Commentary Compass

For Commentary Compass, “recent” means published in 2020 or later. I do not want to fill a list with books simply because they are new. A recent commentary should add something important to the literature that older standard works do not already provide—or bring older strengths together in a significantly improved form.

Joshua’s recent field is relatively thin compared with some biblical books. Several excellent commentaries remain just outside the cutoff, and Trent Butler’s substantial revised Word Biblical Commentary appeared before 2020. Among the works we have examined, however, three recent commentaries are genuinely significant.

One recent specialist study on the destruction of the Canaanites also deserves separate mention because it addresses an issue so central to modern interpretation of Joshua, even though it is not a running commentary.

1. David G. Firth — Joshua — Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (2021)

Rating: 5/5

Firth is not merely my highest-ranked recent Joshua commentary; he is one of my highest-ranked Joshua commentaries of any period.

What makes the volume important is its ability to combine several areas of interpretation that are frequently separated.

First, Firth offers sophisticated literary analysis. His discussion of external focalization in the opening chapters explains why readers are initially given so little guidance about how to evaluate Rahab, Joshua, and Israel’s preparedness. Later information retrospectively clarifies earlier scenes. His analysis of anachrony similarly shows that Joshua’s apparently unusual ordering of information can function deliberately to involve the reader.

Second, Firth offers an unusually fruitful account of Torah and obedience. Joshua 11:15 declares Joshua fully obedient to what Yahweh commanded through Moses. That statement means Rahab and Gibeon cannot simply be catalogued as instances in which Joshua ignored the law. Rahab’s allegiance to Yahweh places her outside the spiritual danger Deuteronomy is addressing, while Achan’s Israelite ethnicity cannot protect him when he adopts Canaanite patterns of disloyalty.

Third, Firth significantly improves interpretation of the land-allotment chapters. His structural analysis of Joshua 13–21 places Shiloh and the tent of meeting at the centre. The section therefore moves beyond distribution of territory: Israel’s inheritance has Yahweh’s dwelling and worship at its theological heart.

His conquest discussion also represents an advance over older evangelical treatments because he takes ancient martial rhetoric, hyperbole, the survival of populations, Rahab, Gibeon, and later unconquered territory seriously rather than treating “destroy all” language as straightforward modern reportage.

I would occasionally hold his precise historical reconstructions more tentatively, especially when moving from literary rhetoric to conclusions about who was physically present in particular cities. But the larger interpretive framework is very strong.

Firth genuinely advances the evangelical commentary literature rather than merely updating Howard, Hess, or Woudstra.

2. John Goldingay — Joshua — Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Historical Books (2023)

Rating: 4.5/5

Goldingay brings a recognizably different voice to Joshua and therefore adds substantially to the recent literature rather than simply replacing an older technical commentary.

His greatest strength is literary perception. Goldingay repeatedly notices that Joshua’s stories often refuse to end when the apparent problem has been solved. A military victory may be followed by a complication; fulfilment may be followed by incomplete possession; an administrative section may suddenly be interrupted by a vivid individual character.

This makes his reading of Joshua 13–21 particularly refreshing. Caleb, Achsah, Zelophehad’s daughters, Joshua, and other figures become cameos that prevent the land material from becoming merely bureaucratic.

Goldingay is also unusually attentive to irony, humour, and the difference between what a story reports and what later readers should imitate. His suggestion that Joshua functions more as a mirror for identity than a model for moralityis one of the more useful recent hermeneutical formulations.

His handling of conquest emphasizes rhetorical hyperbole, limited geographical objectives, assimilation, and the difference between the literary impression of rapid conquest and the more extended process reflected elsewhere.

I would qualify several conclusions. The “writers’ room” analogy is suggestive but risks sounding more historically concrete than our evidence allows. “Fictionalized history” may also imply more confidence about the exact boundary between event and literary elaboration than can actually be recovered. His categorical denial that Joshua portrays genocide or ethnic cleansing can sometimes move more quickly than the ethical and historical evidence warrants.

