April 22, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Fall of Jericho
Scripture: Joshua 5:13-6:27 (NIV)
13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
1 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.” 7 And he ordered the army, “Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”
8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. 9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the army, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!” 11 So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.
12 Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. 13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets 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 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”
20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.” 23 So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
26 At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:
“At the cost of his firstborn son
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.
Devotional
Decades earlier, when God used a burning bush to call Moses to go back to Egypt and free the people from slavery, the Lord said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). In today’s passage, God’s messenger repeats those same words to Joshua. Though separated by time and distance, both Moses and Joshua encountered the holiness of God. That required reverence.
But the military strategy for taking the city of Jericho had to sound a little suspect to Joshua and the Israelites. Rather than relying on skilled commanders and trained soldiers with weapons, the conquest tactic involved priests blasting trumpets and a shouting army. God wanted them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was by His power, not theirs, that they were able to take the Promised Land.
Joshua’s oath in verse 26 is sobering: “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: At the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.” Five hundred years later this pronouncement would come true during the reign of King Ahab: “In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun” (1 Kings 16:34).
In Christ’s day, Jericho was still a trouble place. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he began it by telling of a man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the notorious road leading to Jericho (Luke 10:25-37). It was also in Jericho that the religious people gasped with disgust when Jesus welcomed a man named Zacchaeus, a repentant collaborator with the occupying Roman authorities (Luke 19:1-10).
No place is beyond the touch of God. Some people have hard memories of their childhood home, schools, or communities. As adults, some people have had tough experiences in a marriage, workplace, or church. But no place is beyond the touch of God.
Ephesians 2:12-13 tells us that before we were Christians, we were “without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Jesus is the rebuilder of broken walls! Ask the Lord to show up in the difficult places of life. If He can do it for Zacchaeus in Jericho, He can do it for you.
Poem
The Commander Of The Army Of The Lord
Who stands with you in battle?
Who fights against your foes?
Who clears the way before you?
Who conquers fearful woes?
Who tumbles mighty fortresses?
Who with a two-edged sword
Divides the bone and marrow
By Holy Scripture’s word?
Who, on the bridge from heaven,
Ascends, descends in dreams?
Who stands beside the King of Kings
Abasing Satan’s schemes?
Who is your faithful watchman
Upon the city wall?
Who champions God’s causes?
Who lifts any who fall?
Who, with the heav’nly hosts above,
Protects God’s Iron Rod?
Who comes before the blessed ones
With messages from God?
Who, unbeknownst to princes,
To shepherds shares the news
Of Christ’s full incarnation
The cursing to defuse?
Who ministers in deserts
To tempted victor’s needs?
Who wipes the blood drops f rom the brow
Of faithful on their knees?
Who guards the tomb of glory
‘Til stone is rolled away?
Who greets the mourning women
With news at break of day?
Who comes to open prison’s doors?
Who closes jail guards’ eyes?
Who ushers souls across the sea
Into Heaven’s new life?
Who escorts loved disciple
To see the vict’ry won?
Who rides beside the snow white horse
Of God’s victorious Son?
