Bible Commentaries

Verse 1. - This verse (see above) is parenthetical. It explains why the captain of the Lord's host appeared unto Joshua. The inhabitants of Jericho, though in a state of the utmost alarm, were nevertheless fully on their guard against the children of Israel. The commencement of hostilities imposed a great responsibility on Joshua. Success at the outset was, humanly speaking, indispensable. We may see what defeat involved for him by his distress in consequence of the check at Ai. The alternative was victory or annihilation, for the Israelites had no homes or fortresses to which they could retire. Joshua was therefore encouraged by a visible proof that he was under the protection of the Most High, to be yet farther assured by the marvels that were to follow. The use of the Pual participle with its fullest intensive sense, to strengthen the affirmation of the action by the Kal, is a singular construction. Literally rendered it is "shutting and closely shut up," thus including

(1) the act of closing, and

(2) the continuance of that act, συγκεκλεισμένη καὶ ὀχυρομέμη (LXX.), "clausa at que munita" (Vulg.). So also the Chaldea paraphrase. The remainder of the verse strengthens still more the assertion of the state of siege. The king of Jericho, such was his alarm, regarded his city as a beleaguered one, from the mere presence of Joshua and his host in its vicinity.

Verse 2. - And the Lord said. This is no new source of information for Joshua. Jehovah is here obviously identical, as commentators are generally agreed, with the "Captain of the Lord's host" in the last chapter (comp. Genesis 18:2, 13; Exodus 3:2, 4). Thus shalt thou do six days. "Seven days together they walk this round; they made this therefore their Sabbath day's journey; and who knows whether the last and longest walk, which brought victory to Israel, were not on this day? Not long before, an Israelite is stoned to death for but gathering a few sticks that day; now all the host of Israel must walk about the walls of a large and populous city, and yet do not violate the day. God's precept is the rule of the justice and holiness of our actions" (Bp. Hall).

Verse 4. - And seven priests shall bear before the ark. The Vulgate puts "on the seventh day" in connection with this part of the sentence; Luther also translates thus. The LXX., which Calvin and our translators and the majority of commentators follow, regard this part of the sentence as stating what was to be done on the six days, and rightly so, as vers. 8-14 clearly show. That the historian, as has been before remarked, did not always give the full instructions Joshua received is evident from this passage. The priests are not said to have been instructed to sound the trumpet on the six days; yet we learn from Joshua 5:13 that they did so. It is rather implied than expressed that the ark was also to be borne in procession; but that this was (lone is evident from ver. 8. Seven trumpets of rams' horns. There is no mention of rams' horns in the original, which is שׁופְרות trumpets of jubilee, i.e., of triumph (hardly as Gesenius, "alarm trumpets," though not necessarily, with Dr. Vaughan in his 'Heroes of Faith,' "the emblems of festival, not of warfare"). The word הַיּובְלִים is derived from the same root as the Latin is in the phrase Io Triumphe (cf. Greek ἰώ), and according to Gesenius our word "yule" is also derived from this root. The שׁופַר as the next verse shows, was a curved instrument, in shape like a ram's horn, though not necessarily of that material; whereas the חַלֺצצְרָה was a straight trumpet. Seven times. The importance of the number seven as indicative of completeness is here strongly indicated. Seven priests were to carry seven trumpets for seven days. The word for to swear, נְִשבַּע literally to be sevened, means to have one's vow consecrated and confirmed by seven sacrifices or seven witnesses (see Genesis 21:28, 30). The number seven, says Bahr in his 'Symbolik des Alten Testament,' 1, 187, 188, is the sign of the relation, union, communion between God and the world, as represented by the number three and four respectively, just as twelve is in another relation (see note on Joshua 21:3). Its meaning, according to Bahr, among the heathen is somewhat different. There it means the harmony of the universe, and is signified by the seven stars, to which, and neither more nor less, was the power of influencing man's destiny ascribed. And the priests shall blow with the trumpets. "Fac tibi tribas ductiles, si sacerdos es, immo, quia sacerdos es (gens enim regalis effectus es et sacerdotium sanctum, de te enim scripture est), fac tibi tribas ductiles ex Scripturis sanctis" (Orig., Hom. 7 on Joshua).

Verse 5. - When they make a long blast with the ram's horn. Literally, as they draw out with the horn of jubilee, i.e., blow a prolonged blast (cf. Exodus 19:13). Here the word used is horn of jubilee, but not necessarily of ram's horn, as our version, any more than the modern horn, though it takes the place of the more primitive instrument made of that material, must itself be a ram's horn. So Rosenmuller. The word. קֶרֶן in Hebrew is used in different senses, all, however, growing out of the one original sense. Thus it is used for a musical instrument, for rays of light, for the projections extending from the corners of the altar, and in Isaiah 5:1, for a mountain peak (like the German Schreekhorn, Gabelhorn, Weisshorn). Origen compares the blast of the trumpet at which the walls of Jericho fell, to the sound of the last trumpet, which shall finally destroy the kingdoms of sin. When ye hear. The Keri substitute here, as in many other places, כְּ for בְּ but unnecessarily. The Keri means at the very moment when, the Chethibh simply and less emphatically, "when" (see ver. 15). Flat. Literally, underneath it, i.e., the walls were to give way from their very foundations. Every man straight before him. There was no need to surround the city, nor to endeavour to enter it through a "practicable breach." The walls were to give way entirely, and the warriors might advance at once, in the order of battle, and from the place in which they were at the moment when they raised the shout of triumph (יָרִיעוּ) for the inhabitants of Jericho alone were evidently no match for them in numbers (cf. Joshua 10:3; Joshua 11:1-3), though they might have hoped to hold out some time under the protection of their walls.

Verse 7. - And he said. The text has they said. Our translators follow the Masoretic emendation. If we follow the original we must suppose that the priests, or, as with Keil and Knobel, the Shoterim (Joshua 1:10), conveyed Joshua's command to the troops.

Verse 8. - He that is armed, or rather disencumbered, i.e., prepared for battle (see Joshua 4:13). Similarly, in the next verse, "the armed men," i.e., the host in marching order, as we say. Kimchi and Jarchi refer this to the Reubenites and their brethren, but without sufficient authority. Keil thinks that it was impossible that the unarmed people would have gone with the procession as "the rereward" (see note on Joshua 5:13), because no command to that effect is given in ver. 3. But as he has told us in Joshua 3, 4, and as we have just seen in ver. 4. the command to Joshua is not fully given. A short abstract of it is given, and it is to be filled up in detail from the subsequent narrative.

Verse 10. ? Ye shall not shout. No sign of triumph was to be raised; but the Israelites, their priests, and the ark of their covenant were in solemn silence to encompass the city day by day, until they were commanded to raise the shout of victory. The people of Jericho knew only too well what this religious procession meant. As a military manoeuvre (so Calvin) it was worse than useless, it was ridiculous. It actually invited attack; nay, it afforded, if the interpretation in the note on ver. 8 be correct, an admirable opportunity for the slaughter of defenceless women and children by a sudden sally from the city. But the history of the Exodus was not unknown to the king and people of Jericho. The inspired law giver, with his miraculous powers, and his claim to direct intercourse with the Most High, was a personage only too well known to them, and his mission was only too sure a token of the Divine sanction which rested on their proceedings. His supernatural qualifications had evidently descended to his successor, and now it was terribly clear that this awful silent march, with the army equipped for battle, but not attempting to engage in it, the seven priests with their seven trumpets, the visible symbol of the Presence of the God of Israel, attended by the awestruck multitude awaiting the Divine pleasure, was but the prelude to some new interposition from on high, the mysterious foreshadowing of some hitherto unheard of calamity which should befall the devoted city. There seems in this narrative no choice between rejecting the whole as an absurd fable, or accepting it as the record of a "notable miracle." The account is minute in its detail. The historian, if he be an historian, is distinctly impressed with the idea that he is relating a miracle. The obvious course for Joshua, if he were not relying on supernatural aid, was either to assault or to blockade the city. To perambulate it for days in the expectation of some convulsion of nature such as, we are told, frequently happened in that volcanic region, would have been the extreme of childish folly, and quite contrary to that common sense and military skill with which, as we have seen, Joshua undoubtedly was endowed. If he were possessed, seven days beforehand, with a conviction that an earthquake were imminent, such a persuasion would be of itself miraculous. Paulus' idea of a mine having been sprung is still less compatible with our narrative. Von Lengerke, in his 'Cana supposes that the astonishing success of the Israelites grew into a wonder in the hands of the narrator. But this involves the entire falsehood, not only of the command given to Joshua by Jehovah, but of the seven days' perambulation of Jericho, and the remaining incidents of the siege, a theory not easily reconcilable with the minute accuracy of detail displayed throughout the narrative. The seven days' circuit of Jericho must, therefore, either be denied altogether, in spite of the numerous evidences of genuineness which meet us in the narrative; or, if explained, the only explanation which is consistent with the fact is, that Joshua had received an intimation that he was not to expect to effect the reduction of the city by natural means, but was to wait patiently for an interposition from on high.

Verse 13. - The rereward (see Joshua 5:9). Literally, the gathering together and then the body of troops which collects the stragglers, the rear guard, as in Numbers 10:25; Isaiah 52:12; Isaiah 58:8. Calvin renders here by quia cogebat agmen. But the LXX. and Vulgate render by ὁ λοιπὸς ὄχλος and vulgus reliquum. So Luther, der Haufe. The LXX., however, in ver. 9 translates the same word by οὐραγοῦντες, i.e., "qui extremum agmen ducunt, et quasi caudam efficiunt" (Rosenmuller). The word is not the same as that translated rereward in 1 Samuel 29:2, the only other place where our version has "rereward," where there can be no question of the rendering being correct, since the literal meaning there is the hindermost.