Joshua 6

Today’s Passage: Joshua 6

Jericho stands shut up tight, and the LORD hands Joshua a battle plan no army would ever devise. For six days Israel is to march once around the city with the ark and seven priests blowing seven rams’ horns, saying nothing. On the seventh day they circle it seven times, and at a long trumpet blast the people give a great shout, and the wall falls flat. The city is devoted to the LORD for destruction, its silver and gold set apart for His treasury, and its long-ripened wickedness comes under His judgment. Yet running bright through that judgment is a thread of mercy: Rahab the Canaanite and everyone gathered in her house are brought out alive, because she believed and sheltered the spies. Joshua then lays a solemn curse on anyone who would rebuild Jericho, and the LORD’s fame spreads through the land.

As you read, hold this: The LORD Himself gives the city as His people simply trust and obey, and even in His judgment His mercy shines, saving the believing outsider and her whole household.

Joshua 6:1–5 (BSB)

¹ Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

² And the LORD said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor. ³ March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days. ⁴ Have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark. Then on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the horns. ⁵ And when there is a long blast of the ram’s horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and all your people will charge straight into the city.”

Notice how the LORD speaks. He does not say He will hand Jericho over; He says He already has. The victory is announced before a single man has moved, as a thing already done in the mind of God, and the plan He gives (נָתַן) nātan, pronounced nah-TAHN. Strong's H5414, to give, grant, hand over. The LORD tells Joshua, in effect, “I have given Jericho into your hand,” and He says it in the past tense before the marching has even begun. Israel does not seize the city; they receive it. Every step around those walls is not the taking of Jericho but the trusting of the God who has already given it. When the wall finally falls, it falls as a gift, not a conquest, and the hand that opens is the LORD’s. is one no general could ever draw up. There is no siege, no ram, no ladder against the wall. There is only a slow procession of priests and the ark, seven horns, six quiet days, and on the seventh a shout. When a city falls to that, no one on earth can say it was won by the strength of an army. The LORD is arranging the whole thing so that the glory will have nowhere to land but on Him.

Joshua 6:6–11 (BSB)

⁶ So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said, “Take up the ark of the covenant and have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark of the LORD.” ⁷ And he told the people, “Advance and march around the city, with the armed troops going ahead of the ark of the LORD.”

⁸ After Joshua had spoken to the people, seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns before the LORD advanced and blew the horns, and the ark of the covenant of the LORD followed them. ⁹ While the horns continued to sound, the armed troops marched ahead of the priests who blew the horns, and the rear guard followed the ark. ¹⁰ But Joshua had commanded the people: “Do not give a battle cry or let your voice be heard; do not let one word come out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you are to shout!”

¹¹ So he had the ark of the LORD carried around the city, circling it once. And the people returned to the camp and spent the night there.

Joshua does exactly as he was told, and he places the ark at the center of the whole procession, for the ark is the sign that the LORD Himself is present and going before His people. Then comes the strangest command of all: silence. The armed men and the great host are to march past the watching walls of Jericho and not say one word. There must have been taunts hurled down from above, and every instinct of a soldier would be to answer. Instead, Israel keeps its mouth shut and its trust open. The only voice permitted is the steady moan of the rams’ horns, announcing the presence of God, and the people learn the hard discipline of waiting for the LORD to say when. On the first day they simply circle once and go home to sleep.

Joshua 6:12–16 (BSB)

¹² Joshua got up early the next morning, and the priests took the ark of the LORD. ¹³ And the seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns kept marching ahead of the ark of the LORD and blowing the horns. The armed troops went in front of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the LORD, while the horns kept sounding. ¹⁴ So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵ Then on the seventh day, they got up at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. That was the only day they circled the city seven times. ¹⁶ After the seventh time around, the priests blew the horns, and Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city!

Day after day it is the same, and the sameness is the test. Nothing appears to change. The wall still stands, the gates are still barred, and every evening Israel marches back to camp with no visible result to show for the day’s obedience. Faith here is not a single heroic leap but a plain, patient willingness to do the small, unglamorous thing again tomorrow because God said to. Then the seventh day breaks, and they rise at dawn and circle seven times, and at last Joshua gives the word they have been holding in their chests all week. Hear how he frames it. He does not shout, “Take the city!” He shouts, “The LORD has given you the city.” Even the command to attack is really a call to receive what God has already done.

