According to the Book of Joshua, Joshua led the Israelites after Moses died.
Joshua had served as Moses’s assistant and military commander during the wilderness period. Before Moses’s death, he was publicly commissioned to lead Israel. Joshua 1 opens with God instructing him to cross the Jordan River and bring the people into the land promised to them.
Joshua is sometimes confused with Caleb, another trusted scout who survived the wilderness generation. Caleb remained an important figure, but Joshua became Moses’s named successor. Aaron and Eleazar were priests, not the principal successor to Moses’s leadership.
The transition marks the boundary between the Exodus story and the conquest narratives in the Book of Joshua. Moses dies on Mount Nebo before entering the land, while Joshua leads the people across the Jordan and oversees the capture of Jericho.