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.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv15, 17, 20 15. And it came to pass on the seventh…
15. And it came to pass on the seventh day, etc Here, also, God seemed, by leading the people so often round the city, not only to keep the matter in suspense, but purposely to sport with the miseries of the people, who were fatiguing themselves to no purpose. For why does he not order them suddenly to attack the city? Why does he keep them in their former silence, even to weariness, and not open their mouths to shout? But the happy fruit of this endurance teaches us, that there is nothing better than to leave the decisive moments and opportunities of acting at his disposal, and not, by our haste, anticipate his providence, in which, if we acquiesce not, we obstruct the course of his agency. Therefore, while the priests were sounding, God ordered a corresponding shout to be raised by the people, that in this way he might prove that he is not pleased with any impetuosity which men manifest at their own hands, but above all things requires a regulated zeal, of which the only rule is not to move either tongue, or feet, or hands, till he order. Here, the rams’ horns undoubtedly represented his authority.
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 vv4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 That the conquest might not be assigned to man’s…
That the conquest might not be assigned to man’s power, but to the mercy of God, which with most weak things can overcome that which seemeth most strong.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–20 Jos 6:4 And seven priests shall bear before the…
Jos 6:4 And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.
Ver. 4. Seven trumpets of rams’ horns.] God usually goeth a way by himself, and worketh his will by such means as the world judgeth absurd and ridiculous.
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And the seventh day.] Which, probably, was the Sabbath day, wherein, "by the foolishness of preaching," God still overturneth the strongholds of Satan, {2Co 10:4} by the priests blowing with their trumpets.
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 vv4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19 Of rams’ horns, or, of the jubilees, i.e. such…
Of rams’ horns, or, of the jubilees, i.e. such trumpets wherewith they were to sound in the years of jubilee, Lev 25:9. Either this, or one of the other six, was certainly a sabbath day; and it is not material which was it, for the command of the Lord of the sabbath was sufficient to legitimate any action.
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 vv6, 17 We have here an account of the cavalcade which…
We have here an account of the cavalcade which Israel made about Jericho, the orders Joshua gave concerning it, as he had received them from the Lord and their punctual observance of these orders. We do not find that he gave the people the express assurances God had given him that he would deliver the city into their hands; but he tried whether they would obey orders with a general confidence that it would end well, and we find them very observant both of God and Joshua.
I. Wherever the ark went the people attended it, Jos 6:9. The armed men went before it to clear the way, not thinking it any disparagement to them, though they were men of war, to be pioneers to the ark of God. If any obstacle should be found in crossing the roads that led to the city (which they must do in walking round it) they would remove it; if any opposition should be made by the enemy, they would encounter it, that the priests' march with the ark might be easy and safe. It is an honour to the greatest men to do any good office to the ark and to serve the interests of religion in their country. The rereward, either another body of armed men, or Dan's squadron, which marched last through the wilderness, or, as some think, the multitude of the people who were not armed or disciplined for war (as many of them as would) followed the ark, to testify their respect to it, to grace the solemnity, and to be witnesses of what was done. Every faithful zealous Israelite would be willing to undergo the same fatigues and run the same hazard with the priests that bore the ark.
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II. Seven priests went immediately before the ark, having trumpets in their hands, with which they were continually sounding, Jos 6:4, Jos 6:5, Jos 6:9, Jos 6:13. The priests were God's ministers, and thus in his name, 1. They proclaimed war with the Canaanites, and so stuck a terror upon them; for by terrors upon their spirits they were to be conquered and subdued. Thus God's ministers, by the solemn declarations of his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, must blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in the holy mountain, that the sinners in Zion may be afraid. They are God's heralds to denounce war against all those that go on still in their trespasses, but say, "We shall have peace, though we go on." 2. They proclaimed God's gracious presence with Israel, and so put life and courage into them. It was appointed that when they went to war the priests should encourage them with the assurance of God's presence with them, Deu 20:2-4. And particularly their blowing with trumpets was to be a sign to the people that they should be remembered before the Lord Their God in the day of battle, Num 10:9. It encouraged Abijah, Ch2 13:12. Thus God's ministers, by sounding the Jubilee trumpet of the everlasting gospel, which proclaims liberty and victory, must encourage the good soldiers of Jesus Christ in their spiritual warfare.
III. The trumpets they used were not those silver trumpets which were appointed to be made for their ordinary service, but trumpets of rams' horns, bored hollow for the purpose, as some think. These trumpets were of the basest matter, dullest sound, and least show, that the excellency of the power might be of God. Thus by the foolishness of preaching, fitly compared to the sounding of these rams' horns, the devil's kingdom is thrown down; and the weapons of our warfare, though they are not carnal nor seem to a carnal eye likely to bring any thing to pass, are yet mighty through God to the pulling down of strong-holds, Co2 10:4, Co2 10:5. The word here is trumpets of Jobel, that is, such trumpets as they used to blow withal in the year of jubilee; so many interpreters understand it, as signifying the complete liberty to which Israel was now brought, and the bringing of the land of Canaan into the hands of its just and rightful owners.
IV. All the people were commanded to be silent, not to speak a word, nor make any noise (Jos 6:10), that they might the more carefully attend to the sound of the sacred trumpets, which they were now to look upon as the voice of God among them; and it does not become us to speak when God is speaking. It likewise intimates their reverent expectation of the event. Zac 2:13, Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord. Exo 14:14, God shall fight, and you shall hold your peace.
V. They were to do this once a day for six days together and seven times the seventh day, and they did so, Jos 6:14, Jos 6:15. God could have caused the walls of Jericho to fall upon the first surrounding of them, but they must go round them thirteen times before they fall, that they might be kept waiting patiently for the Lord. Though they had lately come into Canaan, and their time was very precious (for they had a great deal of work before them), yet they must linger so many days about Jericho, seeming to do nothing, nor to make any progress in their business. As promised deliverances must be expected in God's way, so they must be expected in his time. He that believes does not make haste, not more haste than God would have him make. Go yet seven times, before any thing hopeful appears, Kg1 18:43.
VI. One of these days must needs be a sabbath day, and the Jews say that it was the last, but this is not certain; however, if he that appointed them to rest on the other sabbath days appointed them to walk on this, that was sufficient to justify them in it; he never intended to bind himself by his own laws, but that when he pleased he might dispense with them. The impotent man went upon this principle when he argued (Joh 5:11), He that made me whole (and therefore has a divine power) said unto me, Take up thy bed. And, in this case here, it was an honour to the sabbath day, by which our time is divided into weeks, that just seven days were to be spent in this work, and seven priests were employed to sound seven trumpets, this number being, on this occasion, as well as many others, made remarkable, in remembrance of the six day's work of creation and the seventh day's rest from it. And, besides, the law of the sabbath forbids our own work, which is servile and secular, but this which they did was a religious act. It is certainly no breach of the sabbath rest to do the sabbath work, for the sake of which the rest was instituted; and what is the sabbath work but to attend the ark in all its motions?