Joshua 6:17–19 (BSB)

¹⁷ Now the city and everything in it must be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent. ¹⁸ But keep away from the things devoted to destruction, lest you yourself be set apart for destruction. If you take any of these, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and bring disaster upon it. ¹⁹ For all the silver and gold and all the articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD; they must go into His treasury.

Here we come to the hard heart of the chapter, and we will not pass it by lightly. The whole city is placed under the ban, devoted to the LORD for destruction (חֵרֶם) ḥērem, pronounced KHEH-rem. Strong's H2764, a thing wholly devoted to God, set apart under a ban, often for destruction. Sometimes what is devoted is consecrated to the sanctuary; here it is devoted to judgment. Jericho is not Israel’s spoil to enjoy but the LORD’s to deal with, and that is why not a coin of it may be kept back. We should teach this word carefully and never lightly. It marks a specific, once-for-all judgment in a unique moment of redemptive history, at God’s own command, and it is never handed to us as license for our own hands. Its weight is meant to make us tremble before a holy God, not to embolden us against anyone. , and this is His judgment upon a people whose wickedness had ripened for generations. It is a solemn and terrible thing, and thoughtful, faithful readers have wrestled with these passages for centuries. We will not soften it into something it is not, and we will not linger over it with any relish, for every life in that city bore the dignity of a person made in God’s image. What we can see plainly is that this is God’s act and not man’s ambition. Israel is forbidden even to enrich themselves from it; the silver and gold and bronze and iron are called holy to the LORD and must go into His treasury, not into any soldier’s pocket. And already, folded right into the sentence of judgment, is the one bright exception: only Rahab and all those in her house will live. Judgment and mercy are named in the same breath.

Joshua 6:20–21 (BSB)

²⁰ So when the rams’ horns sounded, the people shouted. When they heard the blast of the horn, the people gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. Then all the people charged straight into the city and captured it. ²¹ With the edge of the sword they devoted to destruction everything in the city—man and woman, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.

The trumpet sounds, the people shout, and the wall simply comes down. There is no engine of war in the account, no clever breach, nothing but a shout answered by the collapse of stone, so that the story can never be told as a tale of Israel’s might. It is the LORD who gives the city, and He gives it in a way that leaves no room for boasting. Then the judgment falls, and Scripture states it plainly and briefly, without dressing it in glory and without dwelling on the horror. We should read this verse the way it is written, with grief and with the fear of the LORD, remembering that this is His judicial act upon a long-ripened wickedness and not any pattern for us. The Bible does not celebrate here, and neither should we. It simply records that the thing devoted to God was given wholly over to Him.

Joshua 6:22–25 (BSB)

²² Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.” ²³ So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

²⁴ Then the Israelites burned up the city and everything in it. However, they put the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house. ²⁵ And Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her father’s household and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho. So she has lived among the Israelites to this day.

Now watch the mercy shine, for this is where the light breaks through. In the very hour the city falls, Joshua remembers a promise made to a Canaanite woman and sends the spies to keep it. They go into the doomed city and bring Rahab out, and not her alone but her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her, everyone who had gathered under her roof and trusted the word given to her. She had believed that the LORD was God in heaven above and on earth below, and she had staked her whole family on it, and now not one of them is lost. An outsider, a Canaanite, a woman with a shameful past, is carried out of judgment and given a home among the people of God, and Scripture says she has lived among them to this day. The same God whose judgment leveled Jericho reached into it to save everyone who took refuge in His mercy. That is the thread to hold. In the middle of the ban stands one household spared by faith, a sign that God’s heart runs toward everyone who will believe.

Joshua 6:26–27 (BSB)

²⁶ At that time Joshua invoked this solemn oath: “Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho; at the cost of his firstborn he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.”

²⁷ So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

Joshua closes the day by laying a solemn oath over the ruins, that anyone who sets out to rebuild Jericho will do so under a curse. This is not spite but reverence. The city had been devoted to the LORD, and Joshua means for it to stay a lasting witness to His judgment, not to be raised again as though nothing had happened there. Then the chapter ends where it began, with the LORD. The reason the walls fell, the reason the plan worked, the reason Joshua’s name now travels through the land is stated in one line: the LORD was with him. The fame belongs to Joshua, but the power was never his. From the shut gate to the fallen wall to the woman carried out alive, the whole of Jericho testifies to the God who gives the city and remembers His mercy.