Albert Barnes Commentary Joshua 6:3-6

"And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams` horns before the ark: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And it shall be, 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 go up every man straight before him. And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams` horns before the ark of Jehovah." — Joshua 6:3-6 (ASV)

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.