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Joshua 6

Chapter 6 in 30 seconds

God's battle plan: march around Jericho once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh, blow the horns and shout. Nobody would teach this at a military academy. The walls fall, the city is destroyed, and Rahab and her family are saved, just as promised.

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In this chapterThe Big QuestionWho Was the Commander? · after verse 5 Field Notes · ArchaeologyJericho · after verse 27

The Walls of Jericho

¹Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

²And Yahweh said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor. ³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days. ⁴Have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark. Then on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the horns. ⁵And when there is a long blast of the ram’s horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and all your people will charge straight into the city.”

JOSH 6:5[PROPHECY]God said the wall of Jericho would fall when the people shouted → JOSH 6:20

The Big Question

Who Was the Commander?

The Man with the Drawn Sword

Joshua 5:13 to 6:2 · Exodus 3:5 · Hebrews 2:10

WHAT HAPPENED: Near Jericho, Joshua sees a Man with a drawn sword and asks, Are You for us or for our enemies? He answers, Neither. I have now come as Commander of Yahweh's army. Joshua falls facedown and worships, and the Commander tells him to take off his sandals, because the place is holy, 5:13 to 15.
CLUE 1: HE ACCEPTS WORSHIP: When John fell down before an angel, the angel said, Do not do that! Worship God, Revelation 22:8 to 9. This Commander does not stop Joshua.
CLUE 2: HOLY GROUND: Take off your sandals is almost word for word what God said to Moses at the burning bush, Exodus 3:5. There, the angel of Yahweh in the fire turned out to be God speaking.
CLUE 3: THE NEXT VERSE: Right after this, Yahweh speaks to Joshua and gives him the battle plan for Jericho, 6:2. Many read 6:2 as the same conversation going on.
WHAT THE EARLY CHURCH SAID: Justin Martyr, about AD 155, said this Commander was Christ before He became a man. Origen, about AD 250, said the same in his sermons on Joshua.
THE QUESTION BEHIND THE QUESTION: Joshua asked whose side He was on. The answer was, Neither. The Commander did not come to join Joshua's side. The real question is whether we are on His.

The Commander · Every View

Joshua 5:13 to 15 · Daniel 10:13 · 12:1 · Revelation 12:7

VIEW 1: JESUS BEFORE HIS BIRTH: Many Christians believe this is the Son of God appearing before He was born in Bethlehem. The worship, the holy ground and 6:2 point to Him. Hebrews 2:10 calls Jesus the captain of their salvation in the King James. This is why His words are printed in red.
VIEW 2: THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL: Daniel calls Michael one of the chief princes and the great prince who stands over Israel, Daniel 10:13 and 12:1, and Revelation 12:7 shows Michael leading God's armies. Some Jewish teachers linked him to Michael. David Kimhi, about AD 1200, explained the Commander by pointing to Michael, the great prince.
VIEW 3: A HIGH ANGEL: Others say He was a high angel. The ground was holy because God was present, and Joshua bowed in respect, as people sometimes bowed to angels and kings.
THE ANGEL OF YAHWEH: Elsewhere the angel of Yahweh speaks as God Himself. Hagar said, You are the God who sees me, Genesis 16:13, and Manoah said, We have seen God, Judges 13:22. Many link the Commander to this angel, and many see both as the Son before His birth.
A DIFFERENT TEACHING: Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is the archangel Michael. Most churches reject that, because Hebrews 1:5 to 6 says God never called an angel His Son and tells all the angels to worship Him.
WHAT ALL AGREE ON: Joshua was not in charge of this war. God's army was already there before Joshua drew a sword, and the first thing Joshua had to do was bow.

⁶So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said, “Take up the ark of the covenant and have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark of Yahweh.”

⁷And he told the people, “Advance and march around the city, with the armed troops going ahead of the ark of Yahweh.”

⁸After Joshua had spoken to the people, seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns before Yahweh advanced and blew the horns, and the ark of the covenant of Yahweh followed them. ⁹While the horns continued to sound, the armed troops marched ahead of the priests who blew the horns, and the rear guard followed the ark.

¹⁰But Joshua had commanded the people: “Do not give a battle cry or let your voice be heard; do not let one word come out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you are to shout!” ¹¹So he had the ark of Yahweh carried around the city, circling it once. And the people returned to the camp and spent the night there.

¹²Joshua got up early the next morning, and the priests took the ark of Yahweh. ¹³And the seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns kept marching ahead of the ark of Yahweh and blowing the horns. The armed troops went in front of them and the rear guard followed the ark of Yahweh, while the horns kept sounding. ¹⁴So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵Then on the seventh day, they got up at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. That was the only day they circled the city seven times. ¹⁶After the seventh time around, the priests blew the horns, and Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For Yahweh has given you the city! ¹⁷Now the city and everything in it must be devoted to Yahweh for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent. ¹⁸But keep away from the things devoted to destruction, lest you yourself be set apart for destruction. If you take any of these, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and bring disaster upon it. ¹⁹For all the silver and gold and all the articles of bronze and iron are holy to Yahweh; they must go into His treasury.”