Nevertheless, Goldingay gives the reader questions and literary observations that older standard works often lack. He complements rather than supersedes Nelson, Butler, or Howard.

3. David Reimer — Joshua in ESV Expository Commentary: Deuteronomy–Ruth (2021)

Rating: 4.5/5

Reimer deserves more attention than he is likely to receive because his Joshua commentary appears inside a large multi-author volume rather than as an independent book.

His principal contribution is a thoughtful integration of literary structure, close exegesis, canonical connections, and evangelical theology.

The Gibeonite narrative is particularly strong. Reimer does not reduce it to a warning about failing to pray before making decisions. The Gibeonites complicate the conquest because the narrative has already shown through Rahab that Canaanites need not necessarily remain enemies. Their covenant begins in deception, but it becomes the basis for continued life, protection, justice, and a place within Israel’s religious world.

Reimer is also very good on Joshua 13–21. He notices the relationships among Caleb, Achsah, Zelophehad’s daughters, and the Joseph tribes. Female initiative repeatedly produces good for Israel, while the Joseph tribes’ complaint exposes reluctance to exercise faith and effort in possessing what has been given.

The literary architecture of the land material receives substantial attention, as does Shiloh’s importance. Joshua 22 is read carefully as a crisis in which an ambiguous altar threatens to undo Israel’s unity almost instantaneously.

Reimer is not comprehensive enough to replace Butler as a technical resource, nor does he have the breadth of Firth’s EBTC. But as a recent evangelical exposition with genuinely good literary judgments, it adds something significant to the available literature.

Readers who already own Firth may find some methodological overlap, but Reimer often reaches passages through different observations and therefore remains worthwhile.

A Recent Specialist Study Worth Adding

Charlie Trimm — The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation(2022)

Rating: 4.5/5 as a specialist work

Trimm is not a Joshua commentary, so I would not insert him artificially into the ranking above. But anyone doing serious contemporary work on Joshua should know this book.

Its greatest contribution is methodological clarity. Trimm identifies four propositions that create the ethical problem: God is good; the Old Testament faithfully portrays God; the Old Testament describes something resembling genocide; and mass killing is wrong. Modern interpreters typically solve the tension by revising one of those claims.

That produces four broad approaches: reevaluating God, reevaluating the Old Testament, reevaluating what the conquest texts actually describe, or reevaluating whether such violence could be permissible in a unique historical situation.

This framework helps expose the theological cost of apparently easy solutions.

Trimm is particularly valuable on hyperbole. He accepts that Joshua uses conventional martial exaggeration but shows why that observation alone does not answer every ethical problem. Questions about children, civilians, corporate responsibility, divine judgment, and modern appropriation remain.

The book is therefore an excellent supplement to Firth, Goldingay, Reimer, or any older Joshua commentary that does not have the space to map the full modern debate.

Bottom Line

The best recent commentary on Joshua is David Firth’s EBTC.

It is not merely the best book published after 2020; I would rank it second overall among all the Joshua commentaries examined. It combines enough technical exegesis, literary sophistication, biblical theology, and practical usefulness that someone beginning a Joshua library today could confidently start there.

Goldingay is the more adventurous recent literary conversation partner, especially useful for narrative, identity, and hermeneutics.

Reimer is an excellent recent evangelical exposition whose location inside the ESV Expository Commentary should not cause it to be overlooked.

The recent field is strong enough to matter but not strong enough to make the older standards obsolete. I would still want Nelson for his remarkable literary-geographical synthesis, Butler for technical depth, Davis for preaching, Hawk for literary interpretation, and Howard for dependable conservative exegesis.

Recent does not automatically mean better. In Firth’s case, however, it genuinely does mean that the commentary brings together developments in Joshua scholarship that older evangelical works could not yet fully incorporate.