(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Joshua 6:1–5, “Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.”
As we have seen before the people in Jericho were scared of the Israeli armies. They had heard of the great things that the Lord had done over the many years since Moses first went back to Egypt at the Lord’s command. However, they were not just going to let Israel come in and take their homes and land away from them. They already lived in lawless times and their city was secure from almost all attacks because it has strong high walls. According to the most modern theory, at the time, the only way to defeat a city like that was to besiege the city and starve them out. The king of Jericho secured all the gates to the city and settled down for a long and difficult siege. The Lord had other plans and didn’t want to waste time waiting for the people in the city to become weak of starvation so that they could try and break down the defences. The Lord didn’t only promise Israel that they would have Jericho, He promised Israel the entire land so they couldn’t waste months and months on each city. Israel needed a quick and decisive victory that would demonstrate, again, the Lord’s power and sap the Canaanites will to fight. The Lord asked that Israel trust Him without question and Joshua, as their leader, was to demonstrate this absolute trust by his actions. The Lord told Israel to march, in battle order, around the city, following the ark with the priests blowing seven horns. They were to do this once a day for six days and on the seventh day they were to circle the city seven times. After the seventh time they were to shout as soon as the trumpets blew and the walls would fall down. No one had ever seen anything like this before and they could not even imagine it. However, this was time for faith and obedience rather than discussion and objection.
No comments:
Post a Comment