Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the children of Israel. No one went out, and no one came in. Yahweh said to Joshua, “Behold, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the mighty men of valor. All of your men of war shall march around the city, going around the city once. You shall do this six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the city wall shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight in front of him.”
Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before Yahweh’s ark.”
They said to the people, “Advance! March around the city, and let the armed men pass on before Yahweh’s ark.”
It was so, that when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before Yahweh advanced and blew the trumpets, and the ark of Yahweh’s covenant followed them. The armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets, and the ark went after them. The trumpets sounded as they went.
Joshua commanded the people, saying, “You shall not shout nor let your voice be heard, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.” So he caused Yahweh’s ark to go around the city, circling it once. Then they came into the camp, and stayed in the camp. Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up Yahweh’s ark. The seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns in front of Yahweh’s ark went on continually, and blew the trumpets. The armed men went in front of them. The rear guard came after Yahweh’s ark. The trumpets sounded as they went. The second day they marched around the city once, and returned into the camp. They did this six days.
On the seventh day, they rose early at the dawning of the day, and marched around the city in the same way seven times. On this day only they marched around the city seven times. At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for Yahweh has given you the city! The city shall be devoted, even it and all that is in it, to Yahweh. Only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. But as for you, only keep yourselves from what is devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted it, you take of the devoted thing; so you would make the camp of Israel accursed and trouble it. But all the silver, gold, and vessels of bronze and iron are holy to Yahweh. They shall come into Yahweh’s treasury.”
So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city. They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword. Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house, and bring the woman and all that she has out from there, as you swore to her.” The young men who were spies went in, and brought out Rahab with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all that she had. They also brought out all of her relatives, and they set them outside of the camp of Israel. They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only they put the silver, the gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron into the treasury of Yahweh’s house. But Rahab the prostitute, her father’s household, and all that she had, Joshua saved alive. She lives in the middle of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
Joshua commanded them with an oath at that time, saying, “Cursed is the man before Yahweh who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn he will lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he will set up its gates.” So Yahweh was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 15, 17, 20, 22, 23, 26 1. Now Jericho was straitly shut up, etc Jericho…
1. Now Jericho was straitly shut up, etc Jericho is said to be shut up, because the gates were not opened: as in time of war cities are guarded with more than usual care. It is added, by way of emphasis, that they were sealed, or locked up, as if it were said that the inhabitants were attentive in watching, so as not to be taken by surprise. Hence, as it could not be taken by stratagem, the only hope of taking it was by open force. This tends to display the goodness of God to the children of Israel, who would have been worn out by a long and difficult siege, had not a substitute been early provided from heaven. Meanwhile there was a danger, lest being forced into a corner, they might be consumed by want and famine, as there was no means of obtaining food and provender in a hostile region. The Lord, therefore, that they might not sit down despondently before one city, assisted them by an extraordinary miracle, and opened up an entrance to them by throwing down the walls, that they might thereafter have the greater confidence in attacking other cities.
We now see the connection between the two first verses, in the one of which it is said, that Jericho was shut up, and the children of Israel thus prevented from approaching it, while in the other God promises that he will take it for them. He makes this promise with the view of preventing them from tormenting themselves with anxious thoughts. In one word, God, by this easy victory at the outset, provides against their giving way to despondency in future. We, at the same time, perceive the stupidity of the inhabitants, who place their walls and gates as obstacles to the divine omnipotence; as if it were more difficult to break up or dissolve a few bars and beams than to dry up the Jordan.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26 That none could come in.
That none could come in.
For fear of the Israelites.
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That none could go out.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Jos 6:1 Now Jericho was straitly shut up because…
Jos 6:1 Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
Ver. 1. Now Jericho was strictly shut up.] Claudens, et clausa erat: but there is no power or policy against the Lord. {Pro 21:30} The "Captain of God’s hosts" was before the city, and therefore ευαλωτος η πολις, - as he told Phocas, - the town was soon taken.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26 Straitly shut up; not only by night, as before,…
Straitly shut up; not only by night, as before, Jos 2:5, but constantly and diligently.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 17 We have here a contest between God and the…
We have here a contest between God and the men of Jericho, and their different resolutions, upon which it is easy to say whose word shall prevail.
I. Jericho resolves Israel shall not be its master, Jos 6:1. It was straitly shut up, because of the children of Israel. It did shut up, and it was shut up (so it is in the margin); it did shut up itself, being strongly fortified both by art and nature, and it was shut up by the obstinacy and resolution of the inhabitants, who agreed never to surrender nor so much as sound a parley; none went out as deserters or to treat of peace, nor were any admitted in to offer peace. Thus were they infatuated, and their hearts hardened to their own destruction - the miserable case and character of all those that strengthen themselves against the Almighty, Job 15:25.
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II. God resolves Israel shall be its master, and that quickly, The captain of the Lord's host, here called Jehovah, taking notice how strongly Jericho was fortified and how strictly guarded, and knowing Joshua's thoughts and cares about reducing it, and perhaps his fears of a disgrace there and of stumbling at the threshold, gave him here all the assurance he could desire of success (Jos 6:2): See, I have given into thy hand Jericho. Not, "I will do it, but, I have done it; it is all thy own, as sure as if it were already in thy possession." It was designed that this city, being the first-fruits of Canaan, should be entirely devoted to God, and that neither Joshua nor Israel should ever be one mite the richer for it, and yet it is here said to be given into their hand; for we must reckon that most our own which we have an opportunity of honouring God with and employing in his service. Now. 1. The captain of the Lord's host gives directions how the city should be besieged. No trenches are to be opened, no batteries erected, nor battering rams drawn up, nor any military preparations made; but the ark of God must be carried by the priests round the city once a day for six days together, and seven times the seventh day, attended by the men of war in silence, the priests all the while blowing with trumpets of rams' horns, Jos 6:3, Jos 6:4. This was all they were to do. 2. He assures them that on the seventh day before night they should, without fail, be masters of the town. Upon a signal given, they must all shout, and immediately the wall should fall down, which would not only expose the inhabitants, but so dispirit them that they would not be able to make any resistance, Jos 6:5. God appointed this way, (1.) To magnify his own power, that he might be exalted in his own strength (Psa 21:13), not in the strength of instruments. God would hereby yet further make bare his own almighty arm for the encouragement of Israel and the terror and confusion of the Canaanites. (2.) To put an honour upon his ark, the instituted token of his presence, and to give a reason for the laws by which the people were obliged to look upon it with the most profound veneration and respect. When, long after this, the ark was brought into the camp without orders from God, it was looked upon as a profanation of it, and the people paid dearly for their presumption, Sa1 4:3, etc. but now that it was done by the divine appointment it was an honour to the ark of God, and a great encouragement to the faith of Israel. (3.) It was likewise to put honour upon the priests, who were appointed upon this occasion to carry the ark and sound the trumpets. Ordinarily the priests were excused from war, but that this privilege, with other honours and powers that the law had given them, might not be grudged them, in this service they are principally employed, and so the people are made sensible what blessings they were to the public and how well worthy of all the advantages conferred upon them. (4.) It was to try the faith, obedience, and patience, of the people, to try whether they would observe a precept which to human policy seemed foolish to obey and believe a promise which in human probability seemed impossible to be performed. They were also proved whether they could patiently bear the reproaches of their enemies and patiently wait for the salvation of the Lord. Thus by faith, not by force, the walls of Jericho fell down. (5.) It was to encourage the hope of Israel with reference to the remaining difficulties that were before them. That suggestion of the evil spies that Canaan could never be conquered because the cities were walled up to heaven (Deu 1:28) would by this be for ever silenced. The strongest and highest walls cannot hold out against Omnipotence; they needed not to fight, and therefore needed not to fear, because God fought for them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–27 Now Jericho was straitly shut up, because of the…
Now Jericho was straitly shut up, because of the children of Israel,.... Or "it shut up", or "was shutting, and was shut up" (u); that is, the king and the inhabitants shut it up within; the Targum says with iron doors, and bars of brass, and it was blocked up without by the children of Israel:
none went out and none came in; none of their forces went out to make a sally on the Israelites, or to seek to make peace with them; nor any of their neighbours went in to them, to carry them any provision, or to assist them, or to be sheltered by them, not being able to do it because of the camp of Israel.
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(u) "claudens et clausa", Montanus, Vatablus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 Directions given to Joshua concerning Jericho, ver. 1-5. The…
Directions given to Joshua concerning Jericho, ver. 1-5. The people compass the city seven days, ver. 6-14. The taking it, with the charge to destroy it utterly, ver. 15-21. The preservation of Rahab and her relations, ver. 22-25. A curse pronounced on any that should rebuild it, ver. 26, 27.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 The inhabitants of Jericho close their gates, 1.
CHAPTER VI
The inhabitants of Jericho close their gates, 1.
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Continuation of the discourse between the captain of the Lord's
host and Joshua. He commands the people to march round the city
six days, the seven priests blowing with their trumpets; and to
give a general shout, while marching round it on the seventh,
and promises that then the walls of the city shall fall down,
2-5.
Joshua delivers these directions to the priests and to the
people, 6, 7.
The priests and people obey; the order of their procession,
8-16.
He commands them to spare the house of Rahab, 17,
and not to touch any part of the property of the city, the whole
of which God had devoted to destruction, 18, 19.
On the seventh day the walls fall down, and the Israelites take
the city, 20, 21.
The spies are ordered to take care of Rahab and her family-the
city is burnt, but the silver, gold, brass, and iron, are put
into the treasury of the house of the Lord, 22-24.
Rahab dwells among the Israelites, 25;
and the city is laid under a curse, 26.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. Now Jericho was straitly shut up] The king of Jericho, finding that the spies had escaped, though the city was always kept shut by night, took the most proper precaution to prevent every thing of the kind in future, by keeping the city shut both day and night, having, no doubt, laid in a sufficiency of provisions to stand a siege, being determined to defend himself to the uttermost.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27 Jos 6:1-2. Jericho was straitly shut up — They…
Jos 6:1-2. Jericho was straitly shut up — They had shut up all their gates, and kept a very strict guard at them, for fear of the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Joshua — There is great reason to believe, and indeed most commentators agree, that this was spoken by the divine person who is said in the preceding chapter to have appeared to Joshua in the form of a man, but who styled himself captain of the host of the Lord, and is here called Jehovah, which shows that he was not of the angelic order. It is probable that the king and people of Jericho had refused the offers of peace which God ordered to be first sent to every city before they besieged it, Deu 20:10; and, trusting to their forces, had taken up a desperate resolution not to yield on any terms.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 23, 25, 26 This verse is strictly parenthetical. It is inserted to…
This verse is strictly parenthetical. It is inserted to explain the declaration commenced Jos 5:14, and interrupted by Joshua’s question and obeisance Jos 5:14-15, but resumed in Jos 6:2.
Straitly shut up - See the margin, i. e., not only shut, but barred and bolted.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26 The Lord, in the person of the angel, who…
The Lord, in the person of the angel, who appeared to Josue, as he was praying in silent meditation, or reconnoitring the city of Jericho, chap. v. 13. (Haydock) --- Men. People of the different nations had come to defend the city, chap. xxiv. 11.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Contests of Israel with the Canaanites
SECTION SECOND
The Contests of Israel with the Canaanites
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Joshua 6-11
A. Contests against particular cities
Joshua 6-8
______________
1. The Capture of Jericho
Joshua 6
a. Preparation for the Capture
Jos_6:1-14
1Now Jericho was straitly shut up [lit. had shut up (her gates) and was shut up], because of the children [sons] of Israel: none went out, and none came in. 2And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and [omit: and] the mighty men of valour [strong heroes]. 3And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once: thus shalt thou do six days. 4And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns [seven alarm-trumpets1]: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. 5And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn [alarm-horn], and [omit: and] when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout: and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.
6And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns 7[alarm-trumpets] before the ark of the Lord [Jehovah]. And he [they2] said unto the people, Pass on, and compass the city, and let him that is armed3 pass on before the ark of the Lord [Jehovah].
8And it came to pass, when Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns [alarm-trumpets] passed on before the Lord [Jehovah], and blew with the trumpets: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord [Jehovah] followed them. 9And the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rere-ward came [went] after the ark, the priests [omit: the priests] going on, and blowing with the trumpets.4
10And Joshua had [omit: had] commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice [let your voice be heard], neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout, then shall ye shout. 11So [And] the ark of the Lord [Jehovah] compassed the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp.
12And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the 13Lord [Jehovah]. And [the] seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns [alarm-trumpets] before the ark of the Lord [Jehovah] went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men [as in Jos_6:9] went before them; but the rere-ward came [went] after the ark of the Lord [Jehovah], the priests [omit: the priests] going on, and blowing with the trumpets [as in Jos_6:9]. 14And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp. So they did six days.
b. Capture and Destruction of Jericho
Jos_6:15-27
15And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same [this] manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times. 16And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord [Jehovah] hath given you the city. 17And the city shall be accursed [devoted], even [omit: even] it, and all that are therein, to the Lord [Jehovah]: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. 18And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing [from that which is devoted], lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing [that which is devoted], and make the camp of Israel a 19curse [devoted thing], and trouble it.5 But [And] all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord [Jehovah]: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord [Jehovah]. 20So the people shouted when the priests blew6 with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. 21And they utterly destroyed [devoted] all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
22But Joshua had [omit: had] said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her. 23And the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred [Heb. families, and so Bunsen], and left them without the camp of Israel. 24And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord [Jehovah]. 25And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in [in the midst of] Israel even [omit: even] unto this day; because she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
26And Joshua adjured them [caused them to swear] at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord [Jehovah], that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. 27So the Lord [Jehovah] was with Joshua; and his fame was noised [omit: noised] throughout all the country [in all the land.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
With this sixth chapter begins the second section of the first part of our book, giving us in a continuous narrative the history of the conquest of the land. It offers critical difficulties in only a few passages (Jos_8:12-13 compared with Jos_8:3 and Jos_8:30-35), so that even Knobel describes it as “an exhibition, in the main regular and consistent, of the wars of Joshua,” by the hand of the Jehovist. In so far it is advantageously distinguished from the report of the passage through the Jordan (chaps. 3, 4) The style is excellent, and rises often (Jos_7:8; Jos_10:1-27) to a strikingly beautiful representation of deeds of war wrought by God through Joshua and the people of Israel; comp. Introd. § 1, p. 3. Poetical passages are twice (chaps. Jos_6:26 and Jos_10:12-15) introduced. A certain delicate humor is betrayed in Joshua 9. From Jos_10:28 to Jos_11:23, the traits just noticed are absent, and a sort of monotony in the chronological enumeration of conquests appears. Chapter 12 is a very valuable historical document, from Jos_6:9 onward in particular, to which Bunsen has rightly called attention.
So much in general concerning this extremely interesting section, chaps. Jos_6:1 to Jos_11:23. We proceed now to the explanation of Joshua 6, which relates the capture of Jericho.