JOSH 6:17[NOTE]DEVOTED TO DESTRUCTION. The Hebrew word is herem, set apart for God. Why did God command this? See Holy War and the Canaanites in Deuteronomy.

²⁰So when the rams’ horns sounded, the people shouted. When they heard the blast of the horn, the people gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. Then all the people charged straight into the city and captured it. ²¹With the edge of the sword they devoted to destruction everything in the city—man and woman, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.

JOSH 6:20[ARCHAEOLOGY]Kathleen Kenyon's debated dating; Bryant Wood's reanalysis supports Late Bronze destruction matching biblical chronology
JOSH 6:20[MIRACLE]Walls of Jericho fell after seven days of marching
JOSH 6:20[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → HEB 11:30
JOSH 6:20[FULFILLS]God said the wall of Jericho would fall when the people shouted ← JOSH 6:5

²²Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.” ²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

JOSH 6:23[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → HEB 11:31

²⁴Then the Israelites burned up the city and everything in it. However, they put the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of Yahweh’s house. ²⁵And Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her father’s household and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho. So she has lived among the Israelites to this day.

²⁶At that time Joshua invoked this solemn oath:

“Cursed before Yahweh is the man who rises up

and rebuilds this city, Jericho;

at the cost of his firstborn

he will lay its foundations;

at the cost of his youngest

he will set up its gates.”

JOSH 6:26[PROPHECY]Joshua cursed the rebuilder of Jericho: would lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn and gate at the cost of his youngest → 1KI 16:34
JOSH 6:26[NOTE]Centuries later, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho and lost his oldest and youngest sons, 1 Kings 16:34. Some think he buried them in the foundations as a pagan sacrifice; others think they simply died.

²⁷So Yahweh was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

Field Notes · Archaeology

Jericho

Joshua 2:1 to 24 · 6:1 to 27 · 1 Kings 16:34 · Hebrews 11:30

Tell es Sultan, ancient Jericho, with the deep trench Kathleen Kenyon dug in the 1950s. Photo Berthold Werner. Public domain.

WHAT IT IS: Tell es Sultan, the ruin hill of ancient Jericho, next to a big spring in the Jordan Valley, about 850 feet below sea level. Jericho is one of the oldest towns on earth.
HOW OLD IT IS: People lived here more than 10,000 years ago. A stone tower about 28 feet tall was built about 8000 BC, thousands of years before Joshua. The city walls Joshua's story is about are much later. Their date is the big debate below.
WHERE AND WHEN DUG: Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger, 1907 to 1909. John Garstang, 1930 to 1936. Kathleen Kenyon, 1952 to 1958. An Italian and Palestinian team from 1997. In 2023 it was named a World Heritage Site.
WHAT WAS FOUND: A city surrounded by a stone retaining wall with a mudbrick wall on top. A thick layer of ash. Fallen mudbricks piled at the foot of the wall. Many jars still full of grain, burned. Joshua 6 says the city was burned and nothing was to be taken. Grain is usually the first thing an army steals.
THE BIG DEBATE: Garstang said the city fell about 1400 BC, just when the early date puts Joshua. Kenyon redated it to about 1550 BC and said Jericho had no real city around 1400. In 1990 Bryant Wood looked again at the pottery and Egyptian scarabs and argued for about 1400. A 1995 carbon test on burned grain gave about 1560 BC. Most archaeologists still follow Kenyon, but the debate is not over.
THE SPRING: Jericho sits beside a big spring that still flows today, Ein es Sultan. Christians call it Elisha's Spring, because Elisha made its bad water good, 2 Kings 2:19 to 22. That spring is why people lived here for ten thousand years.
LATER JERICHOS: Hiel rebuilt the city in Ahab's day, 1 Kings 16:34. The Jericho of Jesus, where He met Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1 to 10, was a newer town a mile or two to the south, with King Herod's winter palaces.
RIGHT AFTER HARVEST: Joshua 3:15 says the Jordan was flooding at harvest time, in the spring. Those who hold the early date say the full grain jars fit a city taken right after harvest after a short siege, because the food was never eaten up.
RAHAB'S HOUSE: Joshua 2:15 says Rahab's house was built into the city wall. The German team found houses between the inner and outer walls, where a stretch of wall did not fall. Some see Rahab's house there, but most archaeologists date those houses earlier.
THE WALLS FELL OUT: The diggers found mudbricks lying in a heap at the foot of the stone wall, as if the wall above had tumbled outward. A pile like that makes a ramp, and Joshua 6:20 says the people went straight up into the city.
WHAT IT DOES NOT PROVE: No inscription names Joshua or Israel. It shows a walled city that burned with its grain inside. Whether that was Joshua's Jericho depends on which date is right.

CONFIDENCE: MEDIUM, THE DATE IS DEBATED

Joshua 6

The Walls of Jericho

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