The Israelites lay hidden, as it were, in the desert for many long years, preparing themselves for the part they were afterwards to play in the history of mankind.  But from the moment of their departure from Egypt their goal had been Canaan.  They were not mere Bedawin; they belonged to that portion of the Semitic race which had made settlements and founded kingdoms in Moab and Ammon and Edom, and their residence in the cultured land of the Nile had made it impossible for them ever to degenerate into the lawless robbers of the wilderness.  They were settled Bedawin, not Bedawin proper; not Bedawin by blood and descent, but Semites who had adopted the wandering and pastoral habits of the Bedawin tribes.  They were like their brethren of Edom, who, though they came to Egypt seeking pasturage for their cattle, had nevertheless founded at home an elective monarchy.  The true Bedawin of the Old Testament are the Amalekites, and between the Israelite and the Amalekite there was the difference that there is between the peasant and the gypsy.  The fact is important, and the forgetfulness of it has led more than one historian astray.

The first attempt to invade Canaan failed.  It was made from the south, from the shelter of the block of mountains within which stood the sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea.  The Israelitish forces were disastrously defeated at Zephath, the Hormah of later days, and the invasion of the Promised Land was postponed.  The desert life had still to continue for a while.  In the fastness of ’Ain Qadis the forces of Israel grew and matured, and a long series of legislative enactments organised it into a homogeneous whole.  At length the time came when the Israelites felt strong enough once more to face an enemy and to win by the sword a country of their own.  It was from the east that they made their second attack.  Aaron the high-priest was dead, but his brother Moses was still their leader.  The Edomites refused them a passage along the high-road of trade which led northward from the Gulf of Aqaba; skirting Edom accordingly, they marched through a waterless desert to the green wadis of Moab, and there pitched their camp.  The Amorite kingdoms of Sihon and Og fell before their assault.  The northern part of Moab, which Sihon had conquered, was occupied by the invaders, and the plateau of Bashan, over which Og had ruled, fell into Israelitish hands.  The invaders now prepared to cross the Jordan and advance into the highlands of Canaan.  Moses died on the summit of a Moabite mountain and his place was taken by Joshua.

Joshua was a general and not a legislator.  He could win battles and destroy cities, but he could not restore what he had destroyed, or organise his followers into a state.  Jericho, which commanded the ford across the Jordan, fell into his hands; the confederate kings of southern Canaan were overthrown in battle, and the tribe of Ephraim, to which Joshua belonged, was established in the mountainous region which afterwards bore its name.  Henceforward the mountains of Ephraim formed the centre and the stronghold of Israelitish power in Palestine, from whence the invading tribes could issue forth to conquest, or to which they could retreat for shelter in case of need.