[On the connection between this and the preceding chapter, see the translator’s remarks on p. 66.]
a. Jos_6:1-11. Preparation for it. Jericho had, at the approach of the Israelites, closed its doors so that no one went out and no one came in. Jehovah now commands Joshua to march around the city with the ark preceded by priests giving blasts on alarm trumpets, once each day for six days in succession, but on the seventh day seven times, and promises that then her walls shall fall down. This command Joshua imparts to the priests with the people, for immediate execution, (Jos_6:6-7), which then also follows (Jos_6:8-11).
Jos_6:2. See, I have given We find a similar expression in Jos_11:6. Here, however, the Israelites themselves were to adopt no warlike measures for the taking of the city. Jericho must fall rather through the immediate help of God, that is, through a miracle.
Jos_6:3-5. Signal trumpets.קֶרֶן הַיּוֹבֵל = הַיּוֹבְלִים שׁוֹפְרוֹת. That these two designations (Jos_6:4-5) signify the same musical instrument is clear, and may be inferred directly from our passage. It may be also further assumed as probable that שׁוֹפָר and חֲצצְרָה (Num_10:2; Num_10:8) are not identical, but שׁ׳, rather a crooked instrument, and hence called קרן, and ח׳, the straight trumpet frequently represented on Egyptian monuments (Keil, Com. on J., p. 158). The interpretation of יוֹבֵל on the other hand occasions difficulty. According to Fürst it has two significations: “(1) Ram, Aries, from the unusual, intrans. יבל, to be compressed, hard, strong, according to this קרן הי׳ ,שׁופר חי׳ or even יובל alone, Exo_19:13, would mean ram’s horns as a wind instrument. This signification appears already in the Targum (דּוּכְרָא) and the Jewish expositors, who follow indeed the tradition (Rosh-ha-Shana 3); and from the latter we learn that in old Arabic the word had the same sense; Phœnic. יֹבֵל the same (Mass. 7); (2) (from יָבַל II) Sound of Jubilee, sound of joy (related to the pr. nom. יוּבַל) as a designation of the great feast of Jubilee on the tenth of the seventh month in each fiftieth year, which was proclaimed with trumpets through the whole land. Lev_25:8.” That the same word should have these two radically different significations is, if not exactly impossible, yet in this case improbable, since the year of jubilee (שׁנה היובל) was announced, as Fürst himself says, by the שׁוֹפַר הִיּוֹבֵל, and from this evidently had its name, as Winer (Realw. s. v. “Jubeljahr”), Oehler (Realencyk. x. p. 131) take for granted, after the example of older interpreters, especially Groddeck, De verisim. voc.יובלsignif., Danz. 1758. On this supposition the question arises, whence the derivation of יובל, and how it is to be explained. Either it is from a root יָבַל not in use, which, as Fürst assumes, should mean to be compressed, hard, strong, the same as the Phœn. יָבַל, from which then יֹבֵל or יוֹבֵל = the strong, the ram (as also אַיִל means properly strength): this is supported by reference to the inscription of Marseilles, l. 7. In this view, קֶרֶן־הַיּוֹבֵל would be rams-horn, שׁוֹפַר־הַיּוֹבֵל rams-horn-trumpet, and שְׁנַת־הַיּוֹבֵל the year at the beginning of which they blew the rams-horn, and which received its name from this. Or, as Gesenius (Thes. ii. 561) teaches, from an onomatop. יָבַל, to sound out, to shout, Lat. jubilare, as the related יִבֵּב, Jdg_5:28, signifies to call, to call aloud, and in Aram. is employed expressly of the call of jubilee. Thus יוֹבֵל would be = תְּרוּעָה, and שׁוֹפַר־תְּרוּעָה = שׁוֹפַר־הַיּוֹבֵל (Lev_25:8) = alarm-signal or jubilee-trumpet. The קֶרֶן־הַיּוֹבֵל would mean the same, and שְׁנַת־הַיּוֹבֵל would be the year at whose commencement the alarm-horn or trump of jubilee was sounded, and which hence derived its name. This etymology is decisively favored by the name, יוּבָל, of the son of Lamech, Gen_4:21, who was the inventor of the harp and syrinx. We must therefore adopt this explanation. The double plural שׁוֹפִרוֹת־הַיּוֹבְלִים, as in Num_13:32, אַנְשֵׁי־מִדּוֹת, Deu_1:28, בְּנֵי־עֲנָקים. Ewald, § 270. [See Gesen. Lex. s. v. יוֹבֵל.]
The number seven of the trumpets, priests, days, is significant, for which compare Gen_21:30, and a multitude of Old and New Test, passages in Winer, art. “Zahlen.” [Smith’s Dict. art. “Seven.”] The circuit marches were thirteen in all, six during the first six days, and seven on the last, which was probably, as the Rabbins have assumed, a Sabbath. It might be objected that, according to Exo_20:9-11, no work was to be done on the Sabbath; but this circuit was no work, but rather a religious transaction of the nature of worship, performed in obedience to a special command of God, to whose glory the walls of Jericho fell precisely on the Sabbath. The object of these encompassing marches, about which much has been said, as been well indicated by Knobel, who says: “Jericho was to fall as the first-fruits of the Canaanitish cities manifestly by Israel’s God. The repeated compassing of the city directed attention with the sharpest intensity towards what was finally to come to pass, and when the event came, left no doubt that Jehovah was its cause, while the courage of Israel is thereby raised also, and the despondency of the Canaanites increased.”
In substantial agreement with this Keil remarks, that “The repetition during several days of this procession about the city could only be designed to exercise Israel in unconditional faith and patient trust in the power and assistance of God, and to impress deeply upon him that it was the omnipotence and fidelity of Jehovah alone which could give into his hand this fortified city, the bastion of the whole land.”
Jos_6:5. Every man straight before him. Over the prostrate walls should the Israelites enter Jericho, and “each one straight forward,” so that their order should be preserved as far as possible. In Joe_2:9, it is said likewise of the locusts: “like men of war they climb a wall, and every one marches on his way.
Jos_6:6-7. Joshua issues the needful commands.
Jos_6:8-11. The first circuit, in which the order of procession was, (1.) the armed men; (2.) the seven priests with their seven trumpets; (3.) the priests with the ark of the covenant; (4.) the remaining warriors as a rear-guard. אִסֵּף = agmen claudere. This duty on the march through the wilderness devolved, according to Num_10:25, on the tribe of Dan; whether on this occasion also cannot be determined.
Jos_6:9. That blew with the trumpets. Not according to the Kethib תָּֽקְעוּ, but the Keri תֹּקְעֵי which Knobel prefers as unquestionably the true reading. [Keil holds to the Kethib.]
Jos_6:10. Ye shall not shout. That should be done first on the seventh day, at the express command of Joshua. Silently and without a voice, for six long days, under the prolonged clangor of the trumpets, the people marched around and around the City of Palms, whose inhabitants ventured no sortie. Perhaps they were imposed upon by the sublime silence which was maintained throughout this delay.
Jos_6:11. At evening of the first day they came into the camp to spend the night.
Jos_6:12-14. So they did for six days, without intermission.
b. Capture and Destruction of Jericho. Jos_6:15-20. The seventh day. Now the Israelites begin their march very early, with the dawn, because they have to make the circuit seven times. If we suppose that Jericho had a compass of an hour’s journey, then a formal porcession like this, which moved slowly, would require at least one hour and a half to accomplish it. This would give for the seven circuits ten and a half hours. But to this we must add the absolutely necessary rests of at least a quarter of an hour each; and if we assume one after the first, second, and third circuits, and so on to the end, the six will amount to an hour and a half. This added to the ten and a half makes twelve hours. The fall of the wall, accordingly, must have taken place near evening. The Sabbath would then be about over and the work of destruction might begin.
Jos_6:17. And the city shall be devoted.חֵרֶם (only once חֶרֶם, Zec_12:11) from חָרַם = to cut off, in the Hiph. to devote, to withdraw from common use and consecrate to God = sacrare, is, (a.) with active signification, the devotement of anything by Jehovah, his putting under the ban, the result of which is destruction, Mal_3:24; Zec_14:11; 1Ki_20:42; Isa_34:5; or (b.) with pass, signif. thing devoted, doomed, laid under the ban, that is, devoted to Jehovah without the possibility of being redeemed (in distinction from other devoted objects), Lev_27:21. In the latter sense it stands here, Jos_6:17-18, and in Jos_7:1 ff., 1Sa_15:3-9. Quite correctly therefore, Starke long ago remarked: “A devoted thing (Bann) (LXX. ἀνάθεμα, Num_21:2-3; Deu_7:2; Deu_20:17) was that which had been doomed to the Lord, which no man might employ for his own use, but which was either put away and destroyed utterly to the honor of God, as the men and beasts in this passage, a propitiation, as it were, to the divine justice, that this might be glorified; or it was consecrated to the special service of God, as here all precious and useful metals, Lev_27:21; Lev_27:28; Deu_2:34; Deu_3:6; Deu_7:2; Deu_7:26; Deu_13:15-17; Deu_20:26 ff.” See also the explanation to Jos_2:11.
Rahab alone should be spared, because she had concealed the spies. The oath of the latter is mentioned only to them (Jos_6:22), but not before the people.
Jos_6:18 contains a warning which Achan, to his own destruction and that of his family, neglected (Joshua 7).
Jos_6:20-21. Capture of the City. At Joshua’s command, the people who have before marched in silence around the city raise a battle shout. The trumpets clang. The walls of Jericho fall flat (prop, under themselves, תַּחְתֶּיהָ), the people of Israel pass in and devote everything that is in the city, man and woman, boy and gray-haired sire, cattle, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword (Gen_34:26, and very often in our book). [On לְ instrumenti, see Ges. Lex., p. 501 e. fin.]—The miracle here related has been explained by a sudden earthquake (J. D. Michaelis; Bartholm, Jewish History, ii. p. 22; Jahn, Bibl. Archœologie, ii. p. 174 ff.). “But nothing of that stands written here” (Knobel). Nor is anything said of undermining the walls; manifestly a miracle was wrought, according to the entire view of the author, by the God of Israel “present upon the ark of the covenant.” See Doctrinal and Ethical 2.
Jos_6:22-25. Rescue of Rahab. This is effected in consistency with the promise, and oath of the spies.
Jos_6:22. Go into the harlot’s house. This house appears not to have fallen, although it was built on [or against] the wall.
Young men. The Heb. נער has very often this signification, Gen_22:3; Gen_34:19; Gen_37:2; Jdg_8:20; Jer_6:6; 1Sa_30:13; LXX. δύο νεανίσκοι; Vulg. juvenes.
Jos_6:23. And left them without the camp. After the analogy of Lev_24:14, Num_31:19. They were, as heathen, unclean, and must therefore remain for a specified time, probably, as in the case of other things unclean, seven days, without the camp.
Jos_6:24 breaks the connection, and would perhaps stand better, as Knobel conjectures, before Jos_6:21. [That cattle and other property in Jericho were put under the ban, and the whole city reduced to ashes, was “because this was the first city of Canaan which Jehovah had given a prey to his people. It, therefore, should Israel offer as the first-fruits of the land to the Lord, and even consecrate to Him as devoted, for a sign that they received the whole land from his hand, as a loan and as what had fallen to Him, not what they would snatch for themselves.” Keil.—Tr.]
Jos_6:25 takes up again the thread of the narrative concerning Rahab’s position.
She dwelt in Israel. See the Exegetical and Homiletical on chap. 2.
Jos_6:26. Curse upon Jericho. Since a devoted city might not, according to Deu_14:17, be rebuilt, Joshua pronounces an imprecation on the foundation and soil of Jericho. Such a curse, as Strabo says, xiii. p. 601, Agamemnon uttered upon Ilium, and Scipio, according to Appian (Punica, § 135 f.), upon Carthage (Knobel). In connection with this they used, as Hadrian did at Jerusalem, to plough around the site of the city (Starke). “The Jews also probably scattered salt over the place, Jdg_9:45, as a curse and sign of barrenness, Deu_29:22-23; Psa_107:33-34; Jer_17:6; Zec_2:9,” Starke. Of ploughing and sowing salt there is no mention here, but so much the more impressive sounds the curse which Joshua poetically utters. That this curse was fulfilled is related in 1Ki_16:34, when Hiel of Bethel ventured in Ahab’s time to rebuild Jericho. It is at variance with this late restoration of the city that its name reappears in our book Jos_18:21; Jdg_3:13; 2Sa_10:5. The difficulty may be obviated (a) by assuming, with Winer, that in 1Ki_16:34 the language relates only to the fortifications of Jericho,—which reference of the word בָּנָה is established by 1Ki_15:17 and 2Ch_11:5—and that Joshua himself as military leader had respect only to the fortifications; or (b) by availing ourselves of the hypothesis of Knobel, that the Jericho spoken of during the time between Joshua and Ahab was in a different place from that which Hiel first rebuilt. In support of his view Knobel recalls that neither Troy nor Carthage was built up again on the old spot, because the ground of both places had been cursed. For the rest, Knobel conceives the execration in the special form which it had received, as wholly vaticinium ex eventu, and views the matter thus: (1) Joshua had expressed an imprecation, but a “general imprecation;” (2) This general imprecation was known, and had for its effect that when Jericho was rebuilt in the time between Joshua and David, it was not placed on the old site; (3) the rebuilding on the old site was effected under Ahab, by Hiel, who lost his oldest son at the time of laying the foundation of the wall, and his youngest at the setting up of the gate; (4) the author of our book knew of these occurrences, and assumed that Joshua had not only uttered a general malediction, but had extended this to so minute points as were afterwards brought to light. We confess that we here meet too many hypotheses, and therefore stand by the explanation of Winer which is grammatically well established.
