We learn that Yehoshua took 7 years to conquer the land and another 7 to divide it. Why did both of these take so long?
- Conquest (at least from the details of the description in the text) took at most a couple of months, especially with the Divine assistance. (There is a Midrash Tanchuma that says he intentionally prolonged the conquest and was punished by losing 10 years of his life, however, it cannot be that he prolonged it for 7 years instead of a couple months - that'd be too gross of an error - there must have been something else.)
- Dividing land - what else had to be done besides the lottery, which I suspect hadn't lasted more than 1 day?
Thank you very much.