Joshua 6 explained: Jericho Falls and Rahab Is Spared

A city shut tight (vv. 1-5)

Jericho has barred its gates against Israel, and the LORD tells Joshua the city is already as good as his. The orders are not for a normal attack but for a ritual: circle the city once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh, then trumpets and a great shout.

Six days of silent marching (vv. 6-14)

Priests carry the ark, a gold-covered chest holding the stone tablets of God's law and seen as the sign of God's presence, while seven priests blow ram's horn trumpets in front and the army stays silent. Many readers take the repeated sevens as a sign that this is meant to look more like a worship procession than a military assault.

The seventh day's orders (vv. 15-19)

After the seventh circuit, Joshua declares the city devoted to the LORD, meaning handed over wholly to God: its people and animals were to be killed and its metal goods given to God's treasury. No soldier may keep any loot, and the warning in verse 18 sets up the trouble that follows in the next chapter.

The walls fall (vv. 20-21)

At the trumpet blast and the shout the wall collapses, and the army storms in and kills men, women, young, old and animals. The text presents this plainly as obeying God, while archaeologists debate whether Jericho was a walled, well populated city at the time these events are usually dated.

Rahab's family rescued (vv. 22-25)

The spies keep their promise from chapter 2 and bring out Rahab, the prostitute who hid them, with her whole family, and she goes on to live among Israel. Christians later read her as a model of faith, and Matthew's Gospel names her among Jesus' ancestors.

A curse on rebuilding (vv. 26-27)

Joshua curses anyone who rebuilds Jericho: he will lose his oldest son when laying its foundation and his youngest when setting up its gates. The Bible later reports this coming true in 1 Kings 16:34, and the chapter ends by saying the LORD was with Joshua and his fame spread.

Key verse: Joshua 6:20

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how to read the total destruction. Many take it as a real, one-time command of God's judgment that is no model for today. Others read the language of wiping out every living thing as the stock exaggeration of ancient war reports. Many early Christian teachers also read it spiritually, as a picture of the fight against sin. Some see it as an ancient, partial picture of God that, for Christians, the life of Jesus moves beyond.

Something to think about

What do you think it means for a people to keep telling a founding story that holds both a promise kept to one family and the destruction of a whole city?