Jos_6:27. Joshua’s fame, שֹׁמַע, Jos_9:9.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
In order to determine the notion of חֵרֶם, we must have regard above all to the passage Lev_27:28-29 : “Only no devoted thing (חֵרֶם) which a man shall devote (יַחֲרִם) to Jehovah of all that he hath, of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed (וְלֹא־יִגָּאֵל) every devoted thing is most holy to Jehovah. No devoted thing which is devoted by men shall be redeemed; it shall surely be put to death.” Everything else of man, of beast, of house, of field which one only consecrated to Jehovah (יַקְדּישׁ) might be redeemed, but what any one had devoted, that is, given over to complete and unconditional sanctity, that could not be redeemed. It was, as Rüetschi says (Realencyk. i. p. 677), “a doomed gift” (Banngeschenk), an object laid under the ban (חֵרֶם in its first, active sense), a thing most holy to Jehovah. If it was a living creature, it was, according to this precept of the law, put to death; if it was a piece of land it was (as we may rightly conclude from Lev_27:21, comp. also Num_18:14; Eze_44:29) the possession of the priests; if it was any other valuable property it belonged, as our history teaches (Jos_6:19; Jos_6:24) and as is shown also by Num_31:54, to the treasury of Jehovah. If an entire city like Jericho was put under the ban, it was burnt up (Jos_6:24; Jos_10:28; Jos_10:35; Jos_10:37; Jos_10:40; Jos_11:11; Num_21:1-3; Deu_13:16); yet not always, Jos_11:13, as they also sometimes let the cattle live, and divided them as booty (Deu_2:34 f., Jos_3:6 ff., and Jos_8:26 ff.). Such a devotement might be, as Rüetschi has explained with special clearness, directed inwardly, on the people of Israel themselves, comp. Joshua 7, or outwardly against those of other nations. In both cases, however, as a long line of passages (Exo_22:20; Deu_13:16 ff; Deu_2:34; Deu_3:6; Jos_6:17 ff., etc., see above) will show, the destruction of every unholy, idolatrous creature was the design, since Israel must be a holy people. The latter case, the outward direction of it, is met with earlier in the history, but with special frequency in our book. “Dreadful, certainly,” says Winer (i. 135, obs. 3), “was such devotement of conquered cities, only there is no good reason for complaining of Hebrew antiquity so bitterly as Tindal, Morgan, and others have done. Humanity toward prisoners of war, especially toward the inhabitants of conquered cities, was unknown to the ancient nations generally. Every war was at first a war of annihilation, and that treatment of the Canaanitish towns was, on political, and (in the sense of that age) religious grounds, as truly demanded, as is very much besides which even civilized and Christian nations hold valid, as flowing from the right of conquest.”
The destruction of these Canaanite cities followed upon an immediate, divine direction (Exo_17:14; Deu_7:2; Deu_20:16; 1Sa_15:3), at another time, the Israelites vow the same (Num_21:2). Again in other cases, the devotement, in its inward direction and in its outward, takes place in consequence of appointments of the law (Lev_20:2; Deu_13:16 ff.). By this a limit was set to all caprice, for, the holiness of Israel in rigid separation from everything of a heathen nature, and from every abomination of idolatry (Exo_23:32; Deu_20:18), was to be the only ground of the ban. Otherwise every murderer might with hypocritical mien have appealed to such a devotement of his neighbor. He who seized upon anything for himself that had been devoted paid the penalty with his life (Jos_6:18; Deu_13:17; Jos_7:11 ff.)
By these views we must interpret the expression of the high-priest (Joh_11:49-50), and so also St. Paul’s designation (Gal_3:10) of the crucified Redeemer, as κατάρα.
Finally we may mention that similar statutes were in force among the Gauls and ancient Germans; and to the Romans and Greeks they were not at all strange. Cæsar relates of the Gauls (Bell. Gall. vi. 17): “Huic (sc. Marti) quum prœlio dimicare constituerunt, ea, quœ bello ceperint, plerumque devovent. Quœ superaverint, animalia capta immolant; reliquas res in unum locum conferunt. Multis in civitatibus harum rerum extructos tumulos locis consecratis conspicari licet; neque sœpe accidit, ut, neglecta quispiam religione, aut capta apud se occultare, aut posita tollere auderet; gravissimumque ei rei supplicium cum cruciatu constitutum est.” The practice therefore was similar to what happened in the case of Achan, the penalty of death for theft of what had been devoted, Tacitus (Annal. xiii. 57) tells concerning the Hermunduri, that a war in which they had been engaged with the Catti had turned out fortunately for the former, for the latter ruinously (exitiosius); “quia victores diversam aciem Marti ac Mercurio sacravere, quo voto, equi, viri, cuncta victa occidioni dantur.” Livy (iii. 55) recalls a law passed under the consuls L. Valerius and M. Horatius: “Ut qui tribunis plebis, œdilibus, judicibus, decemviris nocuisset, ejus caput Jovi sacrum esset; familia ad œdem Cereris, Liberi, Liberœque venum iret.” We may remember further the ver sacrum, so beautifully described by Uhland in his familiar poem, and the burning up of a part of the spoils, to consecrate them to the gods, as was also done in Roman antiquity (Appian, Pun. ch. cxxxiii; Mithr. ch. xlv.). Similar is the taboo of the South Sea’ islanders, a ban the violation of which was punished with death. See the Calwer Missions-Geschichte by Blumhardt, ii. pp. 238, 243. [Murray’s Encyc. of Geog. iii. p. 156; Cook’s Voyages (2 vols. Lond. 1842), vol. ii. pp. 112, 113, 255, and often.]
2. The fall of the walls of Jericho is just as much referred to the immediate causality of God, as the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Jordan. It is a soulless expedient, therefore, to think of an undermining of the walls. Much rather might we approve the resort to an earthquake, because in such a natural event the divine agency is directly involved. But there is nothing said of that in the text, and it is therefore best simply to recognize the fact. It was for the Canaanites a terror, to the Israelites a most cheering sign of the continued presence of God with his people. For us its symbolical significance is not to be lightly estimated, especially for those among us to whom the Bible is indeed precious but much of what is related in it difficult to receive,—really earnest Christians, whom we should not on this account (as is, alas, so commonly done) immediately characterize as infidels. This name, indeed, it would in general be far better to apply somewhat more sparingly, unless all investigation of Scripture is to be threatened with the ban.
[“By this” (namely, its occurrence, through the direct efficiency of God), “the fall of Jericho became the image and type of the fall of every world-power before the Lord, when He comes to lead his people into Canaan and to establish his kingdom on earth. On the ground of this fact it is, that the blast of the trumpet becomes, in the writings of the prophets, the signal and symbolical prognostic of the revelations of the Lord in the great judgments by which He, through the destruction of one world-power after the other, maintains and extends his kingdom on earth, and carries it onward toward perfection. This it will reach when He descends from heaven in his glory at the time of the last trumpet, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and trump of God, to raise the dead and change the living, to hold the judgment of the world and cast the devil, and death, and hell into the lake of fire, to create heaven and earth anew, and in the New Jerusalem to set up the tabernacle of God with men forever and ever.” (1Co_15:51 ff.; 1Th_4:16 f.; Revelation 20, 21) Keil.
“By ordering that the walls of Jericho should fall only after the circuit of the city during seven days, and on the seventh day seven times with the sound of the alarm-trumpets and the war-cry of the warriors of God’s people, God would make this city, the key of Canaan, a type of the final destruction of the powers of this world which stand in hostile opposition to the kingdom of God. By this would He not only intimate to his people that not immediately, but after protracted and patient struggles, finally at the end of the world, will the hostile world-power be subdued, but also hint to the enemies of his kingdom, that their strength, although they may long resist, yet at last will perish in a moment.” Keil.—Tr.]
3. It is worthy of notice how the Redeemer has signalized Jericho. Here he entered into the house of Zacchæus (Luk_19:5; Luk_19:9); here he healed Bartimeus of his blindness (Mar_10:46; Mar_10:52; Luk_18:35); in the neighborhood of this city he repeated the announcement of his sufferings (Luk_18:31; Mat_20:28). He thinks of Jericho in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luk_10:30). Then Jericho was a prominent city by reason of Herod’s magnificent buildings there; now it is a miserable village. [See the references on Jos_2:1.]
4. As the blessing operates in its effects through centuries, so not less does the curse, when a moral justification accompanies it. The curse upon Jericho was the curse upon everything of an idolatrous nature, upon the Canaanite race with all its heathenish abominations; it was therefore a theocratic curse on sin itself. Such a curse Paul utters, on the principles of the N. T., against all teachers of error and corruptors of the congregation (1Co_16:22; Gal_1:8), with the same propriety as did Joshua. The more the leaven of Christianity spreads and pervades all things, the less occasion shall we have for cursing; we shall have occasion rather for praising God and blessing the brethren. But he who sees everywhere only apostasy and error, who will not perceive that even now salvation is nearer to us than before, he will doubtless rather curse than bless, as in fact not only ultramontane Catholics, but also some professing Protestantism abundantly do. But they are no Joshuas, neither of them. Their glance reaches not even into the near future, to say nothing of distant ages. So their sentences of curse die away in a silence to our great comfort, because they have no moral justification.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The closed and barred Jericho an image (1) of a closed heart; (2) of a closed house; (3) of a closed congregation.—As the Lord gave Jericho into the hand of Joshua, so He still always gives every closed heart, and every closed house, and every closed congregation (or even city) into the hand of his servants.—The trump of the year of jubilee and the trump of Judgment.—Before the war-shout of the spiritual Israel fall all the walls which the world has reared for its own defense, especially the walls of self-righteousness behind which sin pursues its courses.—The procession around Jericho, (1) silent, (2) but with the accompaniment of trumpet blasts, a procession in the name of the Lord God of Israel.—The capture of Jericho, (1) well prepared for by Joshua, (2) gloriously accomplished by God’s almighty power. The dawn of the seventh day a dawn of victory. The confidence of Joshua’s faith.—Shout, for God has given you the city.—The holy curse.—The holy deliverance (Jos_6:17.)—Judgment and mercy shown by the devotement of Jericho on the one hand, and on the other by the deliverance of Rahab.—Keep yourselves from that which is devoted.—The treasure of the Lord, consisting (1) in Israel, in gold and silver, and brass (2) among us, in the holy gospel of the blessed God in Christ Jesus.—The walls fell down flat! O, how shall we rejoice when one day all the walls which proud worldliness has built fall down, even those which statutes have erected—the walls of cloisters and the walls of Rome!—The glorious victory of the people, a condemnation at the same time of Jericho.—The rescue of Rahab considered in reference (1) to her person (description of her character according to Joshua 2, Heb_11:31; Jam_2:25); (2) to the conscientiousness of Joshua, who would have the word which had been given kept; (3) to the future of the kingdom of God (Rahab from among the heathen, the mother of a family, and what is connected with that: Rahab the heathen woman is received into Israel, that through Israel the heathen also might be saved).—The imprecation upon Jericho; (1) a well deserved sentence; hence (2) fulfilled as a prophetic word, when Hiel again built the city, 1Ki_16:34.—Rather bless than curse, because we are Christians.—Men not to be cursed, but only sin.
Starke: That is the way of the sons of this world; seeing need and danger at the door they resort only to human plans and expedients for escape, when they ought to betake themselves to God and seek shelter with him, Jer_18:11; Psa_1:15.—To build fortresses and to fly thither in time of need is not indeed wrong in itself, but let not one trust too much in them, because without God no inclosure can help, Hos_8:14; Psa_127:1.—Those who sit at the helm should not sleep at mid-day, but be up betimes, and attend to their duties, Rom_12:7.—A believing and fervent prayer is the true war-shout by which we may conquer our spiritual foes and destroy the devil’s kingdom. Christian brother, avail thyself of that therefore with diligence (Eph_6:18).
Hedinger: Every carnal heart is a closed Jericho; God sits down before it and shoots mercy and grace up against its walls. Well for those who do not harden themselves!
Cramer: God’s promises are as certain as if they had already been fulfilled and gone into effect, 2Co_1:20; Psa_33:4.—God thinks also of compassion when He is most angry, for in the midst of wrath He is gracious, Gen_6:8; Gen_6:11-13 f.—What God curses no man must bless, and what God blesses let no man curse, Num_23:8; 1Ki_16:34.
Gerlach: Through the silence of the people it should be more clearly manifest that it was the Lord who fought for Israel. Exercised in faith, under the scorn of their foes should the strength granted them by God be kept till the moment of action.
[G. R. B.: In the progress of his spiritual kingdom also God has chosen to employ means for vanquishing the strongholds of unbelief and worldliness very different from what would suggest themselves to human contrivance. But God’s “foolishness” in this, as we might be sure beforehand, has proved itself wiser than all the wisdom of men, and alone efficacious in subduing the proud and bolted heart to repentance and the trustful acceptance of Christ’s gracious rule, 1Co_1:18-25. Therefore let Israel only persevere in sounding the gospel trumpet, patient under delays but constant in the wondrous, even though despised, proclamation, and in due time the stoutest walls of opposition shall fall flat.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1] [Jos_6:4.—קֶרֶן הַיּוֹבֵל = וֹפְרוֹת הַיּוֹבְלִים (Jos_6:5). The specific character of the trumpets or horns here mentioned, as indicated by the very obscure word יוֹבל, is elaborately discussed in the Exegetical Notes, to which may well be added the information contained in Smith’s Bibl. Dict. articles “Cornet” and “Jubilee.” See also Leyrer’s remarks in Herzog’s Theol. Realencyk. s. v. “Musik,” vol. x. p. 131. With reference to the translation to be adopted, a word is ventured here. From a comparison of the passages cited below it is obvious that the יוֹבֵל (whether meaning directly a sound or an instrument of sound) indicated a loud sound, a sound of a very impressive, if not formidable character. It was a sound always serving as a signal, or alarm in the more general sense of this word. Hence, that it was produced literally by a “rams’ horn” employed as the instrument (making יוֹבֵל denote a ram), seems a physical impossibility, even if the etymological ground for such an interpretation were more than a chimera. But it is not; this meaning, therefore; may unhesitatingly be set aside. In their uncertainty as to the real derivation of the word, many lexicographers and interpreters have then been content to pass it with the vague sense of Jubilee (Jubel) horn, because this particular instrument was employed to signalize through the land the return of the Sabbatical (Jubilee) year. But this is a Hysteron-proteron, for the word is used before the Sabbatical year had ever been mentioned (Exo_19:13), to indicate the signal or alarm by which the people should be warned of the appearance of God on Mount Sinai. It is, furthermore, significant that down to the last mention of the יוֹבֵל in Scripture, there had been no occurrence of the year of Jubilee to give a denomination to the trumpet or anything else connected with its observance. The Sabbatical year, therefore, received its name as the year of the יוֹבֵל, or as itself the יוֹבֵל, from the name of the instrument or of the sound by which it was to be ushered in and heralded to all the people. Instead of learning the character of the instrument from that of the sacred year, we must, vice versa, learn that of the year (so far as intimated by its name) from the peculiar mode of its announcement. Its intrinsic character to the experience of the people had yet to be ascertained by them, and could now be only obscurely foreseen.
We are left then to study the actual quality and use of the horn of יוֹבֵל, first from the passages outside of the circle of the jubilee year, and then from those relating to that year, to get practically at the meaning of the word.
Perhaps neither of the meanings “signal,” “alarm,” to which we are thus brought can be rigidly adhered to in all places. In the Pentateuch generally “signal” would perhaps be more appropriate; here in Joshua “alarm” is at least equally so. If we were at perfect liberty to make compound words, “loud-horn” might pretty well cover all the uses. Zunz’s excellent version gives schmetterndes Horn, “rattling,” “clattering horn.”—Tr.]
[2][Jos_6:7.—ויאמרו. “The plural is not to be altered here, but to be explained from the fact that Joshua made the announcement not in person but through the Schoterim (Jos_1:10; Jos_3:2) by whom his orders were officially published.” Keil.—Tr.]