VII. They continued to do this during the time appointed, and seven times the seventh day, though they saw not any effect of it, believing that at the end the vision would speak and not lie, Hab 2:3. If we persevere in the way of duty, we shall lose nothing by it in the long run. It is probable they walked at such a distance from the walls as to be out of the reach of the enemies' arrows and out of the hearing of their scoffs. We may suppose the oddness of the thing did at first amuse the besieged, but by the seventh day they had grown secure, feeling no harm from that which perhaps they looked upon as an enchantment. Probably they bantered the besiegers, as those mentioned in Neh 4:2, "What do these feeble Jews? Is this the people we thought so formidable? Are these their methods of attack?" Thus they cried peace and safety, that the destruction might be the more terrible when it came. Wicked men (says bishop Hall) think God in jest when he is preparing for their judgment; but they will be convinced of their mistake when it is too late.
VIII. At last they were to give a shout, and did so, and immediately the walls fell, Jos 6:16. This was a shout for mastery, a triumphant shout; the shout of a king is among them, Num 23:21. This was a shout of faith; they believed that the walls of Jericho would fall, and by this faith the walls were thrown down. It was a shot of prayer, an echo to the sound of the trumpets which proclaimed the promise that God would remember them; with one accord, as one man, they cry to heaven for help, and help comes in. Some allude to this to show that we must never expect a complete victory over our own corruptions till the very evening of our last day, and then we shall shout in triumph over them, when we come to the number and measure of our perfection, as bishop Hall expresses it. A good heart (says he) groans under the sense of his infirmities, fain would be rid of them, and strives and prays, but, when all is done, until the end of the seventh day it cannot be; then judgment shall be brought forth unto victory. And at the end of time, when our Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the sound of a trumpet, Satan's kingdom shall be completely ruined, and not till then, when all opposing rule, principality, and power, shall be effectually and eternally put down.
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 vv4–20 And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven…
And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns,.... The ark was to be taken up and carried by priests round the city. Ben Gersom observes, that this was to direct the Israelites to keep and do according to all that was written in it; that is, in the law, which was contained in it; but no doubt the design of it was to show, that the subduing of Jericho, and the miracle that would be wrought, were owing to the power and presence of God, of which the ark was a symbol: and before it were to go seven other priests, with trumpets in their hands; which, according to our version, were made of rams horns: in the original it is "jobelim", or "jubilee" trumpets. Some think it means only such as they were to use in the year of jubilee; so Abarbinel and others, as Masius and Noldius (x); that they had their name from Jubal, the first inventor of musical instruments, Gen 4:21; for rams' horns are objected to because they are solid, and not hollow; as if they could not be bored and made hollow, and fit for such a purpose. The Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret the word by rams horns, as we do (y); and observe what R. Akiba said,"when (says he) I went into Arabia, I heard them call; a ram "jobel"; and the trumpet itself is called "jobel", because made of a ram's horn (z):"
and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times; in the same manner as on the other days:
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and the priests shall blow with the trumpets; which they were to do; and did every day.
(x) P. 160. No. 1515. (y) So Joseph. Antiqu. l. 5. c. 6. sect. 5. (z) Kimchi, Sepher. Shorash. rad. R. Sol. Urbim. Ohel Moed, fol. 39. 2.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19 The wall - Not all of it; which was…
The wall - Not all of it; which was unnecessary, and might have given the people better opportunity of escaping, but only a considerable part of it, where the Israelites might fitly enter: for Rahab's house was not overthrown, ver. 22. Flat - Hebrew. under it, it was not battered down with engines which would have made part of it fall out of its place; but it fell of its own accord, and therefore in the place it did formerly stand in. God chose this way, to try the faith and obedience of the people: whether they would observe a precept, which to human policy seemed foolish, and believe a promise, which seemed impossible to be performed: whether they could patiently bear the reproaches of their enemies, and patiently wait for the salvation of God. Thus by faith, not by force, the walls of Jericho fell down.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20 Verse 4. Seven trumpets of rams' horns] The Hebrew…
Verse 4. Seven trumpets of rams' horns] The Hebrew word יובלים yobelim does not signify rams' horns; (See Clarke on Le 25:11); nor do any of the ancient versions, the Chaldee excepted, give it this meaning. The instruments used on this occasion were evidently of the same kind with those used on the jubilee, and were probably made of horn or of silver; and the text in this place may be translated, And seven priests shall bear before the ark the seven jubilee trumpets, for they appear to have been the same kind as those used on the jubilee.
Seven times] The time was thus lengthened out that the besiegers and the besieged might be the more deeply impressed with that supernatural power by which alone the walls fell.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19 Jos 6:5. The wall — Not all of it;…
Jos 6:5. The wall — Not all of it; which was unnecessary, and might have given the people better opportunity of escaping; but only a considerable part of it, where the Israelites might fitly enter: for Rahab’s house was not overthrown, Jos 6:22. Flat — Hebrew, under it. It was not battered down with engines, which would have made part of it fall out of its place, but it fell of its own accord, and therefore in the place it did formerly stand in. God chose this way to try the faith and obedience of the people; whether they would observe a precept which, to human policy, seemed foolish, and believe a promise which seemed impossible to be performed; whether they could patiently bear the reproaches of their enemies, and patiently wait for the salvation of God. Thus, by faith, not by force, the walls of Jericho fell down.
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 vv7, 15, 17 He said - The reading in the Hebrew text…
He said - The reading in the Hebrew text is “they said.” Joshua no doubt issued his orders through the “officers of the people” (compare Jos 1:10).
Him that is armed - i. e. the warriors generally, not a division only. “The rereward” Jos 6:9 was merely a detachment, and not a substantial portiere of the host; and was told off, perhaps, from the tribe of Dan (compare the marginal reference) to close the procession and guard the ark from behind. Thus the order would be
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(1) the warriors,
(2) the seven priests blowing the cornets,
(3) the ark,
(4) the rear-guard.
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 vv4, 5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Jubilee. (Numbers x. 2.) The number seven, is often…
Jubilee. (Numbers x. 2.) The number seven, is often used to express an indefinite number. But here a particular stress is laid upon it. See Masius. As, on the 7th year the Hebrews regained the possessions which they had sold: so now they assert their rights to the land of Chanaan. The sound of the trumpets announced joyful tidings to them. (Menochius)
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv6, 8, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 Joshua . . . called the priests--The pious leader,…
Joshua . . . called the priests--The pious leader, whatever military preparations he had made, surrendered all his own views, at once and unreservedly, to the declared will of God.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 5. All the people shall shout — This was…
5. All the people shall shout — This was to take place during the seventh circuit, at a concerted signal. Previous to that signal they were prohibited from uttering a word; the twelve circumambulations were to be in perfect silence, save the sound of the trumpets.
The wall of the city shall fall down flat — Hebrews, shall fall under itself, that is, to its very foundations. The portion of the wall which constituted the rear wall of Rahab’s house must have been spared. See Jos_6:22.
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Ascend up every man straight before him — The moving column of men was so long that it completely encircled the city. When the wall fell there was a wall of soldiers surrounding it on every side. The command is that this living wall contract by each man’s marching over the ruins towards the centre of the city. Escape would be impossible.
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 vv4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 4. trumpets of rams’ horns] Rather, trumpets of soundings,…
4. trumpets of rams’ horns] Rather, trumpets of soundings, or, of jubilee; “seuen trompes, vhose use is in the jubile.” Not the long straight trumpets generally used, but the same kind that were to be employed on the first day of the seventh month (Lev_23:24), and to announce the year of Jubilee (Lev_25:9). This instrument was curved, and would be more accurately rendered “cornet,” as in 1Ch_15:28; 2Ch_15:14; Psa_98:6; Hos_5:8; Dan_3:5.
seven] Observe the significance here of the number: seven priests; seven horns; seven days of compassing the walls; seven repetitions of it on the seventh day. The influence of the number “seven” was not restricted to the Hebrews. It prevailed among the Persians (Est_1:10; Est_1:14), among the ancient Indians, to a certain extent among the Greeks and Romans, and probably among all nations where the week of seven days was established, as in Egypt, Arabia, China. Amongst the Hebrews seven days were appointed as the length of the Feasts of Passover and Tabernacles; seven days for the ceremonies of the consecration of priests; seven victims were to be offered on any special occasion; and at the ratification of a treaty, the notion of seven was embodied in the very term signifying to swear, literally meaning to do seven times (Gen_21:28). The number seven was thus impressed with the seal of sanctity as the symbol of all connected with the Deity, with the subordinate notions of perfection or completeness. See Smith’s Bibl. Dict. Art. “Seven.”
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 vv4, 7, 13, 17, 19 (4) Seven trumpets of rams’ horns.—Literally, trumpets of jubilee—i.e.,…
(4) Seven trumpets of rams’ horns.—Literally, trumpets of jubilee—i.e., of loud or joyful sound.
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 vv4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 And seven priests shall bear before the ark. The…
And seven priests shall bear before the ark. The Vulgate puts "on the seventh day" in connection with this part of the sentence; Luther also translates thus. The LXX, which Calvin and our translators and the majority of commentators follow, regard this part of the sentence as stating what was to be done on the six days, and rightly so, as vers. 8-14 clearly show. That the historian, as has been before remarked, did not always give the full instructions Joshua received is evident from this passage. The priests are not said to have been instructed to sound the trumpet on the six days; yet we learn from Jos_5:13 that they did so. It is rather implied than expressed that the ark was also to be borne in procession; but that this was (lone is evident from ver. 8. Seven trumpets of rams" horns. There is no mention of rams" horns in the original, which is twOrpwOv trumpets of jubilee, i.e., of triumph (hardly as Gesenius, "alarm trumpets," though not necessarily, with Dr. Vaughan in his "Heroes of Faith," "the emblems of festival, not of warfare"). The word is derived from the same root as the Latin is in the phrase Io Triumphe (cf. Greek iw ), and according to Gesenius our word "yule" is also derived from this root. The rpwOv as the next verse shows, was a curved instrument, in shape like a ram"s horn, though not necessarily of that material; whereas the hrxxOj was a straight trumpet. Seven times. The importance of the number seven as indicative of completeness is here strongly indicated. Seven priests were to carry seven trumpets for seven days. The word for to swear, B literally to be sevened, means to have one"s vow consecrated and confirmed by seven sacrifices or seven witnesses. (see Gen_21:28, Gen_21:30) The number seven, says Bahr in his "Symbolik des Alten Testament," 1., 187, 188, is the sign of the relation, union, communion between God and the world, as represented by the number three and four respectively, just as twelve is in another relation. (see note on Jos_21:3) Its meaning, according to Bahr, among the heathen is somewhat different. There it means the harmony of the universe, and is signified by the seven stars, to which, and neither more nor less, was the power of influencing man"s destiny ascribed. And the priests shall blow with the trumpets. "Fac tibi tribas ductiles, si sacerdos es, immo, quia sacerdos es (gens enim regalis effectus es et sacerdotium sanctum, de te enim scripture est), fac tibi tribas ductiles ex Scripturis sanctis" (Orig., Hom. 7 on Joshua).
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 vv6, 12 Ye shall not shout.
Jos_6:6-11
Ye shall not shout.
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., until the day I bid you shout.
Joshua taking Jericho
I. One of the essential attributes of a great leader--the power to repress the passions of a nation of warriors: Ye shall not shout, &c. This was the command of a young ruler. The temptation of the young and inexperienced is impatience. We but gradually learn the lesson, He that believeth shall not make haste. Joshua, however, had learnt this. It is easy to arouse a nation when new scenes suggest new possibilities, but it is difficult to suppress emotions at such a time, and to insist upon silence until. This is one of the tests of ruler-ship. Every general should be equal to this task. Joshua was.
II. One of the characteristics of a great people--willing obedience to the command to repress their emotions at such a time as this. Joshua does not seem to have told them all that the Lord had told him. Their ignorance of the final issue made obedience to the command to go round Jericho for six days without giving vent to their feelings in one single shout the more difficult, and on that account imparted to it a grander meaning. At the outset the nation of conquerors had to conquer their own spirit. There must be a reserve of force. Only those who can be silent can shout to good purpose. So has it ever been with Gods servants. They have had their seasons of delay. Moses in Midian; Christs disciples tarrying in Jerusalem until, &c.; Paul in Arabia; so here the people who could persist in their apparently meaningless rounds until they were bidden to shout, had the making of conquerors in them. The shout would have all the momentum of the delay in it.
