Hebrews 11:30 NIVUK
[30] By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched round them for seven days. https://bible.com/bible/113/heb.11.30.NIVUK
I well remember the heady days of 1989, after the heartless massacre of peaceful protesters at Tiannanmen Square, Beijing.
Despite officially being an atheist state, since 1982, prayer meetings had been held at St Nicholas church in Berlin. As confusion reigned in the East German government following the resignation of their leader Erik Hoeneke, the crowds attending these prayer meetings swelled to 70,000. People then began to head to the Berlin Wall, demanding to cross over to the west. At first, they were denied. But once they were allowed, they began to dismantle the wall.
On 9th November 1989, the Berlin Wall, a scar in the middle of Europe since its construction, was torn down.
East Germans were free.
There is an aspect of this that has gone unnoticed by some of our fellow believers, especially in the Deep South of America. That is: Christianity is all about tearing walls down, not building them up. It is about bringing people together, not tearing them apart.
Here we come to a Biblical event about walls being torn down that is so famous even Elvis sung a song about it. But we should not let familiarity breed contempt. Again in this story we read of faith – and the faith of ordinary men – triumphing in a very challenging situation.
To begin with let’s look at An Unbreachable Barrier.
Jericho had something in common with China and Berlin – it also was known for its wall.
Now, this was quite a special wall. It was between 1.5 to 2 metres thick (so, around the same thickness as the average height of an adult human being) and 3.7 to 5.2 metres high (taller than two people standing on top of each other). It is also the oldest city wall found anywhere by archaeologists, dating to around 8,000 BC.
So this wall would have been renowned even then. And likely considered as impregnable.
Which is why the Lord sent the commander of His army to provide Joshua with the tactics to defeat it (Joshua 5:13-6:5). That was truly out of the ordinary, and for a situation that was truly extraordinary.
But there is a twist to this.
Jericho was bring attacked by a lightly-armed, ragtag group of escaped slaves – not trained, professional soldiers – who lacked contemporary weapons or seige tactics. Their troops also held a very easily defensible position – inside a city with thick ancient walls.
And yet we see this:
Joshua 5:1 NIVUK
[1] Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.
Under Moses, the Israelites had scored three huge victories against the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16), Sihon King of the Amorites and Og King of Bashan (Numbers 21:21-35).
Yet it was not these victories – impressive though they were – that really caught the attention of the citizens of Jericho and caused them to quake with fear within their walls.
No, it was the parting of the natural barrier between them and the Israelites – the River Jordan, which had been in flood (Joshua 3:15) – that terrified them.
Why?
Because any God who turned back the waters of a mighty river in flood could certainly bring down their walls (Joshua 2:8-11).
This is where we often make a huge mistake. We see the opposition and the obstacle in front of us, and we are intimidated. We are convinced that we do not have the means to overcome it.
But what we need to know is the lesson that the citizens of Jericho had already learned: our God is bigger than any obstacle. Our God is greater than any opposition.
We will overcome.
We now move on from what they overcame to how they overcame it – with An Unusual Tactic.
Now, this tactic has two parts.
The first was to send in spies. Nothing unusual there. Moses had done this already and it hadn’t gone so well to say the least (Numbers 13 and 14).
That wasn’t the unusual part.
The unusual part was where they stayed while they were there:
Joshua 2:1 NIVUK
[1] Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. ‘Go, look over the land,’ he said, ‘especially Jericho.’ So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
The Bible is completely silent about why they stayed there, so it would be wrong of us to speculate, although some commentators have noticed that, due to her immoral and illicit activities, it would have been a great place to remain anonymous as no questions would have been asked. Suffice it to say that yes, they were Jewish spies and yes, she was a prostitute.
However, this strange tactic yielded the crucial information we saw earlier:
Joshua 2:8-11 NIVUK
[8] Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof [9] and said to them, ‘I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. [10] We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. [11] When we heard of it, our hearts sank and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
What is even more unusual is that out of all the people in Jericho, it is Rahab the prostitute who is saved (Joshua 2:12-21, 6:17, 23, 25), not the ‘great and the good’.
But the use of strange tactics does not end there. Look at what Joshua is told to do to take the city:
Joshua 6:2-5 NIVUK
[2] Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. [3] March round the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. [4] Make seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march round the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. [5] When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, make the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/jos.6.2-5.NIVUK
The occupants of Jericho were already terrified of the Israelites and their God, so having the Israelitr army march round the city for six days would have scared them witless.
But that was not the only thing that would happen:
Joshua 6:20 NIVUK
[20] When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.
The ancient and great wall of Jericho had collapsed.
Now, this is scientifically possible. There are many theories about the marching weakening the wall and the combination of the ram’s horns and shouting hitting the resonance frequency of the ancient mortar, causing it to collapse.
