6:1 Just as chapter 5 began with a brief glance away from Israel to catch a glimpse of what was happening in the wider context, so too here a simple observation regarding the situation in Jericho sets up the account of Israel’s actions in the rest of the chapter. When Jericho was last seen in chapter 2, it was already “shut” (2:7), with only those in pursuit of the spies allowed outside the city. They have long since returned (2:23), and since then the Israelites have crossed the Jordan, coming that much closer and increasing the fearful tension of the watching Canaanites (2:10; 5:1).

Now Jericho is shut tight. The phrasing of the Hebrew of this verse is as tightly constructed as Jericho’s defenses. The ESV’s “inside and outside” seeks to capture the nuance of the active and passive forms of the same verb used here; “shut” and “shut out” might convey the sense as well, with the first form denying egress and the second denying ingress. And this is all on account of the proximity of Israel, the pivot of this verse. The latter part of the verse precisely echoes the first part: none goes out, and none goes in. Each verbal form in the verse is a participle. Combined with the fronting of the explicit subject (“Now Jericho”), these forms make clear that this verse is conveying simultaneous action.53 This is the situation in Jericho as Israel prepares to move into the land. The verse stands apart from the main line of narration beginning with Joshua’s encounter with the commander in 5:13–15, which finds its natural continuation only at 6:2, after this moment’s interruption to observe Jericho.

6:2 Joshua’s encounter with the commander of the army of the Lord was hardly disappointing, but it was not laden with detail. Joshua’s request for directions from his commanding officer (5:14) did not receive a corresponding reply. But the instruction he sought is now provided, as the Lord speaks once more with Joshua. If it seems surprising that the voice of “the Lord” should now be heard, when the commander’s might have been expected, this too is a feature of the appearances of “the angel of the Lord” (e.g., Ex. 3:2, 4; Judg. 6:12, 14).54

The first item offers complete reassurance. If Joshua’s solitary reconnaissance arose out of any lingering anxiety, this is wholly dispelled by God’s simple statement that Jericho is wholly under Joshua’s possession and control, as signified by the idiom “given . . . into your hand.”

6:3–5 But how the city is to be vanquished is explained in distinctly unmilitary terms. Rather, the terms of engagement appear to be composed entirely of ritual or ceremonial actions. Four elements in these verses bring religious concerns into prominence:

(1) The number seven is especially prominent: “seven priests,” “seven trumpets,” seven days, seven circuits—each of these expressing in some way the sacral associations of the number of completeness.

(2) The priests are again in action. As noted in the comment on 3:2–4, the priests have only a limited role in the book of Joshua, bearing the ark during the Jordan crossing and now in the siege of Jericho again carrying the ark (6:6) and also blowing “trumpets.” Priestly service involves, among other duties, handling holy things. This was their privileged task in the wilderness (as outlined in Numbers 3–4), and much later the Chronicler also focuses on this aspect of their remit (1 Chron. 15:2; 16:4–6, where there is also a conjunction of ark and “trumpet” [the latter a different Hebrew term, however]).

(3) The presence of the ark and its role in the daily circuits of the city recalls its central role in the miracle of the crossing of the Jordan. There it represented the very presence of God and as such was accorded reverence and respect. Although here the people do not keep a great distance from the ark, as they did at the Jordan crossing, a significant buffer remains between them and the ark. The cohort of seven trumpet-blowing priests walks in front of the ark, and before them are the “men of war” (“armed men”; v. 7). The ark’s identity here is no different from that in the Jordan crossing: it signals the presence and power of God as Jericho is taken.

(4) In addition to the priests carrying the ark, seven more blow “trumpets,” mentioned in five verses in this passage (vv. 4, 5, 6, 8, 13). Clearly, they play a prominent role. Most of these references are to a Hebrew compound (shofrot [ha]yobelim) signaled in the ESV by “trumpets of rams’ horns,” which combines the most common word for “trumpet” or “horn” (shofar) with a very rare one (yobel).55 Typically, this latter term has to do with the “jubilee,” best known from Leviticus 25. However, yobel as “trumpet” is used only in this passage (and on its own, apart from the compound, in Josh. 6:6) and at Exodus 19:13, where it is referenced again three verses later as a shofar. There it appears as part of the instructions Moses delivers to Israel as the people gather at the foot of Mount Sinai in anticipation of Moses’ ascending and receiving the law. Some commentators connect the yobel here with the proclamation of the Jubilee (Lev. 25:9–10) and its related property laws in Israel that reflect the Lord’s claim that “the land is mine” (Lev. 25:23).56 While the use of yobel may well suggest this link, perhaps more distinctive is its counterpart at the foot of Mount Sinai and the moment of divine encounter, implying a similar dynamic to this generation of Israel now poised outside the walls of Jericho.

The circuits themselves might hold some ritual significance beyond their number. If circling the altar is the prerogative of priests in their sacred duties, perhaps suggested by Psalm 26:6, then their circumambulations would imply the approach of a sacrifice, and by analogy Jericho becomes an altar.57 Although stated tentatively here, it could also be seen as a further facet of treating Jericho as kherem (cf. comment on 6:15–19), and these features all cohere strongly.

The result of all these activities will be the downfall, literally, of the city of Jericho (Josh. 6:5). The moment of capture described here in preparing Israel for the conquest anticipates precisely the outcome in verse 20.

6:6–7 Similar to the pattern of chapters 1 and 3, the Lord’s words to Joshua lead to Joshua’s passing on instructions to those under his leadership, here to the priests and the rest of the people in succession. The deployment of the people seems to require Joshua to make some inferences about how the march is to be orchestrated, and he does so in verse 7. It is clear from the Lord’s instructions that all the people are to be involved in the march, but it is not clear how they are to take their place in the procession.