III. The divine method of accomplishing triumphs: Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit. The triumph thus gained is often the consummation of patient waiting and implicit obedience on our part. The world misunderstands the meaning of the apparent monotonous routine of Providence, and asks sneeringly, Where is the promise of His coming? All the while we know that the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, and that every apparent delay hastens the final consummation. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. (D. Davies.)
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 vv6, 17, 20 Jos_6:8. Before the Lord] The Ark is now taken…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Jos_6:8. Before the Lord] The Ark is now taken as the symbol of the Divine presence, just as the Pillar of Cloud had been formerly.
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Jos_6:9. The armed men went before] These are thought to have been the chosen men of the two and a half tribes. “The chalutz, or ‘selected troops,’ went before the Ark, and the measseph, or ‘massed troops,’ followed the Ark.” [Crosby.]
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jos_6:6-16; Jos_6:20
THE FALL OF JERICHO
In looking at the general features of this attack on Jericho, and of the overthrow of the city, there are three things specially prominent:—
I. The significance of the typical formulæ. Certain forms were very minutely and emphatically commanded by God for the direction of Joshua and the people. These are defined with so much care and precision, and urged in detail so particularly, that they cannot be passed by as insignificant. What were they meant to teach? What would God impress upon the Israelites by these unusual and conspicuous methods of attack?
1. Here is a repeated and very marked introduction of the number seven. There are seven priests, seven trumpets, seven days for the continuance of the siege, one journey round the city each day, making seven daily circuits, and then seven circuits on the last day. The long blast of the trumpets, the great shout of the people, and the sudden falling of the walls, were to immediately succeed this seventh circuit thus made on the seventh day. When we remember that God was avowedly teaching His people by outward signs, it is impossible to regard all this as empty repetition. We should endeavour to ascertain the meaning and force of this use of the number to these Israelites; then, striking off any differences between their outward circumstances and our own, the principles which remain will be the Divine teaching to us. Kitto, Keil, Bähr, and Hengstenberg all agree that this use of the number seven had reference to the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. Dr. Kitto points out very fully that this number has ever had remarkable prominence in many nations besides that of the Jews, and thinks that “the one great fact in which all this originated is the work of creation in seven days.” Several of the following illustrations are from Kitto’s remarks on the subject. Grimm says, “Even at the present day the number seven is curiously regarded in Germany in matters of evidence.” In England we have seven years’ parliaments. Leases of farms and houses are drawn for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. Persons come of age at thrice seven years. The transportation of criminals, the indentures of apprenticeship, and other similar matters, have had reference to the number seven. These cases have each to do with legal covenants and transactions. “Among the gifts with which Agamemnon proposed to seal a covenant of peace with Achilles, Homer speaks of
‘Seven tripods, unsullied yet with fire,’
and further on, of seven female captives, skilled in domestic arts, the latter especially intended as an atonement-offering to the wrathful hero.” It is said that “among the ancient Arabians, when men pledged their faith to each other by oath, blood, drawn from an incision near the mid-finger of the contracting parties, was sprinkled upon seven stones, placed between them, and while this was done, they called upon their gods.” “In the Hebrew language, as in the Sanscrit, the words for ‘an oath’ and for ‘seven’ are the same. In the former language, Sheba has that twofold meaning; hence the question whether the name Beer-sheba, where Abraham and Abimelech confirmed their covenant by a solemn oath, means ‘the well of the oath,’ or ‘the well of seven,’ or ‘seven wells.’ If, in this remarkable instance, we dispense with the allusion in the name to the number seven, that number is still present; for before the oath was uttered, Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs in so marked a manner as to attract the inquiries of the king, to whom the patriarch answered, ‘These seven ewe lambs shalt thou take at my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well.’ ” So Balak builds for Balaam seven altars in order to secure a covenant with their gods for a curse on Israel. Asa and Hezekiah, in after years, each brings his offerings in sevens, to renew the national covenant before the Lord. Naaman dips seven times in Jordan. This prominence given to this particular number is seen running not less conspicuously through the Jewish rites and sacrifices. “The altar itself, at its original establishment, was to be consecrated for seven days to render it most holy. A young animal was not held fit for sacrifice until it had remained seven days with its dam; and so likewise the male child, among the Hebrews, was, after seven days, that is, on the eighth day, consecrated to the Lord by circumcision.” By referring to a concordance, these instances will be seen to be only a few among many which go to illustrate the sacredness attached to this number by the Jews both before and after this siege of Jericho.
While fanciful meanings are to be deprecated, there can be no possible doubt that, in this attack on Jericho, God designed to call the attention of the Jews to His covenant. They were to go up to this battle, and to all of which this was meant to be a pattern, remembering the oath of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, in all our conflicts, we are to fight in sight of the promises, most of all remembering “the blood of the everlasting covenant,” by which alone we can be victorious, (a) Do we work for the salvation of our fellows in view of God’s unfailing word? Is the work of parents for their children, of teachers for their classes, of ministers for their congregations, sufficiently carried on in the light of covenanted blessing? Do we not often go in our own strength to battles in which we can only hope to succeed as we go in the strength of the Lord? In vulgar phrase, it is “number one,” and not “number seven,” that we emblazon on our banners; it is about our poor weak personality that we hang our expectations, instead of resting on the sure word of Jehovah. How some of the old prophets were wont to cry, “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!” No matter what was to be done, if they could only say that: it might be the captivity of a whole nation at Babylon, or a return from such a captivity; it might be a cradle at Bethlehem, a cross on Calvary, and a Redeemer for the whole world; if they could only say, “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,” their utterance was ever given in the energy of faith and in the unhesitating tones of triumph. If we only went to our work and conflicts with all our hopes, like this army of Israelites, gathering about a covenant centre, we should not so often be talking about our own weakness, or about the hopeless wickedness of those whom we seek to win for the Saviour. The very fact that we are so disheartened at our own feebleness, or at the difficulty of the work which we are seeking to compass, says, as plainly as it well could be said, that we have scarcely so much as given the covenant a thought, much less our trust. (b) Are we bearing our sufferings through faith in Divine words? Is “number one,” or is “number seven,” the more conspicuous here? (c) Are we seeking to subdue personal sin, having all our hopes of victory gathering about what the mouth of the Lord hath spoken? Thoughts like these are surely thoughts which God meant us to reflect on, as He had these ancient words “written for our admonition.”
2. Here is the prominent position given to the Ark. This has already been adverted to under the previous verses. We not only need the promises, but their Divine Author.