[3][Jos_6:7.—Him that is armed (the armed body), הֶחָלוּץ, (“expeditus, stripped .… i. q. armed, ready, etc.” Gesen. s. v.) here distinguished from הַֽמְאסֵּף “rere-ward” Jos_6:9, as a part only of the “men of war,” verse 3 They may have been a special branch of the forces (light-armed, πελτασταί, which the etymology would slightly favor), or, more probably, the soldiery of the Transjordanic tribes who were to cross the river חֲלוּצֵי הַצָּבָֹא, Jos_4:13, comp Keil in loc.—Tr.]
[4][Jos_6:9—The Heb. leaves the subject of this indefinite; our knowledge otherwise gained suggests the priests.—Tr.]
[5][Jos_6:18. This verse would be more correctly given somewhat thus: “Only do ye keep yourselves from what is devoted, lest ye devote, and take of what is devoted, and make the camp of Israel a devoted thing, and trouble it.” To devote (to Jehovah) and to take (for themselves) were two incompatible things: “Utrumque consistere non poterat, pugnuntia erant, .… aut non erat res devovenda, aut cum devotum esset ab ea abstinendum erat.” Lud. de Dieu ap Keil in loc.—Tr.]
[6][Jos_6:20. Lit.: And the people shouted, and they blew with the trumpets.—Tr .]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 6, 8, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 See, I have given into thine hand Jericho--The language…
See, I have given into thine hand Jericho--The language intimates that a purpose already formed was about to be carried into immediate execution; and that, although the king and inhabitants of Jericho were fierce and experienced warriors, who would make a stout and determined resistance, the Lord promised a certain and easy victory over them.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 LORD, (that is, Jehovah,) and hence, too, Joshua was…
LORD, (that is, Jehovah,) and hence, too, Joshua was required to put off his shoes, (Jos_6:15,) for, like Moses at the bush, (Exo_3:5,) he was standing on ground made holy by the presence of the Holy One. This same angel was “entertained unawares” by Abraham in the plains of Mamre, (Genesis 18,) just after that patriarch had circumcised his son Ishmael; but before he left him he proved to be his covenant God, Jehovah.
It was very meet that this great Prince should now confer with his lieutenant, and give directions for the conquest of the first great city of Canaan which offered resistance to the Hebrew army.]
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And did worship — This act of low obeisance, or of bodily prostration, is commonly practiced in the East to superiors, and does not necessarily involve the rendering of divine honours. Joshua thought that some distinguished military chieftain had appeared on the theater of war. The fact that the stranger received worship from Joshua without reproof (Rev_22:9) indicates that he was a superior being. How incompatible is this whole account with the rationalistic exegesis which makes the appearance of the Angel only an inward vision or trance! Joshua sees the warrior at a distance, approaches and addresses him, and receives a reply. Such a description could not have been rationally given of an internal vision.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 Jos_6:1. Now Jericho] This verse is strictly parenthetical, and…
Jos_6:1. Now Jericho] This verse is strictly parenthetical, and states the Historical circumstance which gave occasion for this Divine intervention.
was straitly shut up] Vulg. “clausa erat atque munita.” “Was closid and waardid,” Wyclif Straitly = strictly, closely. Comp. Gen_43:7, “The man asked us straitly of our state.” Shakespeare, Richard 3. Ι:Ι. 85, 86:
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“His majesty hath straitly given in charge,
That no man shall have private conference.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26 (1) Now Jericho . . .—This verse should be…
VI.
(1) Now Jericho . . .—This verse should be read parenthetically, and Jos_6:2-5 should be taken as the orders given to Joshua by the captain of the Lord’s host.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26 This verse (see above) is parenthetical. It explains why…
THE VICTORY.
This verse (see above) is parenthetical. It explains why the captain of the Lord"s host appeared unto Joshua. The inhabitants of Jericho, though in a state of the utmost alarm, were nevertheless fully on their guard against the children of Israel. The commencement of hostilities imposed a great responsibility on Joshua. Success at the outset was, humanly speaking, indispensable. We may see what defeat involved for him by his distress in consequence of the check at Ai. The alternative was victory or annihilation, for the Israelites had no homes or fortresses to which they could retire. Joshua was therefore encouraged by a visible proof that he was under the protection of the Most High, to be yet farther assured by the marvels that were to follow. The use of the Pual participle with its fullest intensive sense, to strengthen the affirmation of the action by the Kal, is a singular construction. Literally rendered it is "shutting and closely shut up," thus including
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(1) the act of closing, and
(2) the continuance of that act,
sugkekleismenh kai ocuromemh (LXX), "clausa at que munita" (Vulg.). So also the Chaldea paraphrase. The remainder of the verse strengthens still more the assertion of the state of siege. The king of Jericho, such was his alarm, regarded his city as a beleaguered one, from the mere presence of Joshua and his host in its vicinity.
Vers. 1-21. We come now to the command that was laid on Joshua. And hero we may observe three points.
I SUCCESS WAS CERTAIN IF GOD"S COMMANDS WERE OBEYED. God does not say, "I will give," but, "I have given" Jericho into thine hand. Not only has the fiat gone forth, but the work is done, when the soldier of the Lord has made up his mind to obey the Lord"s commands. Thus, whatever be the work to which we set our hands, be it public or private, in the world or in our own hearts, so that it be for God, and it is our duty to do it, we must regard our success as assured. Moses hesitated and argued about his fitness for the task laid upon him. Jeremiah shrank from facing the children of Israel with his message of wrath. But the apostles of Christ, when sent forth to conquer the world by no other means than the proclamation of the truth, never stood appalled by the magnitude of the work, but were filled with a sublime confidence that all should be as God had said. So when we go forth to besiege some modern Jericho, let us hear beforehand the voice of God saying, "See, I have given it into thine hand." We have only to ascertain clearly that the duty is laid upon us, that we are not laying a presumptuous hand upon a task which is not meant for us. This done, we may go boldly forward on our way.
II THERE ARE STRONGHOLDS WHICH WILL YIELD TO PRAYER ALONE. Jericho was taken by no other means than by the seven days" procession. The rest of the cities of Canaan were taken by storm in the ordinary way. But Jericho was the first of them. Thus it often pleases God, when we enter first upon our warfare, to remove some temptation from us in a striking and wonderful manner in answer to prayer. This is to serve as an encouragement to us, as a proof both of His presence and of His power. Many of God"s saints can tell of such encouragements, mercifully vouchsafed to them when commencing the struggle against sin, that they might know experimentally for themselves, and not by the report of others, that the Lord was indeed the Almighty. When some work is going on for God in which it is impossible for us to join, we may aid it by our prayers. And those prayers may prove mightier than the feeble efforts of those actually engaged in the work. When those in whom we have an interest are wandering far from God, and it is not our place to instruct or rebuke them, we may pray for them; and many are the souls which have been converted to God through the might of prayer alone. So when the Church of Christ suffers persecution from worldly men, she is not to use worldly weapons in her defence. Let her be steadfast and diligent in her daily offering of intercession and praise, and the walls of Jericho that frown above her shall fall down flat, and she shall divide its spoils.
III EACH HAS HIS APPOINTED SHARE IN THE ATTACK ON EVIL. Our attack is to be a united and orderly one. No disorderly rout encompassed Jericho, each "fighting for his own hand." There was a fixed order in the attack, in which each had his proper share. The ark of God was carried by the priest; that is, the ministers of religion are to lead the way in public and private intercession for the cause. They blow with the horns of jubilee; that is, they sound the note of war against the evil against which they are arrayed. They stir God"s people up to the fight. And when the time appointed has come that the assault haste be made, their prayers, intercessions, exhortations are redoubled; the people respond to their efforts by raising their voices unanimously in the same holy cause; the bulwarks of the stronghold of evil give way; and Israel advances, every man straight before him, to raze it to the ground.
The actual fulfilment of God"s commands now demands our notice. We may observe here:
I THAT GOD"S PEOPLE ARE SECURE FROM ALL DANGER WHEN IN THE WAY OF DUTY. From a military point of view, as has been already observed, these dispositions were absurd. To compass the city in this manner was to invite attack. Yet it was done because God commanded it, and no evil ensued. So a Christian is ever safe, however much worldly wisdom may condemn him, if he be in the path of duty. "No weapon that is formed against him shall prosper." We must not mind exposing ourselves to the scoffs and jeers of the profane, the grave remonstrances of the worldly minded, the prophecies of failure on the part of the timid and timeserving, No matter how imprudent our action, according to the world"s standard; so long as it be right it will certainly prosper at last. All great movements for good have been branded at the outset as enthusiastic folly. Yet faith and perseverance have succeeded in the end. The walls of many a spiritual Jericho have been brought to the ground by a steady persistence in what was known to be right, however unreasonable it may have seemed to unbelievers.
II WE MUST NOT BE "WEARY IN WELL DOING." For seven long days did the strange procession encompass Jericho. Not the slightest effect was produced of any kind till the prescribed task was accomplished. Bishop Hall, regarding the number seven as indicative of completeness, tells us that there are many of our infirmities which we must not expect to overcome till the end of our lives. Not till then will God vouchsafe us the measure of faith to overthrow them finally. Meanwhile we must watch and pray and follow the ark and continue in our round of devotion, until the time comes for God to visit us. We must not be depressed if no signs of progress appear, if, after having encompassed the city six days, and six times on the seventh day, all appears as usual We must patiently wait God"s time, and when He announces the hour of triumph, and not till then, we may rejoice that our enemies are in our power.
III GOD DEMANDS THE ABSOLUTE SURRENDER OF ALL CARNAL AFFECTIONS. Jericho and all it contained was to be utterly destroyed. And so, as far as we are concerned, must all the desires of this lower world be put down. No doubt it was a great temptation to the Israelites (Achan"s case proves that it was so) to see so great a store of valuable things doomed to destruction. "To what purpose is this waste?" was a question which must have occurred to many there. So it is a sore temptation to the Christian to see this world"s goods within his reach and he forbidden to grasp them. They were intended to be enjoyed, and why should he not enjoy them? Youth seeks after the indulgences of the flesh, after recreations and amusements. Manhood strives after the prizes of this world power, wealth, honours, rewards. They are innocent in themselves; why should we not possess them? Because they are devoted. This does not refer to pleasures and blessings God has put in our hands. If He has blessed them we may safely use them. But pleasures, and honours, and emoluments for their own sake, things which to grasp at would lead us from the path of duty these are the spoils of Jericho, devoted to God, which we may not touch. Self denial, simple discharge of duty from conscientious motives, and the consequent absence of ambition or greed of gain, willingness to accept the lowest place, disinclination to accept riches, honours, positions of influence, and authority, unless to decline them would clearly be wrong these are the characteristics of the true servant of God. He makes a holocaust of all vain desires and selfish motives, and is willing to give up the richest prizes earth can offer, unless God gives them to him.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 12 Now Jericho was straitly shut up.
Jos_6:1-5
Now Jericho was straitly shut up.
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Shut up
An old writer says that every carnal heart is a Jericho shut up; God sits down before it and displays mercy and judgment: it hardens itself in a wilful security and saith, I shall never be moved. What numbers of men there are who close their hearts and keep them barred against God! God might have thrown down the walls of Jericho at once, but you must remember that He uses means to accomplish ends. God required Israel to walk round Jericho. That was their part. God is not usually in a hurry. He can afford to wait until the seventh day before bringing down the walls. I dont read that the Israelites grew tired of waiting on this occasion. They went at it day after day quietly marching ahead. Here is a lesson of perseverance for us, We sometimes grow impatient. We see no good resulting from our own labours, and are disposed to murmur. (Charles Leach.)
Seven trumpets of rams horns.
The blast of the trumpet
was, in the Jewish feasts, the solemn proclamation of the presence of God. And hence the purpose of that singular march circumambulating the city was to declare Here is the Lord of the whole earth, weaving His invisible cordon and network around the doomed city.
1. Here is a confidence in the Divine presence, manifested by unquestioning obedience to a Divine command. Joshua had spoken; God had spoken through him. And so here goes; up with the ark and the trumpets, and out on to the hot sand for the march. It would have been a great deal easier to have stopped in the tents. It was disheartening work marching round thus. The sceptical spirit in the host--the folk of whom there are many great-grandchildren living to-day, who always have objections to urge when disagreeable duties are crammed up against their faces--would have enough to say on that occasion, but the bulk of the people were true, and obeyed. Now, we do not need to put out the eyes of our understanding in order to practise the obedience of faith. And we have to exercise common sense about the things that seem to us to be duties. But this is plain, that if once we see a thing to be, in Christian language, the will of our Father in heaven, then that is everything, and there is only one course for us, and that is, unquestioning submission, active submission, and, what is as hard, passive submission.
2. Then here again is faith manifesting itself by an obedience which was altogether ignorant of what was coming. We, too, have to do our days march, knowing very little about to-morrow; and we have to carry on all through life doing the duty that lies nearest us, entirely ignorant of the strange issues to which it may conduct. So, seeing that we know nothing about the issues, let us make sure of the motives; and seeing that we do not know what to-morrow may bring forth, nor even what the next moment may bring, let us see that we fill the present instant as full as it will hold with active obedience to God, based upon simple faith in Him.
3. Then, here, again, is faith manifesting itself by persistency. A week was not long, but it was a long while during which to do that one apparently useless thing and nothing else. Familiarity would breed monotony, but notwithstanding the deadly influences of habit, the obedient host turned out for their daily round. Let us not be weary in well-doing. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Religious work often seems impracticable
When we are in great religious moods, in sublime spiritual ecstasies, in immediate and vital touch with God, we are not afraid to adopt apparently impracticable measures in carrying out the purposes of righteousness and wisdom. What could be more ridiculous, from a purely military point of view, than the directions given for the capture and overthrow of Jericho? They had no relation to the event. The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. We cannot always judge things by appearances. We ourselves are often startled by the want--apparent, at least--of adaptation of means to ends. The religious method may always be called impracticable. It is very slow; it does not seem to work with any immediate effect. What can be duller, slower, than what is generally understood as teaching? Yet it is by teaching that the kingdom of heaven is to be prepared for. It is a very slow method. One gleam from heavens own midday would startle the world more surely t Why not this sudden outburst of intolerable glory? Because there is no lasting in it, no power of duration and sustenance. Men cannot live upon such visions. Things that are not are employed to bring to nought things that are. Foolish things, little things, contemptible things, are used by the hand almighty to shake down towers and walls and temples and capitals, and bring them to nought before the throne of righteousness. Thus religion is not afraid of the impracticable--at least, of what may appear to be impracticable to those who look only upon the surface. Religion has never been afraid to claim prayer as one of its very pillars--the signature of its very power. What can, from the outside, be more futile and ridiculous than to be speaking into the vacant air--to exclude all living things upon the earth, and to speak to One we have never seen, and pour our hearts penitence, woe, hope, into an ear we cannot detect amid all the clouds which float through the heavens? Yet religion says, Continue instant in prayer; you have no other hope. Besides, processes may be long, and results may be brought about in startling suddenness.(J. -Parker, D. D.)
The seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times.--
The compassing of Jericho
1. The posture was a walking posture, as it had no direct or probable tendency for subduing the city, so it likewise seemed ridiculous to the rude citizens, who might well scoffingly say, What are these foolish people doing? Have they not had a walk long enough for forty years in the wilderness that now they have a new walk round about our walls, and that once every day for six days together? They desire indeed to possess our city, but they may compass it long enough before that posture can conquer it, &c. Besides, this posture seemed perilous as well as ridiculous. Yet God will make Jericho as well as His Israel know that He can give victory to their feet as well as to their hands. God oftentimes delighteth to go some way of His own (which is not mans way) and worketh His own will by such means, and in such a manner, as the world judges both perilous and ridiculous. As the greater was Gods glory in effecting this great work, wherein Israel contributed nothing to it, so the stronger was Israels faith in believing it should be effected, notwithstanding both the difficulty, danger, and improbability of means and manner.
(1) The term of place or space of ground they walked was, negatively, not an acre, or furlong, or any such measures of miles, nor was it a half-turn, but positively, it must be a whole turn, a compassing the city round about. Had they not gone round about, all had not been their own. They had conquered no more than they had compassed, so had done their work but to half part. It looks more like childrens play, in treading a maze, than any stratagem of warriors. All this was to teach Israel not to expect success from their own prowess or policy, but merely from the prescription and favourable presence of that God who can work what He pleaseth, even by the most contemptible ways.
(2) The term of time unto which this action was extended, this compassing the city, must be done once every day for six days together, but on the seventh day they must surround it seven times successively (Jos_6:3; Jos_6:11; Jos_6:13-16). Israel walks their circuit six times over for six days, and on each day return into their camp. Nothing was effected in order to Jerichos overthrow, so long a time they are held in suspense, for the exercise of their faith and patience. (C. Ness.)
Work which seems aimless
God taught His people to work six days, apparently doing nothing. It is easy enough to work for Christ when ground is manifestly being gained. Fighting is not hard work when souls are won to Christ; when an enemy goes down at well-nigh every blow, and many captives are delivered. It is far harder work to toil and do nothing. Thus Carey laboured for a lifetime marching round letters and languages and dialects, and probably some wondered how he could call that work for Christ. So David Livingstone spent his life in walking up and down Africa, and some well-meaning and good men asked, How can he call himself a missionary? He is merely a geographer, they said; he has been discovering the water-shed of a continent instead of carrying to its thirsty inhabitants the Water of Life. So little did they know of what was being done; so little, perhaps, did Livingstone himself sometimes know. We can see now that in all that, to some, aimless marching, Englands sympathy, Americas sympathy, the sympathy of all Christendom, was being won for Africa; and that the heart of the whole Church of Christ was being brought to feel, Those negroes must no longer be made slaves; those men and women must hear the gospel; the work of the great man who died upon his knees for Africa, and whose heart lies buried in Africa, must not be suffered--under God, shall not be suffered--to fall to the ground. It is very hard, however, to learn to do what seems to be nothing. It is hard for parents to teach their children, when all their labour seems so useless; fruitless work is hard for other teachers, and hard for preachers. God shows us here that it is enough for us to say, Am I doing faithfully and prayerfully and zealously what my Lord has bidden me to do?
A justifiable Sabbath work
Was it not contrary to the spirit of the law to make no difference on the Sabbath? As the narrative reads we are led to think that the Sabbath was the last of the seven days, in which ease, instead of a cessation of labour, there was an increase of it sevenfold. Possibly this may be a mistake; but at the least it seems as if, all days being treated alike, there was a neglect of the precept, In it thou shalt not do any work. To this it has usually been replied that the law of the Sabbath being only a matter of arrangement, and not founded on any unchangeable obligation, it was quite competent for God to suspend it or for a time repeal it, if occasion required. The present instance has been viewed as one of those exceptional occasions when the obligation to do no work was suspended for a time. But this is hardly satisfactory explanation. Was it likely that immediately after God had so solemnly charged Joshua respecting the book of the law, that it was not to depart out of his mouth, but he was to meditate therein day and night, to observe to do according to all that was written therein, that almost on the first occurrence of a public national interest He would direct him to disregard the law of the Sabbath? What seems the just explanation is, that this solemn procession of the ark was really an act of worship, a very public and solemn act of worship, and that therefore the labour which it involved was altogether justifiable, just as the Sabbath labour involved in the offering of the daily sacrifices could not be objected to. It was a very solemn and open demonstration of honour to that great Being in whom Israel trusted--of obedience to His word, and unfaltering confidence that He would show Himself the God of His chosen people. At every step of their march they might well have sung--I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. The absurdity of their proceeding, to the eye of flesh, invested it with a high sanctity, because it testified to a conviction that the presence of that God who dwelt symbolically in the ark would more than compensate for all the feebleness and even apparent silliness of the plan. It was indeed an exception to the usual way of keeping the Sabbath, but an exception that maintained and exalted the honour of God. And, in a sense, it might be called resting, inasmuch as no aggressive operations of any kind were carried on; it was simply a waiting on God, waiting till He should arise out of His place, and cause it to be seen that (Psa_44:3). (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv8, 17 CHAPTER XII. THE FATE OF JERICHO. Jos_6:8-27.
CHAPTER XII. THE FATE OF JERICHO. Jos_6:8-27.
THE instructions of Joshua to the priests and the people are promptly obeyed. In the bright rays of the morning sun, on the day when Jericho is to be surrounded, the plain between the Jordan and Jericho, a space of some five miles, may be seen dotted over with the tents of Israel, arranged in that orderly manner which had been prescribed by Moses in the wilderness. The whole encampment is astir in the prospect of great events. The erect carriage, the flashing eye, the compressed lip of the soldiers show that something great and unusual is expected. By-and-by, there is a stir near the spot where the ark rests, and, borne on the shoulders of the priests, the sacred vessel is seen in motion in the direction of Jericho. Right in front of it are seven priests carrying trumpets of rams' horns, or, as some render it, jubilee horns. The procession of the ark halts a little, till a body of armed men advance and form in front of it. Others of the people take up their places in the rear. The seven priests sound their trumpets, and the procession moves on. Their course is round the walls of Jericho, far enough removed to be beyond the reach of the arrows of its defenders. Not a shout is raised. Not a sound is heard, save that of the trumpets of the seven priests.
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At last the procession returns to the camp, leaving Jericho just as it found it. Next day the same process is repeated; and the next, and the next, on to the sixth. On the seventh day, the march begins early and is continued late. The spirits of the people are sustained during their weary, monotonous tramp by the expectation of a crisis. At length, when the seventh circuit has been made, the signal is given by Joshua. The air is rent with the shouts of the people and the noise of the trumpets, and immediately, all round, the wall falls flat to the ground, and the people march straight into the city. Paralysed with astonishment and terror, the inhabitants are unable to resist, and lie, men, women and children, at the mercy of their assailants. And the instructions to the Israelites are to destroy everything that is in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass, with the edge of the sword. As for the more solid part of the spoil, the silver and the gold and the vessels of brass and iron, they are "devoted" to the service of God (the Authorized translation unhappily uses the word "accursed"). No one is to appropriate a single article to his own use. An exception to the universal massacre was to take place only in the case of the harlot Rahab, who was to be saved, with all her relations, in accordance with the solemn promise of the spies.
There is no difficulty in perceiving the great lesson for all time to be derived from this extraordinary transaction, or the great law of the kingdom of God that was made so conspicuous by it. When we have clear indications of the Divine mind as to any course of action, we are to advance to it promptly and without fear, even though the means at our disposal appear utterly inadequate to the object sought to be gained. No man goeth a warfare at his own charges in the service of God. The resources of infinite power avail for that service, and they are sure to be brought into play if it be undertaken for God's glory, and in accordance with His will. Who could have supposed that the fishermen of Galilee would in the end triumph over all the might of kings and rulers; over all the influence of priesthoods and systems of worship enshrined in the traditions of centuries; over all the learning and intellect of the philosopher, and over all the prejudices and passions of the multitude? The secret lay manifestly in the promise of Jesus - "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Who could have thought that the efforts of a poor German student in Berlin, on behalf of some neglected children, would expand into the widespread and wellrooted "Inner Mission" of Wichern? Or that the concern of a prison chaplain for the welfare of some of the prisoners after their release would develop into the worldwide work of Fliedner? Or that the distress of a kind-hearted medical student in London for a batch of poor boys who "didn't live nowhere," and whose pale faces, as they lay on a cold night on the roof of a shed, stirred in him an irrepressible compassion, would give birth to one of the marvels of London philanthropy, - Dr. Barnardo's twenty institutions, caring for three to four thousand children, in connection with which the announcement could be made that no really destitute child was ever turned from its doors? When Carey on his shoemaker's stool contemplated the evangelization of India, there was as great a gulf between the end and the apparent means, as when the priests blew with their rams' horns round the walls of Jericho.
But Carey felt it to be a Divine command, and Joshua-like set himself to obey it, leaving to God from whom it came to furnish the power by which the work was to be done. And wherever there have been found men and women of strong faith in God, who have looked on His will as recorded in the Scriptures with as much reverence as if it had been announced personally to themselves, and who have set themselves to obey that will with a sense of its reality, and a faith in God's promised help, like that of Joshua as the priests marched round Jericho, the same result has been realized; before Zerubbabel the great mountain has become a plain, and success has been achieved worthy of the acknowledgment - "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
Far more effectual has this brave and thorough method of doing the Divine will proved than all the contrivances of compromise and worldly wisdom. The attempt to serve two masters has never proved either dignified or permanently successful. "If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him;" but do not attempt to combine in one what will please God and Baal too. It is the single eye that is full of light, and full of blessing. If God really is our Master, all the resources of heaven and earth are at our back. If we are able to go forward in sole and simple reliance on His might, as David did in the conflict with Goliath, all will go well. If we waver in our trust in Him, if we fly to the resources of human policy, if we seek deliverance from present evil at whatever cost, we arrest, as it were, the electric current flowing from heaven, and become weak as other men. Still more if we are guilty of deceit and cunning. How different was David confronting Goliath, and David feigning madness before King Achish! In the one case a noble hero, in the other a timid, faltering child. It is a dear price we pay for present safety or convenience when we forfeit the approval of our conscience and the favour of God. It is a sublime attitude that faith takes up even in the face of overwhelming danger - ''Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee" (2Ch_14:11).
This, however, is but one half the lesson of the siege of Jericho. The other and not less valuable lesson is, that in many good enterprises, all that is done may appear for a long time to be labour lost, and not to advance us by one step nearer to the object in view. For six days the priests carried the ark round Jericho, but not one stone was loosened from the walls, not by one iota did the defences seem to yield. Six times on the seventh day there was an equally complete want of result. Nay, the seventh perambulation on the seventh day appeared to be equally unsuccessful, until the very last moment; but when that moment came, the whole defences of the city came tumbling to the ground. It is often God's method to do a great deal of work unseen, and then on a sudden effect the consummation. And whenever we are working in accordance with God's will, it is our encouragement to believe that though our visible success is hardly appreciable, yet good and real work is done. For one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Sometimes in a thousand years God does not seem to accomplish a good day's work, but at other times in a single day He does the work of a thousand years. The reformation of the Church in the Middle Ages, - how little progress it seemed to make during weary centuries; and even when victory seemed to be drawing nigh, how thoroughly was it arrested by the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome in Bohemia, the extinction of the light of Wycliffe in England, and the suppression of the Lollards in Scotland! And when in Providence some causes began to operate that seemed to have a bearing on the desired consummation, such as the invention of printing, the revival of learning, and the love of freedom, how feebly they seemed to operate in opposition to that overwhelming force which the Papacy had been accumulating for centuries, and which nothing seemed able to touch! But when Luther appeared, nailed his theses to the door of the church at Wittemberg, and took up the bold attitude of an out-and-out opponent to Rome, in one hour the Church was struck as with an earthquake; it reeled to its foundations, and half of the proud structure fell. The conflict with American slavery, how slowly it advanced for many a year, nay, at times it seemed to be even losing ground; till in the midst of the great Civil War the President signed a certain proclamation, and in one moment American slavery received its death blow. An eminent historian of England has a striking picture of the slow, steady, awful triumph of iniquity in the career of Cardinal Wolsey, and the sudden collapse of the structure built up so carefully by that wicked man. Speaking of the final retribution, he says: ''The time of reckoning at length was arrived. Slowly the hand had crawled along the dial plate, slowly as if the event would never come, and wrong was heaped on wrong, and oppression cried, and it seemed as if no ear had heard its voice, till the measure of the wickedness was at length fulfilled; the finger touched the hour, and as the strokes of the great hammer rang out above the nation, in an instant the mighty fabric of iniquity was shivered to ruins."
It is the prerogative of faith to believe that the same law of Providence is ever in operation, and that the rapidity with which some great drama is to be wound up may be as striking as the slowness of its movement was trying in its earlier stages. May we not be living in an age destined to furnish another great example of this law? The years as they pass seem laden with great events, and we seem to hear the angel that hath power over fire calling to the angel with the sharp sickle, - "Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the grapes thereof are fully ripe." We cannot tell but before a year ends some grand purpose of Providence shall be accomplished, the death blow given to some system of force or of fraud that has scourged the earth for centuries, or some great prophetic cycle completed for which Simeons and Annas have been watching more than they that watch for the morning. God hasten the day when on every side truth shall finally triumph over error, good over evil, peace over strife, love over selfishness, and order over confusion; and when from every section of God's great but scattered family the shout of triumph shall go up, ''Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
But let us return to the narrative of the fall of Jericho, and advert to two of the difficulties that have occurred to many minds in connection with it; one of comparatively little moment, but another of far more serious import.
The lesser difficulty is connected with the order to march round Jericho for seven successive days. Was it not contrary to the spirit of the law to make no difference on the Sabbath? As the narrative reads we are led to think that the Sabbath was the last of the seven days, in which case, instead of a cessation of labour, there was an increase of it sevenfold. Possibly this may be a mistake; but at the least it seems as if, all days being treated alike, there was a neglect of the precept, "In it thou shalt not do any work."
To this it has usually been replied that the law of the Sabbath being only a matter of arrangement, and not founded on any unchangeable obligation, it was quite competent for God to suspend it or for a time repeal it, if occasion required. The present instance has been viewed as one of those exceptional occasions when the obligation to do no work was suspended for a time. But this is hardly a satisfactory explanation. Was it likely that immediately after God had so solemnly charged Joshua respecting the book of the law, that it was ''not to depart out of his mouth, but he was to meditate therein day and night, to observe to do according to all that was written therein," that almost on the first occurrence of a public national interest He would direct him to disregard the law of the Sabbath? Or was it likely that now that the people were about to get possession of the land, under the most sacred obligation to frame both their national and their personal life by the Divine law, one of the most outstanding requirements of that law should be even temporarily superseded? We cannot help thinking that it is in another direction that we must look for the solution of this difficulty.
