good morning. welcome to mount nebo. thank you. nice early morning to see the promised land. it is indeed. moses i m not sure if he came early morning or evening. reporter: we met father fabian overlooking the place that moses has spent his whole life searching for. i think this is the last moment of the life of moses, when he s standing here and looking out, he s completed his mission. reporter: but moses would never cross into the promised land. after years of carefully following god s orders, risking it all on faith, he was denied his goal because of one mistake. as god had done so many times before, he gave moses some complicated orders to follow. he told him to speak to a rock to bring forth water. instead, moses smacked the rock with a stick. the water came, but god was angry, and he delivered an
probably of a few months conquered the whole land of canaan, expelled or slaughtered the canaanites, divided up the whole land among the 12 tribes, then joshua gives a sermon at the end, and it s all over. reporter: jericho is a highlight now on most holy land tours. the pilgrims are drawn here by the violent version of how the israelites came into the promised land. but it s unlikely that this is actually how it happened. people forget that there are two versions of the so-called conquest of canaan in the hebrew bible. the book of joshua suggests a blitzkrieg. it s a form of mass colonialism, massive slaughter. it s horrible. and then we have the story of judges, a gradual infiltration into the sparsely populated hill country, do we want the blitzkrieg model or do we want the gradual settlement model.
that we as a people will get to the promised land! next from jericho to jerusalem, david and goliath, king solomon and the queen of sheba, what happened to the ark of the covenant? and is this the staging ground for the armies of the apocalypse? when back to the beginning with christiane amanpour continues. side-by-side, so you get the same coverage, often for less. that s one smart board what else does it do, reverse gravity? [ laughs ] split atoms? [ flo chuckles ] [ whirring ] hey, how s that atom-splitting thing going? oh! a smarter way to shop around now that s progressive. call or click today.
conquest of land in the promised land. reporter: the bible tells us that before his death on mount nebo, with guidance from god, moses chose a man named joshua to lead the israelites on the last leg of their journey. and so we have this real transition, a handing over of power from one generation to the next, where moses and his generation have been wandering it s the story of wandering for 40 years, joshua s more action-packed. this is where they come on in and they take over. fought the battle of jericho reporter: as told in the book of joshua the conquest of canaan has all the trappings of a summer blockbuster. and the walls came tumbling down sounds luke a movike a movii. it s an action-packed scene. reporter: with the ark of the covenant leading the way, joshua crossed the river jordan with his army. i m sure this is an elite fighting force. reporter: the conquest of jericho is one in which god is clearly in the role of a divine
reporter: but moses would never cross into the promised land. after years of carefully following god s orders, risking it all on faith, he was denied his goal because of one mistake. as god had done so many times before, he gave moses some complicated orders to follow. he told him to speak to a rock to bring forth water. instead, moses smacked the rock with a stick. the water came, but god was angry, and he delivered an unspeakably harsh punishment. for not listening, god told moses that though he had led his people here they would go to the promised land without him. it strikes me that this must have been such a disappointment for him. that was his life s work. he knows that this is the end of his journey. he s delighted because he s finished. he s 120. reporter: the bible says moses did the only thing he could. he reassured his people.