However, there is no way that a ragtag group of escaped slaves, newly arrived from Egypt, could possibly have had the scientific or technical knowledge to execute something like that all on their own. So whichever way you look at it, this was miraculous.
And the root cause of this miracle is being willing to trust God and carry out His commands, even if they seem strange and unusual.
So from an unbreachable barrier and an unusual tactic, we move on, lastly, to An Indisputable Outcome.
The Bible describes it as follows:
Joshua 6:20-25 NIVUK
[20] When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. [21] They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. [22] Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, ‘Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.’ [23] So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. [24] Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the
treasury of the Lord’s house. [25] But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho – and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
Now, I have no doubt that our modern sensibilities will balk at the genocide carried out here. But there are three parts to this outcome.
Firstly, there is the utter destruction of the city. Everything is destroyed.
And why is this?
Because the people of Jericho feared the Lord, but it made no difference to their lives. They kept on living in the same pagan way they did before: Worshipping false gods with a false sexuality and horrific human sacrifices.
This tells us something very important. Fearing God is the right thing to do, but if it manifests itself as paranoia and phobia, then it does us no earthly good. Right, proper fear of the Lord results in right, proper actions. As the psalmist said:
Psalms 128:1 NIVUK
[1] Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.128.1.NIVUK
And again, this time from Solomon:
Proverbs 8:13 NIVUK
[13] To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech.
It isn’t enough to be afraid of the Lord. We must fear disappointing and hurting Him, and this should drive us to live righteously.
Secondly, we see the utter salvation of a prostitute. And yes, I get it: this seems utterly incongruous. But this is a prostitute whose fear of the Lord caused her to switch sides and to repent.
What’s more, it also led to this:
Matthew 1:5-6 NIVUK
[5] Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, [6] and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, https://bible.com/bible/113/mat.1.5-6.NIVUK
This former prostitute married someone from the royal line of Judah, who then gave birth to Ruth’s husband Boaz, who then bore Jesse, whose wife bore King David.
So this rescued prostitute became part of the royal line that eventually caused Jesus Christ Himself to be born.
Thirdly, the utter accursedness of the place.
Joshua 6:26 NIVUK
[26] At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: ‘Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: ‘At the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/jos.6.26.NIVUK
And this curse took place:
1 Kings 16:34 NIVUK
[34] In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun. https://bible.com/bible/113/1ki.16.34.NIVUK
The final indignity of this city was not just to be defeated in battle, or even destroyed, but to be accursed.
And what was the reason for this drastic punishment?
Genesis 15:16 NIVUK
[16] In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.’
But now they had.
While from a modern perspective, the punishment here seems drastic, it’s a bit like complaining that a life sentence is too long, before finding out that the prisoner is a psychopathic serial killer. We cannot complain until we know why the punishment has taken place – to do so is profoundly illogical and unfair.
The Bible does not flinch in giving us a picture of why:
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIVUK
[29] The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, [30] and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by enquiring about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.’ [31] You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
Human sacrifices. Of children.
Add to that rampant immorality and the use of sexuality in acts of worship and you realise why God’s patience had finally worn very thin.
If you still think this is unjust, remember: hundreds of years later, it happened to the Israelites too.
Within this Bible event, there is a clear contrast. On one hand, we have Jericho’s great and good, who all perish because, despite being afraid of Israel and its God, they refuse to repent and have faith in Him.
On the other hand, we have a prostitute possibly even a shrine prostitute – who isn’t at all living a good life. However, when she has the opportunity to believe in God, she takes it, even at huge risk to herself. As a result, she is recorded in the annals of Jewish history as one of the ancestors of their royal family, and in Christian history as an ancestor of Jesus Christ.
As I write these words, it’s exam season – in schools, colleges and universities . This is the time when results are obtained that matter. They matter because they can determine lives or careers. They aren’t life or death. They will never be that. But they are nonetheless important.
This was Israel’s first big examination. Jericho was their first battle on the territory of the Promised Land, west of the Jordan River. It mattered. It really mattered. Not just in the way
that any battle would, but because through it they would gain a foothold in the land and send a message to the other, less fortified, cities around them.
This was a significant battle.
Which explains why the tactics for victory came from God Himself.
So yes, they were facing an insurmountable barrier, and they used unusual tactics, but their victory was indisputable.
And it was indisputable, with some secondary completely unforeseen consequences, because they had faith in God.
I don’t know what circumstances you are facing. But I do know that certain circumstances can intimidate us into believing that they are insurmountable.
But look at these verses. With God, all things are possible.
We just need to have faith in Him.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank You for the faith that these ordinary Israelite soldiers showed as they follow Your instructions, even though they seemed strange. Help me to remain as faithful to you when I face seemingly unbreachable barriers. Amen.
Questions
1. What seemingly unbreachable barriers do you face in your life?
2. How did the Israelite soldiers demonstrate their faith and obedience to God in this critical battle?
3. How can you demonstrate your faith in your situation?
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