Joshua 6:1-27

The Capture of Jerich

This chapter describes the first and perhaps most decisive action in the war. The impression it produced (Joshua 6:27) no doubt did much to decide the fortunes of subsequent campaigns. The strange method adopted, by divine injunction, for the reduction of the city, with its jubilee trumpets and its elaborate symbolic use of the number seven, was clearly intended to leave no doubt that the enterprise from first to last was in higher hands than Joshua's. Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes. For instance, it has been suggested that the demonstration of the army in force round the city was intended to distract the attention of the enemy from the sapping and mining operations which were being pushed forward, and which culminated in its fall on the seventh day. Again, an earthquake has been suggested; but if such took place, it was providentially timed, and was capable of prediction by Joshua. The narrator regards the event as entirely miraculous, a direct intervention of Jehovah on behalf of His people. Such also was the tradition in Israel, and it is accepted by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:30): 'by faith the walls of Jericho fell down.'