Joshua in the context of "Twelve tribes of Israel"

The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary men of distinction who personify the ideals of chivalry established in the Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly referred to as 'Princes', regardless of their historical titles. In French they are called Les Neuf Preux or "Nine Valiants", giving a more specific idea of the moral virtues they exemplified: those of soldierly courage and generalship. In Italy they are known as i Nove Prodi.

The Nine Worthies include three pagans (Hector, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar), three Jews (Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabeus), and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon).

Gezer (Hebrew: גזר) is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shephelah roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in central Israel. It is now an Israeli national park. In the Hebrew Bible, Gezer is associated with Joshua and Solomon. Gezer rises to an elevation of 229 metres (751 ft) above sea-level, and affords a commanding prospect of the plains to the west, north, and east.

Gezer became a major fortified Canaanite city-state in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. It was later destroyed by fire and rebuilt. It is first mentioned in several ancient Egyptian inscriptions. Its importance was due in part to the strategic position it held at the crossroads of the ancient coastal trade route linking Egypt with Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and the road to Jerusalem and Jericho, both important trade routes. In Roman and Byzantine times, the site was sparsely populated. Later, In the modern era, Gezer was the site of the depopulated Palestinian Arab village of Abu Shusha, the residents of which fled, and others were massacred by Givati Brigade during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

The Twelve Tribes of Israel (Hebrew: שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized: Šīḇṭēy Yīsrāʾēl, lit. 'Staffs of Israel') are described in the Hebrew Bible as being the descendants of Jacob, a Hebrew patriarch who was a son of Isaac and thereby a grandson of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel, had a total of twelve sons, from whom each tribe's ancestry and namesake is derived: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Collectively known as the Israelites, they inhabited a part of Canaan—the Land of Israel—during the Iron Age. Their history, society, culture, and politics feature heavily in the Abrahamic religions, especially Judaism.

In the biblical narrative, after Moses oversaw the Israelites' departure from Egypt, he died and was succeeded by Joshua, who led the conquest of Canaan and subsequently allotted territory for all but the Tribe of Levi, which was instead dedicated 48 cities. This development culminated in the establishment of Israel and Judah, purportedly beginning with a Kingdom of Israel and Judah before splitting into the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.

The history of the Jews in the Roman Empire traces the interaction of Jews and Romans during the period of the Roman Empire (27 BC – 476 AD). A Jewish diaspora had migrated to Rome and to the territories of Roman Europe from the land of Israel, Anatolia, Babylon and Alexandria in response to economic hardship and incessant warfare over the land of Israel between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC. In Rome, Jewish communities thrived economically. Jews likely became a significant part of the Roman Empire's population in the first century AD, though there is no agreement in academia about the exact numbers and most numbers are speculative at best.

Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem and its surroundings by 63 BC. The Romans deposed the ruling Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (in power from c. 140 BC) and the Roman Senate declared Herod the Great "King of the Jews" in c. 40 BC. Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea became the Roman province of Judaea in 6 AD. Jewish–Roman tensions resulted in several Jewish–Roman wars between the years 66 and 135 AD, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and the institution of the Jewish Tax in 70 (those who paid the tax were exempt from the obligation of making sacrifices to the Roman imperial cult).

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian exile. It tells of the campaigns of the Israelites in central, southern and northern Canaan, the destruction of their enemies, and the division of the land among the Twelve Tribes, framed by two set-piece speeches, the first by God commanding the conquest of the land, and, at the end, the second by Joshua warning of the need for faithful observance of the Law (torah) revealed to Moses.

The consensus among scholars is that the Book of Joshua is historically problematic and should be treated with caution in reconstructing the history of early Israel. The earliest parts of the book are possibly chapters 2–11, the story of the conquest; these chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua likely written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BC), but the book was not completed until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BC, and possibly not until after the return from the Babylonian exile in 539 BC.

Deuteronomy (Ancient Greek: Δευτερονόμιον, romanized: Deuteronómion, lit. 'second law'; Latin: Liber Deuteronomii) is the fifth and final book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called Devarim (Biblical Hebrew: דְּבָרִים‎, romanized: Dəḇārīm, lit. '[the] words [of Moses]') which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament.

Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the Plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land. The first sermon recounts the forty years of wilderness wanderings which had led to that moment and ends with an exhortation to observe the law. The second sermon reminds the Israelites of the need to follow Yahweh and the laws (or teachings) he has given them, on which their possession of the land depends. The third sermon offers the comfort that, even should the nation of Israel prove unfaithful and so lose the land, with repentance all can be restored. The final four chapters (31–34) contain the Song of Moses, the Blessing of Moses, and the narratives recounting the passing of the mantle of leadership from Moses to Joshua and, finally, the death of Moses on Mount Nebo.

The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites.

Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorated in solid gold accompanied by an ornamental lid known as the Seat of Mercy. According to the Book of Exodus and First Book of Kings in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, the Ark contained the Tablets of the Law, by which God delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai. According to the Book of Exodus, the Book of Numbers, and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament, it also contained Aaron's rod and a pot of manna. The biblical account relates that approximately one year after the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was created according to the pattern that God gave to Moses when the Israelites were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Thereafter, the gold-plated acacia chest's staves were lifted and carried by the Levites approximately 2,000 cubits (800 meters or 2,600 feet) in advance of the people while they marched. God spoke with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover.