We haveGod’s battle plans. In Chapter 6. We arrive at Jericho which, “was securely shut up because of their fear no-one went out or came in (v1). Jericho was on full alert; it was on lockdown (a term we had become familiar with in 2020/21). From a human perspective, this would be a hard, if not impossible, battle. Yet from God’s perspective, the battle was already over, because He says to Joshua “I have given Jericho into your hand.” (Note the past tense) Don’t forget what Rahab said in Ch 2v9-11 – the people of Jericho were in terror of the Israelites because they had heard what God had done for and through them.
Now the real task before them must be faced and tackled. The Canaanites must be dispossessed if Israel is to occupy what God has promised them.
How were the Israelites to get in and conquer? The simple fact was that they weren’t, because God had other plans — they were to surround it. Strange! Were they to wait for them to come out and pot them off one by one? That would have been a long process. No!
“You shall march around the city” (v3): The method of warfare was one that made absolutely no sense according to military intelligence. It required total dependence on God. It required great faith from Joshua, because he had to explain and lead the nation in this plan. It required great faith from the elders and the nation, because they had to follow Joshua in this plan.
It is true that God’s plans, from a human standpoint, often make little or no sense. You can see that throughout the Bible. The important factor is that they are God’s plans and not ours. When God states His plan, we must have faith to believe and trust Him to bring it to pass. Amazingly, as we see here in the conquest of Jericho, God involves us in His plan and so we must be obedient. If we don’t want to be involved, then there’s no point in having faith and “Faith without works is dead”
I think (those of us who went to Sunday School) we get the idea that everyone had to walk, but it appears that it was the fighting men who were to walk round the city (6v3). There was an armed guard in front of the Ark, with the priests carrying trumpets. Then more were to walk behind the Ark of the Covenant each day for six days in absolute silence (apart from the priests blowing the trumpets) (v10). In v13-14 it is clear that 7 priests went with trumpets before the Ark, the armed men ahead of them, then those who carried the Ark (Levites) and then an armed guard behind it.
Just imagine the thoughts of the Israelites – why are we doing this, it is stupid? They will shoot us.
Even the inhabitants of Jericho, what must they have thought? Why are these people doing this? lf they are only going for a walk they are no danger to us, especially after six days, they are going to be tired out and certainly not in any position to fight us. So it went on for nearly a week – each wondering what was going to happen. Israel probably getting fed up, Jericho no doubt feeling tetchy and uneasy as they surely must have thought Israel was up to something!
Then surprise, surprise, on the seventh day – well one would have expected a day of rest, like the 4th Commandment said, but no, they were to go again, but this time seven times. Seven times!!!
Can you imagine them saying “O come on Joshua, it’s far enough once, but not seven”. However, Joshua had told them very clearly that it was God’s command, so, however stupid, tiring and apparently wrong it may seem, they must obey it. Failure would spell defeat.
One conjures up the city of Jericho being very large and virtually impossible to walk around it seven times in a day, thirteen times in one week. But when you think of the walls of Chester you could walk round them in about an hour. Cities tend to grow as the years pass and like Chester which was probably originally confined with all its population within the walls, it gradually spread outside them as the population grew. Like any city or town all the houses would have been within the centre — even the boundary of Warrington has spread over the years, originally the population would have been almost entirely within a small radius. In my early visits to Warrington, I recall lots of terraced houses in or near the centre. Think of the churches around the centre they would have been normally surrounded by houses, but not now. Jericho was probably similar and thus confined relatively small inside its walls.
So, I don’t think Jericho was an exceptionally large city; but it was an important, formidable fortress city. If Israel could defeat Jericho, they could defeat anything else that would face them in Canaan. Again, we see the wisdom of God as opposed to human wisdom, in that Israel probably faces their most difficult opponent first.
Archaeological evidence seems to have produced conflicting theories at different times about the city of Jericho and its walls. There is evidence of the walls having to be rebuilt 17 times over a 1500-year period of the early to middle Bronze Age (Werner Keller – The Bible as History). But victory over Jericho was to be won by God and not by man – no man would have done it like this. Won by God and received by the people.
“The wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him:” (v5) it was a plan for victory, and it would clearly be the work of the LORD. Yet God gave them some part in it, so that Israel could work in partnership with God.
Obviously, it was something that God could have done without Israel’s help at all, but He wanted them to be a part of His work – as He wants us to be a part of His work today and to be part of it requires two things – Faith and Obedience.
“Then Joshua … called the priests” (v6): Joshua had to tell the priests, because what they were asked to do was unusual. Normally, priests and the Ark of the Covenant did not go with Israel to battle.
“Take up the Ark of the Covenant”: God’s visible presence and promise. The ark would be prominent in this victory, even as it had been in the crossing of the Jordan River. Israel had to keep their hearts and minds on The LORD who was present with them, instead of concentrating on the difficulty of the task in front of them.
“And he said to the people: “(v6) Joshua had to tell the people, because what they also were asked to do was unusual. This was no customary way to conquer a walled, fortified city. Deliverances must be expected in God’s way, so they must be expected in his time
v8 “When Joshua had spoken to the people” Joshua does not hesitate to do what the LORD has told him to do. Often, our delays to obey God show that we really don’t believe Him.
· It took courage for Israel to do this; Israel was wide open to attack during this time, they were camped at Gilgal, in the plains of Jericho, and it would have been easy for the people of Jericho to attack them from the high position of the walls.
· It took endurance for Israel to do this; the march was for six days, seven times on the seventh day and they had to persist with something that, humanly speaking, didn’t seem to make much sense.
· In this, the helplessness of Israel was revealed; through seven days of marching, they had a good look at the walls that seemed to be impenetrable – they knew that this was a battle bigger than they were. Perhaps the more they saw the walls, the more they knew that they were unable to penetrate those walls.
v11-15 we have an account of the 13 circumnavigations of the city. And then “…. for the LORD has given you the city!” (v16) The command was given for the people to shout. After the days of silence, this comes as recognition that God would now give them what He had promised.
v16 Seven times and then the priests blew the trumpets, amazing they still had the puff left to do it! And the people were instructed by Joshua to shout – shout, after walking round seven times? Yes, shout, for The LORD had given them the city.
v17 God said the city shall be doomed to destruction and all who are in lt, save for Rahab and all in her house. Remember, she had to display the scarlet thread in her window to identify her house. It wasn’t to tell God which one was her house, God didn’t need to know, He already knew, and it wasn’t for the Israelite army to recognise and spare her, but Rahab had to be obedient by putting the scarlet cord in the window. God knew and He was going to demolish the walls not the army. It was reminiscent of the Passover when the blood had to be applied to the doorpost and lintel. It was the sign of the blood of Jesus under which we are safe.
In this we see God’s judgement and redemption.
The severe judgment that is brought against Jericho and all of Canaan didn’t come because they were obstructing God’s people. It came because this was a people who were in total rebellion against God and in league with the occult, as the artefacts recovered from this period demonstrate.
God had instructed Joshua (v18) to tell the Israelites to keep themselves from accursed things which would cause them to bring about their own destruction. By this He means the idols and things associated with the demonic and depraved worship of the people of Canaan. However, “…. all the silver, gold, vessels of bronze and iron were to be consecrated to The LORD and were to come into His treasury”. (v19) All the valuables belong to God; Jericho is the “first fruits” city of Canaan, and so the valuables are set apart to “…. the treasury of the LORD”.
So, the army walked and after the seventh circumnavigation on the seventh day the priests blew the trumpets, the people shouted, and to their utter amazement, the walls of the city of Jericho fell down flat. The Hebrew here carries the suggestion that it “fell beneath itself.” The Jewish writings say ‘they had sunk right down into the ground, and were swallowed up’; Thus, they fell INTO the ground as opposed to falling over. The ground swallowed up the walls as they were. What a sight – the earth opening up and the walls falling in!!!
The Israelites may have been as surprised as the people of Jericho were at the way God delivered Jericho into their hands.
Now it doesn’t say so, but there was one house which was built on the wall which didn’t fall down – Rahab’s. Archaeologists made some astounding discoveries that seem to relate to Rahab. The German excavation of 1907–1909 found that on the north a short stretch of the lower city wall did not fall as everywhere else.
In they went to the city ‘every man before him’ (v20). They didn’t have to climb over the rubble. I take it to mean that they had the city surrounded. The city had gates and if they could only have got in through them, it would have given the inhabitants time to escape but the walls fell down and all went straight ahead.
I also venture to say that by the time they had walked around seven times, most of the inhabitants of Jericho would have been stood on the walls watching this amazing sight, and maybe many were killed and buried with the walls.
The Israelites (v21) took the city and utterly destroyed all men, women, young and old, and animals, except Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and all that she had. They brought them out and burned the city, after taking the gold and silver, the vessels of bronze and iron, and putting them into the LORD’s treasury in The LORD’s house.
Before we leave Rahab, it is important to note that she is included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:5.
Rahab married Salmon and they gave birth to Boaz who married Ruth the Moabitess, who became a follower of the Living God. She was the grandmother of Jesse, the father David. How amazing that God includes such people, as well as two other women, Tamar and Bathsheba, all of whom had lived questionable lives before being changed by God.
It gives us great encouragement that God can use all of us whatever mistakes we have made, none of us are anywhere near perfect, we are sinners at best and worst but saved by His grace.
“The wall fell down flat: They utterly destroyed all that was in the city” (v20,21): Why was Israel commanded to practice such complete destruction? Because the greatest sins of the Canaanites were spiritual: “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you.” (Deuteronomy 18:9-14)
I was once asked by a young person in my church, “Is it ok for a Christian to consult horoscopes. Is there any harm in it?” I believe this passage in Deuteronomy answers that. I checked the Oxford Dictionary and found ‘Horoscope’ is made up of two words – ‘hora’ (= time) and ‘skopos’ (= observer). In KJV the words ‘interpret omens’ is translated ‘observer of times’. We should not have anything to do with such things.
Such judgment seems harsh to us, because it is harsh – and we must recognize, that at times, God has commanded that such judgment come to pass. It may happen either through an army that He has used (as is the case here), or through judgment that He directly brings (such as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24-25).
“So, Israel took the city”. They took, after God had given (Joshua 6:2). It was clear that God gave, but that Israel had to take by obedient, persistent faith.
So it is with all victory in the Christian life – God gives it to us in Jesus Christ; but we must take it from Him by obedient, persistent faith.
v22-25 Finishing up the battle.
Joshua sent the two men who had spied out the city to bring Rahab out (v28) – sensible, not because they knew which was her house, that would be obvious as it was the only one standing, but they would know her, and she would know them. She and her family were safe. They coupled their faith in the God of Israel with a willingness to follow through on what God’s messengers told them to do: stay at home with the scarlet cord hanging in the window (Joshua 2:17-19).
In this, we see a contrast between judgment and salvation. All of Jericho heard about the God of Israel (Joshua 2:8-11), but only Rahab responded positively in faith towards God with that knowledge.
“So she dwells in Israel to this day” Thisshows that the book of Joshua was written at the time of Joshua; this was not the fanciful re-construction of a writer working centuries after the fact.
Jericho was once thought to be a “problem” because of the seeming disagreement between archaeology and the Bible. When the archaeology is correctly interpreted, however, just the opposite is the case. The archaeological evidence supports the historical accuracy of the biblical account in every detail. They have also found evidence that there had been a fire just as it says in v21.
There are many ideas as to how the walls of Jericho came down. Some found evidence of earthquake activity at the time the city met its end. If God did use an earthquake to accomplish His purposes that day, it was still a miracle since it happened at precisely the right moment, and in such a way as to protect Rahab’s house. No matter what method God used, it was ultimately He who, through the faith of the Israelites, brought the walls down – “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down” (Hebrews 11:30). It is not our faith that is great but the God in whom we put our faith.
As well as showing us how vital it is not to discount the Bible because of some apparent conflict with secular scholarship, Jericho is a wonderful spiritual lesson for God’s people yet today. There are times when we find ourselves facing enormous “walls” that are impossible to break down by human strength. If we put our faith in God and follow His commandments, He will perform “great and mighty things” (Jeremiah 33:3) and give us the victory.
v26 Joshua warned the people that whoever rebuilds the city will be cursed – he will lay its foundation and lose his firstborn, and his youngest when he finishes it by setting up its gates.
In 1 Kings 16v34, Hiel of Bethel did precisely that and it all came to pass. “He laid its foundation with Abiram his firstborn, and with his youngest son Segub he set up its gates, according to the word of the LORD, which He had spoken through Joshua.” Maybe God intended that it should never be rebuilt!
We can learn from the things that marked their victory.
· Faith: Joshua and Israel believed the battle plan given by God.
· Obedience: Joshua and Israel followed the battle plan exactly.
· Courage: Israel followed the battle plan despite danger.
· Endurance: Israel followed the battle plan over a period of time, even when it seemed that nothing was happening.
· Israel did not rely on their own scheming and worldly methods; their trust was in the LORD, not in human ingenuity.
