Joshua 2:8-11
Our hearts did melt
Rahab tells the spies what the city has been hearing for forty years. The strongest wall in the account is already down before anyone marches.
Places of the Bible
Jericho
The first city in the land, taken by a plan that involved no fighting until the seventh day.
It is described as straitly shut up because of the children of Israel, none went out and none came in, which means the city knew what was coming. The report Rahab gives the spies explains why: they had heard about the Red Sea forty years earlier and about Sihon and Og, and our hearts did melt. The intelligence the spies bring back is not about walls or gates, it is about morale, and it is delivered by a woman inside the city.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jericho
- 01
- 02
Joshua 6:2-5
Ye shall compass the city
The orders are about walking, silence and counting. The only weapon named is a trumpet made from a ram’s horn.
- 03
Joshua 6:10
Ye shall not shout
The hardest part of the instruction is the restraint. Six days of doing something conspicuous while saying nothing at all.
- 04
Joshua 6:20-25
The wall fell down flat
The shout comes on the seventh circuit of the seventh day, and the two spies are sent to keep a promise made through a window.
- 05
Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus, make haste and come down
The last time Jericho appears, a rich man climbs a tree in it and a house that owed the town money starts paying it back fourfold.
Why it matters
The instructions are almost absurd as military orders and that is the point. Compass the city once a day for six days with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark, and on the seventh day seven times, and the people shall not shout nor make any noise with their voice until the day I bid you shout. Six days of silence and walking. The city is put under a ban, the metal goes into the treasury, and Rahab’s household is fetched out by the two men who had promised.
6 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
