Chapter 5 came to a rather abrupt end. Joshua encountered the captain of the host of the LORD. What Joshua learned from the captain of the host of the LORD was that the land on which he stood was holy. Nothing related to conquest tactics was given. Then, what was the significance of the holiness of the land? How did Joshua take the meaning of the holiness of the land?
Holy means “set apart for the LORD.” The land was given to the Israelites, but the land was set apart for the LORD. Joshua needed to be reminded of this important fact.
Brief Content Summary
The LORD placed a great fear into Jericho and the city was tightly shut. The LORD commanded Joshua to march around Jericho for seven days. For the first six days, Israel was to circle around the city once. Then on the seventh day, Israel was to circle around the city seven times and with the blow of the trumpets, everyone was to make a great shout. Israel followed the command and the wall of Jericho collapsed. Joshua and Israel thoroughly destroyed Jericho, leaving no survivor except Rahab’s household.
Partnership with the LORD and Israel
In the command given by the LORD to Joshua from verse 2 to verse 5, we can see a partnership between the LORD and Israel. The role of Israel was to march around Jericho for seven days with priests blowing the trumpets and make a great shout. The role of the LORD was to cause the fortress of Jericho to collapse.
This command gives a glimpse of one of God’s attributes: his desire to work with his people. God in His omniscience does not need to work with His creations. Yet, He does. This character of God was manifested originally in Genesis 2. God formed man of dust from the ground and placed the man to take care of the garden while God caused to grow every tree (Gen 2:7-9). A division of labor between God and the man in taking care of the Garden of Eden was evident in Genesis 2. So was the division of labor between God and Israel in the conquest of Jericho.
Significance of Ram’s Horns
The LORD commanded Joshua to tell the priests to carry and blow seven trumpets – trumpets made of ram’s horns. There are two kinds of trumpets mentioned in the Law of Moses. The first type was those mentioned in Numbers 10. In Numbers 10, the LORD commanded Moses that when Israel would go to war against the adversary, Moses should sound an alarm with the trumpets. The second type of the trumpets were those made of rams’ horns mentioned in Leviticus (Lev 25:8-9). In Leviticus, the use of trumpets of rams’ horns was designated to a few specific events. They were mainly used to declare and announce the national atonement all through the land every year. Also, an additional role was to announce the start of the Jubilee Year on the day of atonement of that year. It was the second type of trumpets (made of rams’ horns) that God commanded the priests to carry when marching around Jericho.
Therefore, the presence of trumpets of rams’ horns when marching around the city of Jericho was a rather strange command. Regular trumpets mentioned specifically for war in Numbers seemed more suitable for the Israel who were marching to conquer Jericho.
Then, what was the significance of ram’s horn? Was there any relation between atonement and the conquest of Jericho? Was there any relation between the year of Jubilee (which took place every 50 years when slaves were freed, debts were forgiven and the land was returned to the original owner) and the conquest of Jericho? These are difficult questions to answer. I think the whole message was to show the war was part of the repentance and setting people free. Repentance of the land from its despicable practice of worshipping idols and evil practices of human sacrifices, for example, of Canaan. A freedom of the land and people from an oppressive political and economic institution of Canaan could be a possible significance shown by the ram’s horns.
Significance of the Collapse of Jericho Wall: Implicative Analysis
The most notable significance of the collapse of the wall of Jericho was the almightiness of the LORD. Yet, I wanted to dig deeper into the practical meaning of this to the next subsequent battles that Israel waged against the rest of the Canaan kings.
The collapse of the wall should have alarmed the rest of the cities and kings of Canaan. They might have determined that the specialty of the God of Israel was to destroy the wall and fortress. Perhaps, for this reason, almost all the battles after Jericho took place outside of the city. None of the Canaan kings fought the Israelites using their city walls as their defensive tactics. For this reason, Israel had an easier time to fight them. Also, the byproduct was a minimal destruction of properties and the cities from the war. These infrastructure being intact must have been a boon to Israel when they were able to inherit the houses, roads, vineyards, and other amenities. If all the cities in Canaan were burnt to the ground, it would have taken a significant effort for Israel to rebuild those to be habitable. This was where I found a practical significance of the collapse of Jericho Wall in addition to a spiritual significance.
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