3. Here is the impressive silence of the people (Jos_6:10). Not only did it need that the Lord should be there, but men were to be as though they were not there. They were to “keep silence before Him” whose presence was necessary, and not so much as to pretend that they had any real part in getting the victory.
4. Here is the equally impressive shout which immediately preceded the overthrow of the walls (Jos_6:16-20). The Lord would have His enemies to see that He and His people are in close union. The men of Jericho must have seen that the God of Israel was doing all; the shout which just anticipated the fall of the walls would shew that God had means of making His time known to the Israelites, and that they in turn fully believed in Him. This is a shout of faith, and a shout of anticipating praise.
II. The severity of the spiritual discipline.
1. God tries His servants by commanding things which apparently have little adaptation to the end sought. How absurd this marching would seem to the critical Israelitish mind; and how the patience of the “intelligent” part of the host would be tried. If the dividing of the Jordan had not been so fresh in mind, we feel as though there might have been yet another rebellion. But this process of besieging the city, which looks so unnatural to us, was exactly adapted to accomplish the purpose of Jehovah. God was not waiting all this time to collect His energy for the everthrow of a few walls. He was not waiting to gather up His power for the destruction of the Canaanites. He could have spoken and destroyed the city and the idolaters at a word. The Lord had a more exalted war. His battle was with human hearts. He was seeking to overcome these Israelites rather than those Canaanites. He would subdue them to Himself with faith, and bind them fast with wonder and thankfulness and love. And whatever “intelligent” men might think of fancied absurdities in this conflict, surely there never was such a display of military genius before. These tactics of human silence and the quiet walking of so vast an host around Jericho for six days were adapted with infinite wisdom to overawe the Canaanites. We can fancy the fear which kept growing up for those six days within the city, which took on new alarms at the unusual succession of these silent marches on the seventh day, and which made the hearts of the idolaters to melt and become as water indeed when that great shout of faith rent the air and seemed to crumble the very walls to dust. If the Israelites had only fought a little more humanly, the Canaanites might have hoped; what hope dared they encourage before these men who brought with them a superhuman history, and then gave the history vivid realism by these superhuman methods? The very air through the whole week must have felt increasingly awful in the noiseless and tremulous suspense which, as the stillness preceding a tropical storm, silently heralded the coming God. And the strategy which was so divinely wise to conquer the Canaanites through fear, was not less adapted to subdue the Israelites through wonder and joy and love. God’s way with the idolaters was wise; but His real war was with the Israelites, and that was not less wise. No one can think of lack of adaptation, much less entertain the idea of absurdity, who pauses sufficiently to understand where the real brunt of the battle lay. The world still goes on with its intelligent criticisms, passed now on the Gospel and the Church; and it not seldom misses its way altogether through failing to understand what God is about, and where His conflict is meant to bear. Men approach Calvary from a mental and scientific standpoint, and take their observations in the light of systematic theology; the strategy of the cross is directed to the conscience, and while it has enough of “sweet reasonableness” to make a feint upon the mind, its heavier and real movements are ever made upon the heart. Men discuss “the foolishness of preaching,” and make merry over what they call the truth of the apostolic description; they do not heed that the larger half of God’s battle may be with the proud hearts which have to cry, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel,” and with the discontented spirits who have to hear. They do not know that mere intellectualism may be but a proud parade in mental uniform, and that, to some natures, it needs as much humility and grace to preach a good sermon as it might have needed, under the pretence of military genius, to march for six days around Jericho. These are but indications; but everywhere men are misreading God’s plan of battle, and forgetting that half of His war is to take captive, through severe discipline and surprising successes, the men who are named “His people,” but whom He is wishing to see more entirely His own. He could overawe the world with a word, if that were all; instead of that, He is designing that men should choose Him and love Him for what He is, and, humbling themselves everywhere to prefer His will to their own, glorify Him for what He does.
2. God would have His servants feel that they need as much trial to bear victory as they could possibly realize even in defeat. In heaven we may be able to bear triumphs without preparation; on earth we need go to victory so as to provoke the scorn of our foes, lest our victory should be even worse than defeat. In our defeats, God’s plan is to lead us through defeat straight to victory, lest we be discouraged; in our victories, His way is to lead us to success through paths of shame and weariness, lest victory be the most utter defeat of all. Thus does He contrive everywhere to make His people “more than conquerors.”
III. The splendour of Divine triumphs.
1. God’s victories are openly won before the eyes of men, but no eye sees the process. Of old, and not less now, he saps the walls silently, and undermines them secretly. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
2. God’s victories are preceded by an unaccountable feeling of expectation. Jericho held its breath in awe; Israel marched on in outward silence, but inwardly was full of the joy of anticipated triumph. On both sides, human consciousness was acknowledging the approach of its Maker. So has it been in many of the revivals of the Church. 3. When God begins to fight, His triumphs admit of no question. Human fortifications simply serve to shew Divine prowess.
4. The victories of God are each preliminary to triumph which is final, and to conquest which is universal. This first victory at Jericho contemplated nothing less than the possession of all Canaan. Thus it is also in the kingdom of Christ; the cross contemplates a last enemy, pronounces that that enemy “shall be destroyed,” and says of the greater JOSHUA, “He shall reign for ever and ever.”
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Jos_6:6-9.—THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE SERVANT.
In the opening verses of this chapter we have the record of the Divine commands which were given to Joshua concerning the siege of Jericho. In these verses which follow, we see the impression made on Joshua’s mind by the vision with which he was favoured, and by the words which he heard.
I. The true servant gives reverent attention to that which his Lord says. Joshua seems not to have lost a word, or to have forgotten anything which he was commanded. He was not so absorbed in the glory of the Divine Presence as to forget the importance of the Divine message. Joshua did not lack reverence; he bowed low before the majesty of God, and “fell on his face to the earth.” Joshua could not but feel the greatness of the honour done to himself in this visit so graciously made to him by his Lord. He at once accepted the subordinate position, and said to his Divine Commander, “What said my Lord unto His servant?” Joshua’s profound reverence did not distract his attention, and his sense of the honour conferred upon him by God did not take shape in conduct which would prave him unworthy of such honour. There is not a word in the chapter to show that Joshua proclaimed to the people the fact that he had been favoured with this vision; he may have communicated it to the officers, but even of that nothing is said. Certainly no parade of this distinctive honour appears to have been made.
1. He serves well who accepts his Lord’s distinctive favours as a stimulus to work, rather than as giving an occasion for display. God’s honours cannot but delight His people, but the man who receives honour to parade it assuredly does not use it as God would have him. Whatever of truth there may be in those lines of one of Dr. Watts’s noblest hymns, in which he says,
“But favourites of the Heavenly King
May speak their joys abroad;”
many have felt this exultant note of joy in favouritism was not written in that higher and nobler mood which best becomes those who love the Lord. Given that the doctrine represents nothing but the truth, the spirit of that single note jars painfully through the otherwise exalted harmony of the whole hymn. Our distinctive favours are to help us in service rather than in song; they are rather for meditation than for exhibition; they are not so much for others as for ourselves.
2. He worships well who so adores the Divine glory as to endeavour to magnify it yet more. We are not to be so absorbed in our visions, and so taken up with our more ecstatio moments of fellowship with God, as to let them end only in communion. The glory of the Lord must never take away our attention from His commandments. Even Saul of Tarsus, ere he became a servant indeed, cried out under the bright light which revealed to him the presence and majesty of the Son of God, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” So Joshua, the obedient man of many years, asks at once from his prostrate position of adoration, “What saith my Lord unto His servant?” It is not enough to exult in God’s glory as seen in nature, as seen in His attributes and word, or as seen in the character of Jesus Christ; the best reverence we can pay to Him is, while we worship, to hide His words in our hearts. That is the first step in the way to victory.
II. The true servant faithfully makes known the words of the Lord to his fellows. The verses in which Joshua speaks to the people are so very like the verses in which the Lord speaks to Joshua, that they sound like a mere recapitulation. This is as it should be.
1. Our human imaginings are not to be put instead of Divine words. What we think is not even to be added to what God says, with any view of perfecting His plan or supplying His omissions. Joshua had been the general of this army for forty years, and out of his large experience he could readily have made suggestions for the attack, which would have commended themselves to the people; he merely tells them what God has said. He alters nothing, and he does but amplify in order to explain and enforce that which he has heard. Such is the spirit of all true preaching.
2. Our human apologies or excuses are never needed for Divine words, and are always out of place. If ever an apologetic tone in reiterating God’s words were allowable, surely it would have been here. This military order was so strange. The people had seen something of war, and had some experience in war; and this command to march round a fortified city in silence for six days, and to shout at the close of the seventh circuit on the seventh day, must certainly have had a peculiar sound. Joshua does not explain the command; he does not even add a word to remind them that God had lately so revealed Himself in the dividing of the Jordan, that however strange might be His precepts, He had a right to unquestioning obedience. Joshua simply tells what he has heard, and bids the people do it. That is all that this faithful servant has to say on the matter. This was very beautiful in Joshua the soldier. It was like saying, “Obey orders, and ask no questions.” It was accepting the orders of his own Commander implicitly; and it was the right method to adopt, if he would have his soldiers obey their commander. This spirit was even more admirable in Joshua the servant; it was as though he should say to himself, “Who am I to suggest aught of excuse for the Lord?” This spirit, also, is a pre-requisite for victory. Our preaching must have no additions to the Gospel, and no apologies for the strange ways of Divine mercy and love. Pardon without penance may sound peculiar, atonement through blood may appear both awful and strange, victory through faith may not seem the fittest way of triumph to us; perhaps he will honour God best, and lead most of his fellows to salvation, who simply tells out the story as it is. The philosophy of the cross is not the secret of its triumph, and preaching about the Gospel may be ever so different from preaching the Gospel itself. It is well that some should “explain the way of the Lord,” no doubt; yet the exposition of Divine truth should ever be given in the spirit of its enforcement. The tone of apology, however; must always be as offensive to God as it is injurious to men. The way to victory is not that way.
III. The true servant not only hears attentively, and reiterates faithfully; he also obeys promptly. Sometimes, in our prayers, we plead before God as David did—“Do as Thou hast said.” If we would have God do as He has said, we must do as He has said also. Joshua looks forward in faith to victory, but only through promptly obeying the Divine word. When we can lose our way and will in the way and will of God as Joshua did here, we shall not be far removed from triumphs similar to his. As we become perfect in the spirit of serving the Lord, so shall we become more than conquerors over the world.
Jos_6:10.—THE SILENT AND DILIGENT SERVICE OF MEN PRELIMINARY TO THE MANIFEST WORKING OF GOD.
I. The silence of obedience. There are places where we are commanded to “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Where speech might have been murmuring, and thus rebellion, “Aaron held his peace.”
II. The silence of humility. When the Lord fights for us, it best becomes us to let all men see that the battle is not ours, but His. As Mackintosh has said, “No one would think of bringing a lighted candle to add brightness to the sun at mid-day; and yet the man who would do so might well be accounted wise, in comparison with him who attempts to assist God by his bustling officiousness.… The only possible effect of human efforts is to raise a dust which obscures the view of God’s salvation.”
“God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts: who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve, who only stand and wait.”
Milton’s Sonnets.
“The Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
III. The silence of patience. They who serve God can well afford to wait. The walls which fall not on the sixth day, will yet give way on the seventh. He who can only work when success is manifest, is but a poor servant; and he who can only fight in the hour of evident victory, is not worthy of the name of soldier. How the Saviour waited during those thirty long years ere He began His work! Speaking of Him in that period, F. W. Robertson said, “A mere man—a weak, emotional man of spasmodic feeling—a hot enthusiast—would have spoken out at once, and at once been crushed. The Everlasting Word Incarnate bided His own time,—‘Mine hour is not yet come;’ matured His energies, condensed them by repression; and then He went forth to speak and do and suffer. His hour was come. This is strength—the power of a Divine silence, the strong will to keep force till it is wanted, the power to wait God’s time.” Not less patiently did Christ wait after His work commenced. He knew how to pass through the midst of wrathful men, who sought to cast Him from the brow of the hill at Nazareth on the very day when He began His ministry, and yet not to be discouraged. He could endure to say, “The Son of man hath not where to lay His head,” and not only to say that, but to feel the bitterness of such rejection as none but He could feel it, and yet to continue His silent and holy service. He could bear to know that “neither did His brethren believe on Him,” and still work. He could see one apostle waiting in weakness to deny Him, and another in malice already on the way to betray Him, and then, glancing back over His apparently fruitless ministry, say to the eleven, “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” He could enter into the agony of Gethsemane, expire amid the hootings of a nation who crowned their rejection of Him on Golgotha, pass into the darkness of the tomb, and emerging thence say even to the disciples who had all forsaken Him and fled, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” Though despised and rejected of men, He commanded them to wait for the promise of the Father in the very place where men would have said failure was most apparent; and when that promise of the Father came, they were to arise and preach the Gospel among all nations, “beginning at Jerusalem.” There is nothing that preaches to us, “Be silent to the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psa_37:7, Marg.), as does the Lord’s own life. In its beginnings, throughout its duration, and in its earthly end, that Life seems to spend itself in telling out with Divine force the word of the ancient prophet—“It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.”