And what seems the just explanation is, that this solemn procession of the ark was really an act of worship, a very public and solemn act of worship, and that therefore the labour which it involved was altogether justifiable, just as the Sabbath labour involved in the offering of the daily sacrifices could not be objected to. It was a very solemn and open demonstration of honour to that great Being in whom Israel trusted - of obedience to His word, and unfaltering confidence that He would show Himself the God of His chosen people. At every step of their march they might well have sung - ''I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." The absurdity of their proceeding to the eye of flesh invested it with a high sanctity, because it testified to a conviction that the presence of that God who dwelt symbolically in the ark would more than compensate for all the feebleness and even apparent silliness of the plan. It was indeed an exception to the usual way of keeping the Sabbath, but an exception that maintained and exalted the honour of God. And, in a sense, it might be called resting, inasmuch as no aggressive operations of any kind were carried on; it was simply a waiting on God, waiting till He should arise out of His place, and cause it to be seen that "Israel got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance, because Thou hadst a favour unto them " (Psa_44:3).
See Chapter XXXI, "Jehovah the Champion of Israel."
A more serious objection in the eyes of many is that which is founded on the promiscuous massacre of the people of Jericho, which, according to the narrative, the Israelites were ordered to make. And it is not wonderful that, with the remarkable sense of the sanctity of human life attained in our country and in our age, and the intense horror which we have at scenes of blood and death, the idea of this slaughter should excite a strong feeling of repugnance. For in truth human life has never been held so sacred among men as it is in these our days and in this our island, where by the mercy of God war and bloodshed have been unknown for nearly a century and a half. We must remember that three thousand years ago, and in the tumultuous regions of the East, such a sentiment was unknown. The massacre of one tribe by another was an event of frequent occurrence, and so little thought of that a year or two after its occurrence the survivors of the massacre might be found on perfectly good terms with those who had committed it. This of course does not affect the righteousness of the sentence executed on the men of Jericho, but it shows that as executioners of that sentence the Israelites were not exposed either to the harrowing or the hardening influence which would now be inseparable from such a work.
We reserve the general question for consideration further on. We confine ourselves for the present to the inquiry. Why was Jericho singled out for treatment so specially severe? Not only were all its inhabitants put to the sword, as indeed the inhabitants of other cities were too, but the city was burnt with fire, and a special curse was pronounced upon any one that should set up its gates and its walls. Of only two other cities do we read that they were destroyed in this way - Ai and Hazor (Jos_8:28; Jos_11:13). And in regard to all the three we may see special considerations dictating Joshua's course. Jericho and Ai were the first two cities taken by him, and it may have been useful to set an example of severity in their case. Hazor was the centre of a conspiracy, and being situated in the extreme north, its fate might read a lesson to those who were too far from Jericho and Ai to see what had happened there. But in the case of Jericho there was another consideration. Gilgal, which Joshua had made his headquarters, was but three or four miles distant. At that place there were no doubt gathered a great part of the flocks and herds of the Israelites, with the women and children, as well as the ark and the sacred tabernacle. It was necessary to prevent the possibility of a fortress being again erected at Jericho. For if it should fall into the enemy's hands, it would endanger the very existence of Gilgal. We shall see in the after part of the narrative that the policy of sparing the towns even when the inhabitants were destroyed proved a mistake, and was very disastrous to the Israelites. We shall find that in very many cases, while Joshua was occupied elsewhere, the towns were taken possession of anew by the Canaanites, and new troubles befell the Israelites. For Joshua's conquest was not a complete subjugation, and much remained to be done by each tribe in its settlement in order to get quit of the old inhabitants. It was the failure of most of the tribes to do their part in this process that led to most of the troubles in the future history of Israel, both in the way of temptation to idolatry and in the form of actual war.
The only things saved from utter destruction at Jericho were the gold and the silver and other metallic substances, which were put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. The fact that the "house of the Lord," situated at this time at Gilgal, was an establishment of such size as to be able to employ all these things in its service refutes the assertion of those critics who would make out that at the settlement in Canaan there was no place that might be called emphatically ''the house of the Lord." It indicates that the arrangements for worship were on a large scale, - a fact which is confirmed afterwards by the circumstance that the Gibeonites were assigned by Joshua to be ''hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God." If little is said about the arrangements for worship in the Book of Joshua, it is because the one object of the book is to record the settlement of the nation in the country. If it were true that the book was overhauled by some priestly writer who took every opportunity of magnifying his office, he must have done his work in a strange manner. We find in it such hints as we have noticed showing that the service of the sanctuary was not neglected, but we have none of those full or formal details that would have been given if a writer with such a purpose had worked over the book.
We hear of Jericho from time to time as a place of abode both in the Old Testament and in the New; but when Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it with walls and gates, "he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Joshua the son of Nun" (1Ki_16:34). It was ordained that that first fortress which had withstood the people of God on the west of Jordan should remain a perpetual desolation. As the stones set up in the channel and on the banks of the river witnessed to future generations of God's care for His own people, so the stones of Jericho cast down and lying in ruined heaps were designed to testify to the dread retribution that overtook the guilty. The two great lessons of Providence from Jericho are, the certainty of the reward of faith and obedience on the one hand, and of the punishment of wickedness on the other. The words which Balaam had proclaimed from the top of the mountain on the other side now received their first fulfilment: -
"How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, - Thy tabernacles, O Israel! . . . God bringeth him forth out of Egypt; He hath, as it were, the strength of the wild ox; He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, And shall break their bones in pieces, And smite them through with His arrows."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 17, 20, 21, 26 Jos_6:1. This verse is merely a parenthesis in the…
THE SIEGE AND FALL OF JERICHO
CRITICAL NOTES.—
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Jos_6:1. This verse is merely a parenthesis in the account of the interview, beginning chap. Jos_5:13, and ending chap. Jos_6:5. The division of the chapters in the midst of a deeply interesting narrative of only eight verses, is most unhappy. Was straitly shut up] Marg. “Did shut up, and was shut up.” The antecedent act of closing—which probably followed the escape of the spies—and the continuance of that act, are both marked in the phrase.
Jos_6:2. The Lord] Heb. “Jehovah;” the same as “The Captain of the host of Jehovah,” in chap. Jos_5:14.
Jos_6:4. Trumpets of rams’ horns] “Trumpets of jubilee” [Gesenius]. The word, the meaning of which is involved in considerable obscurity, appears to indicate a bent or curved horn, in distinction from the straight trumpet.
Jos_6:5. Shall fall down flat] Lit. Fall down under itself. The wall was to fall to its foundations; the foundations themselves should give way. Every man straight before him] The overthrow of the wall should be so complete, that no soldier should have to deviate from a direct line in order to enter the city.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jos_6:1-5
THE SYMBOLICAL BATTLE
This plan of attack on Jericho seems to have been communicated for four reasons:—
1. It was for encouragement. “I have given Jericho,” etc. It is as though, in the character of Prince of the host, the Lord had said to Joshua, “Jericho is already yours; I have left nothing to accident. Each march, each day’s work, the place for human silence and human shouting, the order of march, and the hour of victory, are all planned.” Israel was to see the assurance of triumph in the completeness and deliberateness of the arrangements.
2. These words were for direction. This was the first conflict in the new land, and nothing was to be left for human discretion. God would have no hesitation before the enemy; every movement was to be firm and measured. Our Heavenly Father loves that we should begin aright. He says, through Hosea, “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms.” So it is here with the twelve tribes. God would have His soldiers know His way of fighting.
3. This outline of the first battle is given as an aid to faith in battles yet to come. Christ told Peter of his denial beforehand, not that this would help him much in that temptation, for in that he would fall; but it would help him afterwards to see how exactly his Lord had known the poor measure of his strength, and the exact force and results of the conflict. It is the same here before Jericho. These words are after the manner of Him who loves to tell events to His disciples “before they come to pass, that when they come to pass, they may believe.” How firmly Joshua would believe after this! His faith is seen nowhere more beautiful than in his overwhelming surprise at the defeat before Ai. When we are fighting for Christ, we should be astounded where things go against us; as it is, we are too often surprised when they make for our victory. This picture was for future trust.
4. This siegs of Jericho was to be a pattern fight. It was to be a model and sample for all the battles of God’s people yet to come. Certain principles are laid down and emphasized which were never to be forgotten. These may be summarised under three leading thoughts, some having regard to Man, some to Religion, and some to God.
I. Man’s province and part in life’s conflicts. There is to be on the part of man:—
1. Diligent labour. Once every morning these thousands of armed men were to walk round Jericho, and on the last day this labour was to be multiplied seven-fold. What else could God mean to say but this—“Though I have given Jericho into your hand, you are to work nevertheless”? Again, we are made to see in this history that God’s promises should not lead to inactivity. If Antinomianism had only been found oftener sitting at the feet of Scripture History, it might have found that the way of God’s predestination and of man’s toil are so plainly one way that none need err therein. Coleridge has made his Ancient Mariner say of the ship becalmed in the tropics—
“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
And so some have lain becalmed on the promises. Men have failed to work for the salvation of sinners, have deliberately declined to teach the way of life even to their own children, weakly and wickedly saying, “If these are elect, they will be brought to Christ without any effort of mine.” Who could wonder if the ocean of Divine truth and precious promises became, to such, merely a painted ocean? Who could wonder if, before such a creed, and its correspondent life, those other words of the Mariner found a terrible application?—
“The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.”
He who lies becalmed and idle on doctrines or promises, will presently find that to him they are rottenness, and that, out of their corruption, horrible forms will arise to affright him, and to make his idle rest far more dreadful and unbearable than his life could ever have become by the most arduous labour. God always gives faith something to do.
2. As well as diligent labour, there is to be reverent obedience. God taught His people to work six days, apparently doing nothing. It is easy enough to work for Christ when ground is manifestly being gained. Fighting is not hard work when souls are won to Christ; when an enemy goes down at well nigh every blow, and many captives are delivered. It is far harder work to toil and do nothing. The work of the treadmill is so fearful because nothing is done; it is but “grinding wind,” say the wretched prisoners. Yet these Israelites were content simply to walk round Jericho day after day, doing nothing; and, scarcely less hard it may be to some, feeling very foolish, because of what seemed such aimless and useless toil. Thus Carey laboured for a lifetime marching round letters and languages and dialects, and probably some wondered how he could call that work for Christ. So David Livingstone spent his life in walking up and down Africa, and some well-meaning and good men asked, “How can he call himself a missionary? He is merely a geographer,” they said; “he has been discovering the water-shed of a continent, instead of carrying to its thirsty inhabitants the Water of Life.” So little did they know of what was being done; so little, perhaps, did Livingstone himself sometimes know. We can see now that in all that, to some, aimless marching, England’s sympathy, America’s sympathy, the sympathy of all Christendom, was being won for Africa; and that the heart of the whole Church of Christ was being brought to feel, “Those negroes must no longer be made slaves; those men and women must hear the gospel; the work of the great man who died upon his knees for Africa, and whose heart lies buried in Africa, must not be suffered—under God, shall not be suffered—to fall to the ground.” It is very hard, however, to learn to do what seems to be nothing. The soldiers at Waterloo, who lay for hours beneath falling shot, waiting for Wellington’s cry, “Up, guards, and at ‘em,” had by no means the easiest part of the battle. Elijah’s toil seemed so hopeless as he cried, “I only am left,” that even from his brave lips, which were wont to speak in other tones, there came presently the wail, “O Lord, take away my life.” It is hard for parents to teach their children, when all their labour seems so useless; fruitless work is hard for other teachers, and hard for preachers. God shews us here that it is enough for us to say, “Am I doing faithfully and prayerfully and zealously what my Lord has bidden me to do?” If we are blameless there, we may still find room for the joy of obedience.
3. On the part of men there is to be, also, patient waiting. A week is not long at some work and in some places; yet it is long here. Think of it; a week of laughter from their foes; week on the battle-field; a week of what men would call ridiculous behaviour in the sight and presence of death! The old typical battle often repeats itself; we too have to wait, and we are to wait on, even when waiting has to be like that.
II. The sphere of religion in life’s conflicts.
1. In all our battles, religion is to be the prominent and central object before ourselves. In the midst of the Jordan, the Ark was made to seem everything in the eyes of the Israelites: the waters were kept back by that. So the Ark was made to seem the centre of interest and hope before Jericho: everything was to be arranged before or behind that. Thus our life is all to be counted off and planned in the light of God. He is to be the centre around which everything gathers, and from which every movement is to be reckoned. In some of our battles we need look on little else than God:—take poverty; take sickness and pain; take bereavement; take sin. In each of our conflicts, God must be “all in all.”
2. Religion is to be shewn to be our one hope before our enemies. We are to make others feel that every expectation gathers about the Ark. Men, in their earthly conflicts, are tempted to two faults; one is to keep religion out of sight, the other is to make religion a parade, in which attention is drawn to themselves as being pious. Our hope in God is to be firmly exhibited, to the confusion of our foes; on the other hand, no trumpet is to sound saving just before the Ark of the Lord; all the sounds of triumph are to gather about His Name and Presence. We must so manage such exhibition of our religion as is necessary, that all eyes may be turned, not to us, but to Him.
3. Religion is not a system contrived to extol itself and its institutions, but a system designed to extol God. The very first battle in the land of the covenant should be long enough to manifestly cover one Sabbath. For what reason was this? Surely it could but be to shew that God is pleased not to absolutely fetter and bind His children by the religious services which He appointed for their help. In ordinary times, Sabbath law was sternly imperative; so imperative was it, that a Sabbath-breaker had been already stoned before the eyes of all Israel. “The Sabbath was made for man,” and so great a mercy must be rigidly guarded; not because it was an arbitrary and an inflexible command of God, but because it was so priceless a blessing for men. The sacredness of the Sabbath was to be jealously protected, even unto blood; the boon was so precious! But “man was not made for the Sabbath,” and thus, when man’s necessities became urgent, the Sabbath was subordinate to him. Thus does God lay down Sabbath law, and religious law generally, even in these early days. History tells us that the Jews did not readily learn this lesson, and that in after years many were slain by enemies who chose this day on which to slay men who would not fight because it was the Sabbath. Religion is not a God-appointed burden to be hung round the necks of His children, to place them at a disadvantage before their enemies. There are places, on the shewing of Divine Love itself, where Sabbaths must give place to men. The farmer must tend his cattle on Sundays also. The soldier must sometimes fight on the Lord’s day, and is at liberty not merely to defend himself, but may, where needful, even assume the offensive. He who reads this gracious teaching reverently, will not find that it leads to lax thoughts of the Lord’s day. By so much as God’s mercy is gentle and discriminating, by so much are its requirements severe. It is precisely in this considerateness of our Lord, that a filial spirit will learn to stand in awe and sin not.
