Albert Barnes Commentary Joshua 6

This verse is strictly parenthetical. It is inserted to explain the declaration begun (Joshua 5:14), and interrupted by Joshua’s question and obeisance (Joshua 5:14–15), but resumed in (Joshua 6:2).

Straitly shut up - See the margin, that is, not only shut, but barred and bolted.

The command of the Lord regarding how the fall of Jericho should be brought about is given in these verses in a condensed form. Further details (see Joshua 6:8-10, Joshua 6:16–17, and others) were undoubtedly among the commands given to Joshua by the Angel.

Regarding Joshua 6:4: Trumpets of ram’s horns—Translate instead here and in Joshua 6:5-6, Joshua 6:8, and elsewhere, “trumpets of jubilee” (see note on Leviticus 25:10). The instrument is more accurately translated “cornet” (see note on Leviticus 25:9). Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes, for example, by the undermining of the walls, by an earthquake, or by a sudden assault. But the narrative of this chapter offers no support for any such explanations; indeed, it is entirely inconsistent with them. It must be taken as it stands; and so taken, it intends, beyond all doubt, to narrate a miracle, or rather a series of miracles.

In the belief that a record is not necessarily unhistorical because it is miraculous, perhaps a miracle was never more needed than the one that gave Jericho to Joshua. Its lofty walls and well-fenced gates made it simply impregnable to the Israelites—a nomadic people, raised in the desert, lacking both the engines of war for assaulting a fortified town and the skill and experience to use them, even if they had possessed them. Nothing like a direct interference of the Almighty could, in a week’s time, give a city like Jericho, thoroughly on its guard and prepared (compare Joshua 2:9 and following, and Joshua 6:1), to besiegers in the situation of Joshua and the Israelites.

The fall of Jericho powerfully taught the inhabitants of Canaan that the successes of Israel were not mere human triumphs of man against man, and that the God of Israel was not like “the gods of the countries.” This lesson some of them at least learned to their salvation, for example, Rahab and the Gibeonites. Furthermore, following closely after the miraculous passage of the Jordan, it was impressed upon the people, who were ever prone to be led by their senses, that the same God who had delivered their fathers out of Egypt and led them through the Red Sea was with Joshua just as effectively as He had been with Moses.

And the details of the orders given by God to Joshua (Joshua 6:3–5) illustrate this last point further. The trumpets employed were not the silver trumpets used for signaling the marshalling of the army and for other warlike purposes , but the curved horns employed for ushering in the Jubilee and the Sabbatical Year (Septuagint, σάλπιγγες ἱεραί, salpinges hierai: compare the note on Leviticus 23:24). The trumpets were carried by priests and were seven in number; the processions around Jericho were to be made on seven days, and seven times on the seventh day, thus emphasizing the sacred number seven, which was an emblem especially of the work of God.

The ark of God, the seat of His special presence, was also carried around the city. All these particulars were calculated to set forth symbolically, and in a manner sure to arrest the attention of the people, the fact that their triumph was entirely due to the might of the Lord, and to that covenant which made their cause His.

He said—The reading in the Hebrew text is “they said.” Joshua no doubt issued his orders through the “officers of the people” .

Him that is armed—that is, the warriors generally, not a division only. “The rereward” (Joshua 6:9) was merely a detachment, and not a substantial portion of the host; and was assigned, perhaps, from the tribe of Dan (Compare to the marginal reference), to close the procession and guard the ark from behind. Thus the order would be:

1. The warriors,
2. The seven priests blowing the cornets,
3. The ark,
4. The rear-guard.

On the seventh day - Most probably a Sabbath day. The rising early would be necessary to give time for encompassing the city seven times. Jericho appears to have been a city of considerable size and population; and each passage of the large host round it could hardly have taken less than an hour and a half. Thus, with the necessary intervals of rest, the evening would be at hand when Joshua gave the signal to shout (Joshua 6:16); and the work of slaughter was probably commenced just as the hours of the Sabbath were passed.

Accursed - Better, as in the margin, ('devoted' (see the note on Leviticus 27:28)). In other cases, only the inhabitants of the towns were killed; their cattle and property became the plunder of the victors.

But Jericho, as the first Canaanite city to be captured, was devoted by Israel as first-fruits to God, as a sign that Israel received all the land from Him. Every living thing was put to death (Rahab and her household excepted) as a sacrifice to God, and the indestructible goods were brought into the treasury of the sanctuary (Joshua 6:19).