IV. The silence of faith. Silence is a time of power, not of weakness. T. T. Lynch has told us that
“In silence, mighty things are wrought;”
and, similarly, another,
“How grand is silence! In her tranquil deeps
What mighty things are born!”
and Faber—“When God spake all things into being, the everlasting silence remained unbroken. No stir was seen, no commotion felt. The starting into life of ten thousand times ten thousand millions of angels from the deep abyss of eternity, created no noise. The creation of millions upon millions of worlds, by the fiat of His matchless power, was done in noiselessness and peace.” Man may need commotion and disturbance to assure him that work is being done, silence is sufficient for God; and sometimes, as here around Jericho, God asks His children to believe, although there is nothing but Himself on which their faith can rest. When His children do thus rest in faith, they are content to walk on in the same silence out of which God so loves to evolve His mightiest works.
V. The silence of expectation and awe. We feel as if this very shout must have had, almost within it, a silence intense, profound, and absolutely awful. In his “Battle of the Baltic,” when the fleets of England and Denmark had met, and were about to engage, Campbell sells us,
“There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time:
When each gun
From its adamantine lips
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.”
So intense and terrible do we feel the silence must have been which preceded, and which again immediately succeeded this fear-filling shout from six hundred thousand believing men. When they had thus given Jehovah’s chosen sign for His own working to commence, what would God do?—the God who had made a path through the sea, and divided the Jordan; how would He begin His war on Jericho? Joshua knew how; but had he told the people? It seems not; and yet all Israel must have felt that this was the crisis. How would Omnipotence declare itself? We can almost feel, even now, the bated breath that made silence painful ere that shout was given, and the yet more awful stillness, coupled as it would be with intense gazing and terrible expectation, which abruptly followed—so abruptly, perhaps, that all straggling sounds of single lingering voices were choked back in the solemn hush that fell like a spell upon the host. What would God do now? And then, almost as they ask that silent question, the walls fall in upon themselves, a cloud of dust arises right round the city, another solemn stillness succeeds the murmur of awe among the Israelites which the sight had involuntarily provoked; the cloud clears away, fear and pain have taken hold upon the fleeing idolaters; then the trumpets of the priests suddenly sound forth in the midst of the hosts of Israel, and the army of the Lord charges on the devoted city on all sides at once, and proceeds to execute the terrible ban of cherem in slaughter and burning.
If such be the temporal punishment of sin, what must be its final judgment? If such be the awe gathering around the overthrow of one guilty city, what of those moments when the hosts of the wicked of all time stand before the judgment seat of Christ? “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” In that day it shall again be said, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”
Jos_6:11.
I. The first day of obedient service on the part of the Lord’s people. No murmurings are recorded as having been uttered against doing a meaningless task. In days like these, no desertions occur from the army of the Lord to the side of the Lord’s enemies. Contempt and scorn would hardly be felt by those who had seen the mercy of Jehovah in the dividing of the river. Rest must have been sweet on the night succeeding this day’s toil; it was the rest of obedience overshadowed by mercies which were hardly past, and made refreshing by promises almost fulfilled.
II. The first day of more direct and solemn warning to the Lord’s enemies. The general warnings of Providence and Scripture will have a day in which they will begin to assume definite shape to every man who has not repented of sin (cf. Mat_24:32-34). AS with the inhabitants of Jericho and Jerusalem, so must it be to all who fear not God. The day will come in which dispersed threatenings will be seen concentrating themselves for judgment.
The warnings of one day are very like those of another; even when they are most solemn, it is possible to become almost comfortably familiar with them. On the morning of the seventh day the men of Jericho had perhaps learned to say to each other almost pleasantly, “All things continue they were from the beginning.”
It is significant, however, that we have no single word of record to guide us as to the feeling which prevailed in Jericho from this first day of compassing the city to the day when it fell. Not so much as a sound of either scorn or fear reaches us to tell us what these men felt. All seems purposely shut off in the darkness of oblivion. What a picture of many other deaths, and how like the speechless stillness which follows them! As yet, eternity gives no sign.
Jos_6:12-20. JERICHO TAKEN.
“
I. The city which was to be taken. Jericho was a city of great antiquity and importance. It was inclosed by walls so considerable that houses were built upon them (chap. Jos_2:15), while the spoil that was found in it is an evidence of its opulence. When the tribes made their encampment in Gilgal, the inhabitants caused the city to be straitly shut up, so that “none went out and none came in.” But they could not shut out God. There are no gates and bars that can stand against Him. How vainly they reckon who leave God out of their calculations! When He is with us, no opposing host can harm us; but when He is against us, no earthly walls can protect us.
II. The means by which it was taken. These were very peculiar.…
1. There was no natural fitness in the means to produce the end designed.
2. The means employed were such as would provoke the ridicule of the besieged.
3. The means employed produced no effect whatever for six days, nor even on the seventh, until the shout was raised at the last.
III. The disposition that was to be made of the city. It was to be accursed, or devoted, to God. The Israelites in destroying the inhabitants of Jericho and the Canaanites generally, were but the instruments in God’s hand of carrying out His sentence.
LESSONS:
1. Retribution though long delayed comes at last. God’s judgments have leaden feet, and so they come slowly; but they have iron hands, and so they strike deadly when they come.
2. Faith does what God says, and asks no questions.
3. At the sound of the trumpets of the priests, the walls of Jericho fell down. By the preaching of the Gospel the strongholds of sin and Satan are to be overthrown.
4. Let us not be impatient of results when we are doing God’s commands.
5. Success in our working for God is His doing, not ours, and so the whole glory of it should be given to Him.” [William Taylor, D.D.]
Jos_6:20.
I. God gives His servants success when they are prepared for it, and as they are able to bear it. A London minister, whose work for the past nine years has been marked by great prosperity, recently made the following statement at a public meeting: “With the first church over which I was called to preside, I spent four years in what seemed an almost fruitless ministry. I think I preached as fervently then as I preach now, and I prayed for God’s blessing with all my heart. I looked for success, and week by week announced times at which I would meet enquirers, but none came. I prayed till prayer became an agony within me; still there were no converts. On one Sunday evening I made a special effort to win souls to Christ. All through the preceding week I pleaded, as though I were pouring out my very soul, for a blessing on that service. I prepared, as far as I knew how, simply with a view to conversion. On the evening before the service in question, I went into a field at the back of the chapel, and again, with tears, I besought God to save some. I gave out that I would meet enquirers at the close of the service; not one came either then or afterwards as the fruit of that appeal. Eight years ago,” said the speaker, “I preached the same sermon in what was then my new sphere of labour, and ninety-seven persons joined the Church, who traced their conversion to that one discourse.” The minister concluded by saying, “I think that in my four years of fruitless labour the Lord was enabling me to bear present success, and getting me in a fit mind to endure the large measure of prosperity with which I have been cheered for the past nine years.”
