The _second_ part gives an account of the division of the land by lot among the several tribes. This work was begun as is described in chapters 13-17, and after an interruption through the dilatoriness of the people, for which Joshua rebuked them, was continued and completed at Shiloh. Chaps. 18, 19. Six cities of refuge were then appointed, three on each side of the Jordan; forty-eight cities were assigned by lot to the Levites; and the two and a half tribes that had received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan (Numb., chap. 32) were sent home. Chaps. 20-22. The twenty-third chapter contains Joshua's charge to the elders of Israel, and the twenty-fourth his final charge at Shechem to the assembled tribes, on which occasion there was a solemn renewal of the national covenant. The whole book is brought to a close by a brief notice of the death of Joshua and Eleazar, and the interment of the bones of Joseph in Shechem. This brief survey of the contents of the book reveals at once its unity, its orderly plan, and the place which it holds in the history of the Theocracy. 4. The _authorship_ of the book cannot be determined from the title alone, any more than that of the two books which bear the name of Samuel. Jewish tradition ascribes it to Joshua himself, except the last five verses. But it records some transactions which, according to the most obvious interpretation of them, occurred after Joshua's death. Among these are the conquest of Hebron (chap. 15:16-19, compared with Judges 1:12-15), and especially the excursion of the Danites (chap. 19:47), which must be regarded as identical with that described in the eighteenth chapter of the book of Judges. Unless we assume that this notice of the Danites is an addition made by a later hand, we must suppose that the book was written by some unknown prophetical man after Joshua's death. He may well have been one of the elders who overlived Joshua, since at the time of his writing Rahab was yet living among the Israelites. Chap. 6:25.