God's main reasons for pushing the whole concept of being fruitful.