II. When God gives His servants success, He ever gives it to their faith alone, and yet never bestows it without their work. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down,” but they did not fall till “after they had been compassed about seven days.” Works are of no use, as is most manifest in this siege, yet God will give no blessing without the works. Some might say, “That is the precise point in dispute between Paul and James; Paul tells us that we must have faith, and James that we must have works.” True, they do say that; but there is no dispute between Paul and James. Paul says that we are justified by faith, meaning, of course, a good faith; and James does but assure us that that only is a good and real faith which has works. Perhaps the late F. W. Robertson’s illustration gives one of the best definitions of the difference and agreement between the two apostles: “Suppose I say, ‘A tree cannot be struck without thunder:’ that is true, for there is never destructive lightning without thunder. But, again, if I say, ‘The tree was struck by lightning without thunder:’ that is true too, if I mean that the lightning alone struck it, without the thunder striking it. Yet read the two assertions, and they seem contradictory. So in the same way, St. Paul says, ‘Faith justifies without works;’ that is, faith alone is that which justifies us, not works. But St. James says, ‘Not a faith which is without works.’ There will be works with faith, as there is thunder with lightning, but just as it is not the thunder, but the lightning (the lightning without the thunder), that strikes the tree, so it is not the works which justify. Put it in one sentence,—faith alone justifies, but not the faith which is alone. Lightning alone strikes, but not the lightning which is alone, without thunder; for that is only summer lightning, and harmless.” The works of the Israelites before Jericho stood in the same relation to the fall of the walls. The works accomplished absolutely nothing; by faith the walls fell down: it is equally true that the faith would have been as powerless as the works, had it not been accompanied by the works. Our faith alone is effectual to command the help of God; but if our faith is alone, as having no works, it is not a faith which God will accept.
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 v10 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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v5 And it shall come to pass
And it shall come to pass
The central truth here is that spiritual victories are won by means and upon principles utterly foolish and inadequate in the view of human wisdom. 1Co 1:17-29; 2Co 10:3-5.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v15 Rahab Saved at the Overthrow of Jericho
Rahab Saved at the Overthrow of Jericho
v. 15. And it came to pass on the seventh day that they rose early about the dawning of the day, when the first indications of the new day were visible in the east, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times; only on that day they compassed the city seven times, the greater part of the day, probably till near sundown, being occupied with this marching.
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v. 16. And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, or, the priests had sounded the blast on the trumpets, for the description in the Hebrew is more vivid than in the translation, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.
v. 17. And the city shall be accursed, devoted to the Lord as under His curse and condemnation, even it and all that are therein, to the Lord; only Rahab, the harlot, shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent, Jos 2:4.
v. 18. And ye, in any wise, by all means, keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, become polluted with the curse which God had pronounced upon the city and all it contained, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it, since the transgression of a single person would be charged to the entire people. "A devoted thing, 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. " (Starke. )
v. 19. But all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron are consecrated unto the Lord, literally, "holiness are they to the Lord," and therefore not to be taken and used for profane purposes; they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.
v. 20. So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets, at the long blast after the seventh trip around the city on this last day. And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, as commanded by the Lord,
v. 5. that the wall fell down flat, toppled over and crumbled to pieces, so that the people, the attacking soldiers, went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city, by an obvious, almighty interposition of the Lord.
v. 21. And they utterly destroyed 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, for it was the Lord’s war of extermination.
v. 22. But Joshua 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, Jos 2:14.
v. 23. Arid the young men that were spies, who had performed the work of spies in the instance referred to, went in and brought out Rahab, her house having evidently not fallen, although it was built against the city wall, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred, Jos 2:13, and left them without the camp of Israel, until they should have performed all the rites which were necessary to admit them into the congregation of the Lord.
v. 24. And they, the soldiers of Israel, burned 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. Thus was Jericho offered up as a first-fruits of the conquered land, because "this was the first city of Canaan which Jehovah had given into the hands of His people. This city, therefore, Israel should offer to the Lord, and even consecrate to Him as devoted, for a sign or token that they received the whole land from His hand, as a loan of what had fallen to Him, and not what they could obtain for themselves. "
v. 25. And Joshua saved Rahab, the harlot, alive, and her fathers household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day, being alive and considered a member of the people of the Lord at the time when this account was written, Cf Mat 1:5; because she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. It was a reward of her act of faith.
v. 26. And Joshua adjured them, the soldiers of Israel, at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho; he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, lose his oldest son at that time, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it, he being taken by death at the completion of the building of the city. This threat was literally fulfilled, as the history of Israel shows, 1Ki 16:34.
v. 27. So the Lord was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country, his military ability as well as his success under the guidance of Jehovah. The overthrow of Jericho showed plainly that Jehovah was battling for His people, for the walls of the city fell by faith, Heb 11:30. This faith is the victory which overcomes the world. But in the fall of Jericho we also see a type of the final overthrow of all the powers of the world, death, and hell. At the end of the world the Lord will come with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, 1Th 4:16, and the whole world will fall down in ruins as He proceeds to carry out His judgment upon His enemies.
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 vv5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
God continues telling Joshua what the people must do.
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they must sound a long blast with the ram's horn ... of the trumpet
The word "they" refers to the seven priests. The "ram's horn" and "trumpet" refer to the trumpets of rams' horns that the priests were blowing in Joshua 6:4.
the wall of the city
"the outer wall of the city" or "the wall surrounding the city"
translationWords
ewe
trumpet
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 vv4, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 20 6:4 Seven is a biblical number of perfection. •…
6:4 Seven is a biblical number of perfection. • The seven priests were to precede the Ark, the emblem of God’s presence, at the head of Israel’s forces. This arrangement symbolized that God himself fought against the town. Israel had only to march and observe, then shout and observe, and finally mop up after God delivered the town into their hands. • The ram’s horn (Hebrew shofar) could sound several pitches to signal either battle or worship. In battle, the shofar alerted troops or townsfolk to an enemy’s approach or sounded the call to advance or retreat.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.