III. The influence and help of God in life’s conflicts.
1. All real power for victory is to be seen to be in Him. That is the secret of this strange plan of battle, in which Israel is to work hard doing nothing, and to work in absolute silence till the time comes for the falling of the walls The Lord is to be all our hope and all our trust. Each soldier in His army is to learn to say, “My expectation is from Him.”
2. With God for us, victory is always a mere question of time. The pattern battle was to teach this also. No faithful soldier of the Lord, from that day to this, has ever gone on fighting in the confidence of that, and found it untrue.
3. This symbolical battle, which shews that power is all of God, shews, not less clearly, that praise should be entirely to God. All the spoil, in this instance, was to be “devoted” to Him, as though He would have His people to know that everything, at all times, was His due. It is when we learn more truly to sing for victories past, that we shall find our victories more common and more glorious in the future. Some one has said, “A line of praise is worth a leaf of prayer.” While it is ever His right, perhaps even more because it is for our good, God would have us sing, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give glory.”
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Jos_6:1. HUMAN FORTIFICATIONS AGAINST DIVINE POWER.
I. God designing the subjugation of rebellious men.
1. God sees the beginnings of rebellion. He marks the abodes of men from the first (Gen_10:18-19). He beholds the iniquities of men (Gen_13:13).
2. God warns the rebellious by solemn providences and judgments (Gen_19:1-28). The plagues of Egypt, and the wonders of the wilderness, with the rumours which must have reached the Canaanites of the purpose and mission of the Israelites, should also have been taken as warnings.
3. God waits patiently and gives long space for repentance. From the destruction of the cities of the plain to the time of this encampment before Jericho, there was a period of about four hundred and fifty years.
4. When time and mercy fail, God makes coming punishment more and more manifest. The rumours of the past forty years are seen gradually taking form and substance in facts. The cloud of threatening grows darker and larger, and comes ever nearer, till it hangs immediately over the city. To come back to the figure befitting the history, the military lines in God’s war are being pushed nearer and ever nearer preliminary to the final assault.
II. Men fortifying themselves against Divine power. The city was very closely shut up and strongly secured. The Chaldee says that it was “shut with iron gates strengthened with bars of brass.”
1. The efforts of men to resist God are always weak and foolish. Iron and brass and stone, for gates and walls, are as nothing in the hands of Him who made them. Massive intellects, strong wills, and hardened hearts cannot hope to resist more successfully. He also made the minds, the wills, and the hearts which turn to rebellion, and rebellion does but make them more feeble.
2. The efforts of men to resist God are manifestly weak and foolish. The Red Sea divided, the Amorites overthrown, and the Jordan “fleeing back” before the approach of the Lord, might make it plain to any who were not foolishly infatuated that resistance would but aggravate ruin When the Lord of Sabaoth thus compasses the rebellious about with enemies, it were wise to cry with Jehoshaphat: “We have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon THEE.” God loves to help the broken and contrite heart even at the last hour. Yet do the rebellious foolishly go on fortifying.
III. God visiting men in order to overthrow them. Sometimes Divine visitations are in love; sometimes they are in anger.
1. Some men are overthrown that they may be saved. Rahab and her family were thus delivered. Had others repented, they too might have been saved. God, who changes not, shews us at Nineveh that He loves to recall nothing so much as His messages of wrath.
2. Some are overthrown that they may be destroyed. Were Divine threatenings other than real, they would cease to have power; law would be at an end, and sin and confusion would run riot in an awful liberty.
IV. God overthrowing men by men.
1. This is His way with those who are saved. Jesus Christ comes into our humanity, first conquering it, and then delivering it. As Horace Bushnell has so forcibly pointed out in his sermon on “Salvation by Man,” deliverance comes from within the race. And it is instrumentally by men that deliverance goes on. It is “by the foolishness of preaching” that God saves those who believe.
2. This is often the Divine way with those who are destroyed, (a) God suffers the unrepentant to be tempted and led on to ruin by their fellows. (b) Saved men will witness in the day of judgment to the overthrow of those who have refused to believe (cf. Luk_11:31-32).
“The closed and barred Jericho an image
(1) of a closed heart;
(2) of a closed house;
(3) of a closed congregation. As the Lord gave Jericho into the hand of Joshua, so He still always gives (eventually) every closed heart, and every closed house, and every closed congregation, or even city, into the hand of His servants.” [Lange.]
“Every carnal heart is a Jericho shut up. God sits down before it, and displays mercy and judgment in the sight of the walls thereof: it hardens itself in a wilful security, and saith, ‘Tush, I shall never be moved.’ ”[Bp. Hall.]
Jos_6:2-3. “JERICHO CAPTURED.”
I. God would have His people WORK. The work to be done by Israel was to be:
1. Universal.
2. Done in God’s own appointed way.
3. Done daily.
4. Done in faith.
II. God would have His people WAIT. This delay must have sorely tried the faith and patience of the Israelites. How could they hope to win that city by simply going round and round? Probably the citizens of Jericho insulted them from the walls. God has His reasons for making us wait. It is for His own glory, we doubt not. We believe it will ultimately be for our profit.
III. God would have His people WIN. The victory is very sure; it will be very complete; it may, also, be very sudden; and it will be very glorious.” [C.H. Spurgeon, Met. Tab. Pulpit.]
Jos_6:3. “It seemed good to Infinite Wisdom to appoint this method of besieging the city.
(1) To magnify Divine power, both to the Canaanites and to Israel, shewing that Omnipotence alone had achieved the work, and that God was infinitely above the need of the ordinary means of obtaining a victory.
(2) To try the faith and obedience of Joshua and the people, by prescribing a course of conduct that seemed to human wisdom the height of folly and absurdity, and also to secure a profound respect to all His subsequent institutions, however simple or contemptible they might seem.
(3) To put honour upon the Ark as the appointed token of God’s presence, and to confirm still more fully that veneration and awe with which they had always been taught to regard it.” [Bush.]
Jos_6:4-5, When God makes religion to be the centre round which these movements of war revolve, and the power by which victory is won, surely He would have us see that we should engage in nothing where we cannot ask Him to be with us, and hope to triumph nowhere unless He be present.
In this world of sin and strife, the consolations of religion, and the help of God, have sometimes to be sought even on the field of battle.
Religion carries her trumpets everywhere, and dares to be jubilant anywhere.
The city was to be compassed seven times; but we must look for the reason of this in men, not in God. Omnipotence would have found one journey more than sufficient.
1. God would give sinners space for repentance unto life eternal, even when hope of temporal salvation is cut off.
2. God would tench His children that punishment is ever to come after patience. Even Divine vengeance moves with slow and measured paces.
3. God would shew His servants that religion may have to compass sin’s strongholds not once, but many times, ere victory be secured.
The march of silence should teach us that the true soldiers of the cross are to know themselves to be nothing; and the shout of anticipation, that they are to know their Lord as faithful and all-sufficient.
When God makes a way for His people, each man may ascend “straight before him” to victory. The angular and devious ways which we have to traverse in life’s journey are not for lack of power in Him, but for want of discipline in us.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv10, 25 Jos 6:10 - Jos 6:11.
Joshua
THE SIEGE OF JERICHO
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Jos 6:10 - Jos 6:11.
The cheerful uniform obedience of Israel to Joshua stands in very remarkable contrast with their perpetual murmurings and rebellions under Moses. Many reasons probably concurred in bringing about this change of tone. For one thing the long period of suspense was over; and to average sense-bound people there is no greater trial of faith and submission than waiting, inactive, for something that is to come. Now they are face to face with their enemies, and it is a great deal easier to fight than to expect; and their courage mounts higher as dangers come nearer. Then there were great miracles which left their impression upon the people, such as the passage of the Jordan, and so on.
So that the Epistle to the Hebrews is right when it says, ‘By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.’ And that faith was as manifest in the six days’ march round the city, as on the seventh day of victorious entrance. For, if you will read the narrative carefully, you will see that it says that the Israelites were not told what was to be the end of that apparently useless and aimless promenade. It was only on the morning of the day of the miracle that it was announced. So there are two stages in this instance of faith. There is the protracted trial of it, in doing an apparently useless thing; and there is the victory, which explains and vindicates it. Let us look at these two points now.
I. Consider that strange protracted trial of faith.
The command comes to the people, through Joshua’s lips, unaccompanied by any explanation or reasons. If Moses had called for a like obedience from the people in their wilderness mood, there would have been no end of grumbling. But whatever some of them may have thought, there is nothing recorded now but prompt submission. Notice, too, the order of the procession. First come the armed men, then seven white-robed priests, blowing, probably, discordant music upon their ram’s horn trumpets; then the Ark, the symbol and token of God’s presence; and then the rereward. So the Ark is the centre; and it is not only Israel that is marching round the city, but rather it is God who is circling the walls. Very impressive would be the grim silence of it all. Tramp, tramp, tramp, round and round, six days on end, without a word spoken {though no doubt taunts in plenty were being showered down from the walls}, they marched, and went back to the camp, and subsided into inactivity for another four-and-twenty hours, until they ‘turned out’ for the procession once more.
Now, what did all that mean? The blast of the trumpet was, in the Jewish feasts, the solemn proclamation of the presence of God. And hence the purpose of that singular march circumambulating Jericho was to declare ‘Here is the Lord of the whole earth, weaving His invisible cordon and network around the doomed city.’ In fact the meaning of the procession, emphasised by the silence of the soldiers, was that God Himself was saying, in the long-drawn blasts of the priestly trumpet, ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates! even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in.’ Now, whatever Jericho and its people thought about that, Israel, according to the commentary of the New Testament, had to some extent, at all events, learnt the lesson, and knew, of course very rudimentarily and with a great deal of mere human passion mingled with it, but still knew, that this was God’s summons, and the manifestation of God’s presence. And so round the city they went, and day by day they did the thing in which their faith apprehended its true meaning, and which, by reason of their faith, they were willing to do. Let us take some lessons from that.
Here is a confidence in the divine presence, manifested by unquestioning obedience to a divine command.
‘Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why.’
Joshua had spoken; God had spoken through him. And so here goes! up with the Ark and the trumpets, and out on to the hot sand for the march! It would have been a great deal easier to have stopped in the tents. It was disheartening work marching round thus. The sceptical spirit in the host-the folk of whom there are many great-grandchildren living to-day, who always have objections to urge when disagreeable duties are crammed up against their faces-would have enough to say on that occasion, but the bulk of the people were true, and obeyed. Now, we do not need to put out the eyes of our understanding in order to practise the obedience of faith. And we have to exercise common-sense about the things that seem to us to be duties.
But this is plain, that if once we see a thing to be, in Christian language, the will of our Father in heaven, then everything is settled; and there is only one course for us, and that is, unquestioning submission, active submission, or, what is as hard, passive submission.
Then here again is faith manifesting itself by an obedience which was altogether ignorant of what was coming. I think that is quite plain in the story, if you will read it carefully, though I think that it is not quite what people generally understand as its meaning. But it makes the incident more in accordance with God’s uniform way of dealing with us that the host should be told on the morning of the first day of the week that they were to march round the city, and told the same on the second day, and on the third the same, and so on until the sixth; and that not until the morning of the seventh, were they told what was to be the end of it all. That is the way in which God generally deals with us. In the passage of the Jordan, too, you will find, if you will look at the narrative carefully, that although Joshua was told what was coming, the people were not told till the morning of the day, when the priests’ feet were dipped in the brink of the water. We, too, have to do our day’s march, knowing very little about tomorrow; and we have to carry on all through life ‘doing the duty that lies nearest us,’ entirely ignorant of the strange issues to which it may conduct. Life is like a voyage down some winding stream, shut in by hills, sometimes sunny and vine-clad, like the Rhine, sometimes grim and black, like an American canon. As the traveller looks ahead he wonders how the stream will find a passage beyond the next bend; and as he looks back, he cannot trace the course by which he has come. It is only when he rounds the last shoulder that he sees a narrow opening flashing in the sunshine, and making a way for his keel. So, seeing that we know nothing about the issues, let us make sure of the motives; and seeing that we do not know what to-morrow may bring forth, nor even what the next moment may bring, let us see that we fill the present instant as full as it will hold with active obedience to God, based upon simple faith in Him. He does not open His whole hand at once; He opens a finger at a time, as you do sometimes with your children when you are trying to coax them to take something out of the palm. He gives us enough light for the moment, He says, ‘March round Jericho; and be sure that I mean something. What I do mean I will tell you some day.’ And so we have to put all into His hands.
Then here, again, is faith manifesting itself by persistency. A week was not long, but it was a long while during which to do that one apparently useless thing and nothing else. It would take about an hour or so to march round the city, and there were twenty-three hours of idleness. Little progress in reducing Jericho was made by the progress round it, and it must have got rather wearisome about the sixth day. Familiarity would breed monotony, but notwithstanding the deadly influences of habit, the obedient host turned out for their daily round. ‘Let us not be weary in well-doing,’ for there is a time for everything. There is a time for sowing and for reaping, and in the season of the reaping ‘we shall reap, if we faint not.’ Dear brethren! we all get weary of our work. Custom presses upon us, ‘with a weight heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.’ It is easy to do things with a spurt, but it is the keeping on at the monotonous, trivial, and sometimes unintelligible duties that is the test of a man’s grit, and of his goodness too. So, although it is a very, very threadbare lesson -one that you may think it was not worth while for me to bring you all here to receive-I am sure that there are few things needed more by us all, and especially by those of us who are on the wrong side of middle life, as people call it-though I think it is the right side in many respects-than that old familiar lesson. Keep on as you have begun, and for the six weary days turn out, however hot the sun, however comfortable the carpets in the tent, however burning the sand, however wearisome and flat it may seem to be perpetually tramping round the same walls of the same old city; keep on, for in due season the trumpet will sound and the walls will fall.
II. So that brings me to the second stage-viz., the sudden victory which vindicates and explains the protracted trial of faith.
I do not need to tell the story of how, on the seventh day, the host encompassed the city seven times, and at last they were allowed to break the long silence with a shout. You will observe the prominence given to the sacred seven, both in the number of days, of circuits made, and the number of the priests’ trumpets. Probably the last day was a Sabbath, for there must have been one somewhere in the week, and it is improbable that it was one of the undistinguished days. That was a shout, we may be sure, by which the week’s silence was avenged, and all the repressed emotions gained utterance at last. The fierce yell from many throats, which startled the wild creatures in the hills behind Jericho, blended discordantly with the trumpets’ clang which proclaimed a present God; and at His summons the fortifications toppled into hideous ruin, and over the fallen stones the men of Israel clambered, each soldier, in all that terrible circle of avengers that surrounded the doomed city, marching straight forward, and so all converging on the centre.
