The first Old Testament book after the Torah, the book of Joshua, describes the conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites. Joshua marks the transition of the people of Israel to a settled nation. The books that follow it chronicle the nation’s failure to drive out all the foreign inhabitants of the land, along with its consequences (Judges); the saga of one family during the period of the judges (Ruth); the end of the rule of local judges in favor of a monarchy of kings, particularly David (1–2 Samuel); and the sad story of how the monarchy fell into ruin after the end of the reign of Solomon, David’s son (1–2 Kings). Collectively, those books take up a lot of space in the Old Testament, and a lot of the biblical story.
It may surprise you to learn that these books are anonymous. None of them name or even hint at an author. But they present a theologically unified picture of the cost of losing faith in God and living in disobedience to him. The books from Joshua to 2 Kings proclaim in one voice that the ultimate disastrous judgment of God on Israel (the exile) was due to the sins of the Israelites, especially the matter of idolatry. Each book builds the case in painstaking detail that the awful judgment of the exile was entirely justified. Anyone living during the dark days of the breakdown of the nation (or afterward) would only need to read Joshua through 2 Kings to know that Israel got what it deserved.
This chorus of warning and condemnation is the main reason why many scholars believe these books were written by the same person or persons and, therefore, at the same time. Because the condemnation of idolatry is so strong, and presented as fact in much of this material, scholars propose that the material was written sometime shortly after the northern kingdom of Israel (ten of the tribes) was taken into captivity by the Assyrians. How could this happen? Where was God? Joshua through 2 Kings answered those questions. God was there all the time, but Israel had turned her back on him. Consequently, God used the Assyrians to judge them.
At the same time, this terrible message was intended to save the remaining two tribes from the same fate. The people of Judah, the southern kingdom, could learn from the epic horror to stay loyal to God and his law, trusting him to protect them. Sadly, the southern kingdom faltered. God raised up prophets to direct the people back to himself, often by reminding them of what had happened to their relatives. But in the end, the last two tribes would suffer a similar end, this time at the hand of Babylon. But God anticipated the failure and vowed to keep a remnant of faithful believers alive—and send a future deliverer.
We need to read these books as the hindsight warnings they were. They provide us with valuable lessons about the human heart, the cost of sin, and God’s mercy.