Joshua
But when the Jews finally arrived back in Israel and Canaan, around 1200 BC, they found that there were people living all over it! These people were the Canaanites (KAY-nan-eye-ts), and the Canaanites said, "Hey, there was nobody living here when we got here, what do you mean this is your land? God told you to live here? He's not MY God, so what do I care?"
Well, the Jews believed God did want them to live in Israel, so they began fighting the Canaanites for the land. By this time Moses was dead, and, according to the Bible, the main leader of the Jews was Joshua. Joshua was a good general, and the Jews won many battles against the Canaanites, including a famous battle at the city of Jericho (there's a song about it that goes "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came a-tumbling down."). When Joshua finally took the city of Jericho, he had every single person in the city killed with swords, even children and old people, and even the cows and donkeys and sheep (Joshua 6:20-21). Soon the Jews had gotten enough of the Canaanites and other people out of Israel (or killed them) and they settled down there to live in peace.
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(a project)
Over the next hundred years or so, after the death of Joshua, there continued to be fighting between the Canaanites and the Jews, off and on. The Bible tells the stories of these fights in the stories of the women Deborah and Jael, and Gideon.
More on the Jews (King David and
King Solomon)
Main Judaism page
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