Now, we can discover good reasons for this first incident in the campaign being marked by miracle. The fact that it was the first is a reason. It is a law of God’s progressive revelation that each new epoch is inaugurated by miraculous works which do not continue throughout its course. For instance, it is observable that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the first example of each class of incidents recorded there, such as the first preaching, the first persecution, the first martyrdom, the first expansion of the Gospel beyond Jews, its first entrance into Europe, has usually the stamp of miracle impressed on it, and is narrated at great length, while subsequent events of the same class have neither of those marks of distinction. Take, for example, the account of Stephen, the first martyr. He saw ‘the heavens opened’ and the Son of Man ‘standing at the right hand of God.’ We do not read that the heavens opened when Herod struck off the head of James with the sword. But was Jesus any the less near to help His servant? Certainly not.
In like manner it was fitting that the first time that Israel crossed swords with these deadly and dreaded enemies should be marked by a miraculous intervention to hearten God’s warriors. But let us take care that we understand the teaching of any miracle. Surely it does not secularise and degrade the other incidents of a similar sort in which no miracle was experienced. The very opposite lesson is the true one to draw from a miracle. In its form it is extraordinary, and presents God’s direct action on men or on nature, so obviously that all eyes can see it. But the conclusion to be drawn is not that God acts only in a supernatural’ manner, but that He is acting as really, though in a less obvious fashion, in the ‘natural’ order. In these turning-points, the inauguration of new stages in revelation or history, the cause which always produces all nearer effects and the ultimate effects, which are usually separated or united {as one may choose to regard it} by many intervening links, are brought together. But the originating power works as truly when it is transmitted through these many links as when it dispenses with them. Miracle shows us in abbreviated fashion, and therefore conspicuously, the divine will acting directly, that we may see it working when it acts indirectly. In miracle God makes bare His arm,’ that we may be sure of its operation when it is draped and partially hid, as by a vesture, by second causes.
We are not to argue that, because there is no miracle, God is not present or active. He was as truly with Israel when there was no Ark present, and no blast of the trumpet heard. He was as truly with Israel when they fought apparently unhelped, as He was when Jericho fell. The teaching of all the miracles in the Old and the New Testaments is that the order of the universe is maintained by the continual action of the will of God on men and things. So this story is a transient revelation of an eternal fact. God is as much with you and me in our fights as He was with the Israelites when they marched round Jericho, and as certainly will He help. If by faith we endure the days of often blind obedience, we shall share the rapture of the sudden victory.
Now, I have said that the last day of this incident was probably a Sabbath day. Does not that suggest the thought that we may take this story as a prophetic symbol? There is for us a week of work, and a seventh day of victory, when we shall enter, not into the city of confusion which has come to nought, but into the city which ‘hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ The old fathers of the Christian Church were not far wrong, when they saw in this story a type of the final coming of the Lord. Did you ever notice how St. Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians about that coming, seems to have his mind turned back to the incident before us? Remember that in this incident the two things which signalised the fall of the city were the trumpet and the shout. What does Paul say? ‘The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.’ Jericho over again! And then, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen!’ ‘And I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, like a bride adorned for her husband.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Capture of Jerich
The Capture of Jerich
This chapter describes the first and perhaps most decisive action in the war. The impression it produced (Jos_6:27) no doubt did much to decide the fortunes of subsequent campaigns. The strange method adopted, by divine injunction, for the reduction of the city, with its jubilee trumpets and its elaborate symbolic use of the number seven, was clearly intended to leave no doubt that the enterprise from first to last was in higher hands than Joshua's. Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes. For instance, it has been suggested that the demonstration of the army in force round the city was intended to distract the attention of the enemy from the sapping and mining operations which were being pushed forward, and which culminated in its fall on the seventh day. Again, an earthquake has been suggested; but if such took place, it was providentially timed, and was capable of prediction by Joshua. The narrator regards the event as entirely miraculous, a direct intervention of Jehovah on behalf of His people. Such also was the tradition in Israel, and it is accepted by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb_11:30): 'by faith the walls of Jericho fell down.'
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3. Ye shall compass] The injunction was calculated to produce derision among the enemy, and so would be a discipline of humiliation for the Israelites. It would also put the Canaanites off their guard and hand them over an easy prey at the critical moment.
4. Rams' horns] rather, 'trumpets of jubilee' or 'loud trumpets.' It is the same word yobel used in Lev_25:9. Seven is a sacred number among the Semites, and in the Bible signifies 'perfection.' The symbolism is very emphatic here.
9. Rereward] RV 'rearward'=rearguard. Going on, and blowing] blowing continually.
17. Accursed] Heb. Kherem='devoted,' i.e. irredeemably devoted (Lev_27:28-29) to the Lord. LXX has 'anathema,' the word which St. Paul uses in Rom_9:3 and elsewhere. It appears to denote a form of consecration, but that invariably with a view to destruction. In Lev_27:21, Lev_27:28-29 devoted things are excluded from redemption. In Jos_6:21 the word is translated in AV 'utterly destroyed.'
20. The wall fell down flat] see note at beginning of chapter. This was not the first of Israel's sieges. They had already taken the cities of the Amorites, including Heshbon, which was strongly fortified (Numbers 21).
23. And left them] lit. 'and. caused them to rest.'
25. She dwelleth in Israel even unto this day] Unless Rahab's descendants are meant, this must be the touch of a contemporary chronicler (cp. Jos_5:1 and Jos_6:26). On Rahab and her incorporation into Israel, see note at beginning of Joshua 2. Apparently she had long been prepared (see on Jos_2:10) to adopt Israel's religion, and thus the greatest obstacle was removed. Yet her case, like that of Christ's other foreign ancestress Ruth, remains exceptional, and prefigures, as it were, the world-wide extent of the Messiah's kinship with man.
26. This 'inspired curse' of Joshua was fulfilled, after the lapse of some six centuries, in the reign of Ahab (1Ki_16:34). Hiel the Bethelite incurred it, being the first, apparently, to attempt a complete rebuilding and fortification of the accursed city, although informal settlements seem to have been there from the first. It is mentioned, e.g. in Jos_18:21, as one of ten 'cities' of Benjamin, and again in the time of David (2Sa_10:5). Here we have another note of comparatively early date. If the writer of this passage had known of the fulfilment, he would surely have recorded it.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Trans. "consecrated," Jos 6:19 in R.V. "holy."
holy
Trans. "consecrated," Jos 6:19 in R.V. "holy."
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 6. The Fall of Jericho
6. The Fall of Jericho
CHAPTER 6
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1. The divine instruction (Jos 6:1-5)
2. The instructions followed (Jos 6:6-19)
3. The fall of Jericho (Jos 6:20-21)
4. Rahab remembered (Jos 6:22-25)
5. The curse upon Jericho (Jos 6:26-27)
We do not enlarge upon the history of the chapter, which needs no comment. The fall of Jericho by the power of God, as described in this chapter, has also been ridiculed by infidels. Others have tried to explain the occurrence in a natural way. It has been said that the marching Israelites, by tramping around the city for seven days, weakened the walls, and the trumpet blasts and shouting of the people brought about their collapse. How utterly ridiculous! But what are the typical and dispensational lessons of this interesting chapter?
Jericho is the type of the world, as already stated in the annotations of the second chapter. As Jericho falls and is laid in ruins as soon as Israel is in the land, so the world is laid in ruins for the believer who apprehends his position in Christ. Our faith is the victory which overcometh the world. It was faith which obtained the victory over Jericho. A faith which trusted in the Lord; a faith which acted in obedience to the divinely given instructions. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days” (Heb 11:30). And we must walk in faith and in the power of His Spirit, as crucified unto the world and the world crucified unto us. The world must remain in ruins for the believer who walks in the Spirit, as Jericho was not to be rebuilt.
It is a remarkable circumstance, in various aspects, that Jericho, the first and the strongest city of the land, is taken in this peculiar manner, without a single stroke of the sword. This result was intended, on the one hand, to furnish the faith of the Israelites with unquestionable evidence of the success of their future warlike movements, which now commenced, and, on the other hand, to secure them in advance, from a carnal reliance on their own strength, and from all vainglorious tendencies to ascribe their success to their own courage, their own intelligence, and their own power.
We must also think here of the walls, the hindrances, the obstacles in our lives as believers, as we pass through the world. The enemy often tries to terrify us by these, as he discouraged Israel at Kadesh by the walled cities. Alas! we often do what Joshua did not do before Jericho. We measure the walls, we study the difficulties, we are occupied with our perplexities and trials. We reckon with the walls, instead of reckoning with the Lord and His power. By faith walls still fall down.
Richer is the meaning of the fall of Jericho viewed in the light of prophecy. Jericho is the type of the world ripe for judgment. The high walls are types of the walls of unbelief, apostasy, wickedness and self-security. Seven days Israel had to march around the walls. Seven priests with seven trumpets were there. On the seventh day they had to march around seven times and blow the seven trumpets. Note the number “seven.” It stands for divine completion. How it all reminds us of the last book of the Bible with its seven seals, seven trumpets and seven vials. The trumpets, however, in Joshua are the trumpets of jubilee. The great jubilee, the time of blessing for this earth comes, when judgment is executed. As the walls of Jericho fell, so comes the day, when all the high and exalted things will be laid low (Isa 2:10-22) The stone will fall out of heaven (Christ in His second coming) smiting the image, representing the world-power. Complete ruins will be the result, never to be built again; but the smiting stone becomes a mountain, filling the earth. It is the prophetic picture of the coming kingdom.
“The details of the fall of Jericho seem not, however, to be facts of present experience, but prophetic of actual judgment when it comes; and this is quite as we might expect. We see by them, however, that the people of God have to maintain the testimony as to these things: compassing the city and blowing the trumpets until the city falls; although it be only in the meantime to awaken the scorn of the men of the world, as they hear the frequent alarm of that which seems never to come. But it comes, comes steadily nearer, is surely even now at the door, and how urgent should be our testimony, which, if of no effect upon the mass, yet helps to fill Rahab’s house, where the true scarlet-line, as despicable in men’s eyes as that of old, shields with the power of the Almighty the prisoners of hope” (F.W. Grant).
How blessedly the promise was kept to Rahab and her house! No doubt that scarlet line was the object of ridicule in Jericho. She alone and her house escaped the dreadful judgment. The entire walls fell; but one small portion was kept standing, the portion upon which her house stood.
Jericho was built three times and three times razed to the ground. It was first destroyed under Joshua. Then Hiel, the Beth-elite rebuilt it in Ahab’s reign (822-790). He experienced the curse of Joshua. Compare Jos 6:26 with 1Ki 16:34. Hiel’s city was destroyed by the Herodians in 3 B.C. The next year Archelaus built Jericho again, the Jericho standing in the days of our Lord. This was destroyed by Vespassian 68 A.D.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 15 The Siege of Jericho
The Siege of Jericho
v. 1. Now Jericho was straitly shut up, not only strongly fortified, but also guarded with all strictness, because of the children of Israel; none went" out and none came in. This remark is inserted by the historian by way of explanation, before he continues to describe the meeting between Joshua and the Prince of the heavenly host.
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v. 2. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho and the king thereof and the mighty men of valor. This was the divine plan and intention, assuring the immediate help of God, the overthrow of the city and its staunch and mighty defenders by a miracle.
v. 3. And ye shall compass the city, surround it completely, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once, march completely around it. Thus shall thou do six days, on each of six successive days, which probably brought the time around once more to the eve of the Sabbath.
v. 4. And seven priests shall bear before the ark, which was thus conspicuous in the line of march, seven trumpets of rams’ horns, very large instruments, with a deep-toned, terrifying sound, especially when the notes were sustained; and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. The repetition on the several days of this procession about the city could only be intended to exercise Israel in unconditional faith and patient trust in the power and help of God, and to impress deeply upon the people the fact that it was the almighty power and faithfulness of Jehovah alone which gave into their hands this fortified city, one of the strongest in the land. The last day was surely the strongest test of their faith, for the besieged were probably not sparing in their jeering cries of contempt for a great host that ventured no attack, but continued on its endless procession around the city.
v. 5. and it shall come to pass that, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, in a long-sustained, single note, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, the cry of an army confident of victory; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, topple over and lie prostrate, and the people shall ascend up, the ranks turning to face the city, every man straight before him, in perfect order of attack, without turning either to the right or to the left. This was the order of the Prince of the angelic host as it was imparted to Joshua at that wonderful meeting.
v. 6. And Joshua, the son of Nun, having received this command from the Lord, called the priests and said unto them, Take up the Ark of the Covenant, to carry it in the intended procession, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord.
v. 7. And he said unto the people, the army that was actively engaged in this siege. Pass on and compass the city, and let him that is armed pass on before the ark of the Lord, the host of the two and one half tribes probably passing on in review, to be followed afterward by the host of the other tribes.
v. 8. And it came to pass, when Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns passed on before the Lord, before the Ark of the Covenant, which was the visible sign of God’s presence among His people, and blew with the trumpets; and the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord followed them.
v. 9. And the armed men, that is, the first division of the army, went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rearward, the last division of the army forming the rear-guard, came after the ark, probably in the same manner as on the march through the desert, the priests going on and blowing with the trumpets, sounding without intermission.
v. 10. And Joshua had commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout. The grim and silent procession, moving forward without a sound but the tramping of marching feet and the blasts from the priests’ horns, must have made the impression of unwavering determination.
v. 11. So the ark of the Lord, the most conspicuous feature in the procession, compassed the city, going about it once; and they came into the camp and lodged in the camp, they spent the night there.
v. 12. And Joshua rose early in the morning, on the second day, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.
v. 13. And seven priests, bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord, went on continually and blew with the trumpets, without intermission; and the armed men went before them; but the rearward came after the ark of the Lord, the priests going on and blowing with the trumpets.
v. 14. And the second day they compassed the city once and returned into the camp; so they did six days, observing the same procedure every day. It was a strange siege and one which tested the faith of the children of Israel strongly. For it was against all human reason and prudence for the army to lay aside all weapons and, instead, to march around the city with the sound of trumpets. But they followed the command of the Lord strictly and literally. It is a mark of true faith for a person to set reason aside, simply believe the Word, and trust the Lord in everything.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26 This word is used here to mark a break…
Now
This word is used here to mark a break in the main story line. Here the narrator tells us why the gates of Jericho are closed and locked up.
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I have delivered Jericho into your hand, its king, and its trained soldiers
Yahweh is telling Joshua that he will certainly do this by saying that he has already done it. (See: Predictive Past)
into your hand
The word "hand" is a metonym for the control that the hand exercises. AT: "so that you can control it" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Jericho
Israel
Yahweh
Joshua
king
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27 6:1 Jericho guarded two important entrances into the heart…
6:1 Jericho guarded two important entrances into the heart of the hill country. If the Israelites did not conquer the city first, they would leave a well-armed enemy at their back, standing between the Israelite forces and their families encamped at Gilgal. They had to conquer Jericho first.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.