A friend and I were discussing the bloodshed and annihilation that we find in Joshua. This is a great commentary from her Compassion Bible that might shed some light on it for us.
"Many Christians are deeply troubled by the role warfare and genocide play in the book of Joshua. some ascribe the author's perspective to a pre-Christian (and now sub-Christian) stage of moral development that we, in light of Jesus' teaching, are to renounce. But this is the story of how God, to whom the whole world belongs, at one stage in redemption history re-conquered a portion of the earth that the powers of this world had, in reliance on false gods, claimed for themselves. War is a terrible curse that the human race brings on itself as it seeks to possess the earth by its own unrighteous ways. But it pales before the curse that awaits those who don't heed God's testimony to himself, those who oppose his rule and reject his offer of grace. The God of the second Joshua - Jesus (the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua) - also is the God of the first. Though now for a time he reaches out to the whole world with the gospel, his sword of judgement waits in the wings - his second Joshua will wield it (Rev: 1911-16)"
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