6:8–14 And so the first circuit is undertaken in the terms arranged. The only additional feature is Joshua’s emphatic instruction to the people to maintain silence (v. 10), which comes across even more clearly in the Hebrew construction, which reverses the typical word order (“But the people Joshua commanded”), differentiating them from the priests and “armed men” in the rest of the procession.

The final summary of this first day’s action displays a differentiation of another kind: the ark’s circling of the city is the decisive factor in the summary (v. 11). Just as the ark’s movements in the crossing of the Jordan made possible the actions of the rest of the company, so too here the ark’s circuit of Jericho is the important factor.

The next five days unfold in the same way as the first. Again the narration stresses the combination of ark, which represents the presence of God, and the trumpets, which signal divine encounter in this orderly march of priests, men of war, and the rest of the people. The final notice (“So they did for six days”; v. 14) provides the inclusio with verse 3, repeating the words almost verbatim.

6:15–19 The seventh day and its seven circuits bring the action to a climax, and for it Joshua provides some reminders and additional instructions. For the first time the people are to add their voice to the sound of the trumpets (v. 16). Shouts and trumpet blasts come together in two different contexts in the OT. In the Psalms the combination comes at moments of worship and high praise of God (Ps. 98:6; cf. 81:1, 3),58 whereas in the Prophets it comes rather in moments of military action (Hos. 5:8; Joel 2:1). Here at the walls of Jericho the actions are both ritual and military at the same time.

Another, more surprising conjunction comes in the two parts of verse 17. First, Jericho is explicitly to be “devoted to the Lord for destruction,” invoking the Hebrew kherem first mentioned by Rahab back in 2:10. As noted above, for something to be kherem is to be designated as wholly devoted to the Lord, and so beyond secular use and dedicated entirely to the divine domain. In the case of inanimate things this renders them holy and subject to all the rules governing sacred objects. For living beings—whether human or animal—this requires their death, as the life is consigned to God sacrificially (cf. Lev. 27:28–29). The Hebrew term, whether noun or verb, is used roughly eighty times, and at least one extrabiblical usage is known as well (line 17 of the Mesha Stele, or “Moabite Stone”). It is far more frequent in early texts than late, and rare after the time of Saul—although it is the last word of the OT as it is typically arranged in Christian Bibles, concluding Malachi 4:6 (3:24 MT). In spite of such frequent attestation, programmatic statements about it are few, with the central teaching passage found in Deuteronomy 7:1–5, 17–26.

The analogy to sacrifice is helpful in another regard. One type of sacrifice is wholly given to God: the ʿolah (“burnt offering”; Lev. 1:3), in which the sacrifice is wholly consumed. In many other types of sacrifices, though, a part is given to God, a part is consumed by the priest, and the rest is shared among those presenting the sacrifice. So too with the kherem: its default is for the object under kherem to be wholly devoted, although different degrees of devotion could be specified. Here Joshua is insistent on a strict kherem against Jericho, with the direction given in Joshua 6:17 supplemented by the further instructions in verse 18 dealing with human and animal life (which uses the verb once and the noun three times) and verse 19 regarding metals. The urgency has to do with the dynamic outlined in Deuteronomy 7:26, which provides the pattern for the warning in Joshua 6:18: that which is kherem, like other sacred things, could communicate holiness and thus could not come into contact with the profane; such contact would occasion further destruction.59

While the first part of verse 17 invokes kherem and its associated destruction against Jericho, in Joshua’s next breath he speaks a word of life. Rahab and her household “shall live” because of her faithful action on Israel’s behalf. At the moment in which judgment is announced, salvation is also proclaimed—and for a Canaanite household.

6:20–21 The moment arrives. The narration is straightforward and unflinching, but with no sense of gloating or lingering over details. Matters proceed just as the Lord announced they would (v. 5). It is clear that in this most unmilitary of battle accounts it is the Lord who achieves the victory, as the city walls collapse, allowing the circling Israelites to enter “straight before” wherever they happen to be. The destruction of Jericho is truly an act of God, of Yahweh, who is a “man of war” (Ex. 15:3). The fall of Jericho owes nothing to any strategic planning by Israel or military power she might possess.

At the same time, there is no evading the claim of Joshua 6:21 that the terms of the kherem are enacted by the onrushing warriors of Israel. No matter how few might be left after the city’s collapse, they must still be dispatched. In this the Israelites serve as agents of the Lord’s decree. This is the distressing moment for ancient and modern readers alike. Yet it remains clear that nothing makes this a precedent for a routine action, nor does it qualify in any way as a form of the modern conception of genocide. There are no close biblical analogies, but the victory of God over the army of Egypt at the Red Sea, narrated and celebrated in Exodus 14–15, probably provides some helpful parallel. The initiative, prerogative, and victory are God’s, taken against those who oppose his rightful rule (cf. Ps. 2:10–12).

6:22–25 Instructions for delivering Rahab and her family from the carnage in Jericho were embedded in Joshua’s final commands. Now, after a hiatus of almost three chapters, she comes into the foreground once again. Here the situation is reversed from the previous paragraph, as the final statement of Israel’s faithful execution of the kherem is noted in Joshua 6:24. This arrangement reinforces the contrast of Rahab and those she saved with the rest of the populace of Jericho. Joshua and the spies prove themselves faithful to the agreement made with her; she has proved herself faithful to Israel’s God, and so she and “all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive” (v. 25). At this point they remain “outside the camp of Israel” (v. 23). She cannot as yet be counted an Israelite. There appears to be other sojourners among the company as well, according to 8:35. This mixed community is yet another signal that ethnicity and genocide are inappropriate terms for understanding the nature of Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. Keeping Rahab outside the camp may also have something to do with Rahab and her family’s being regarded as “devoted to destruction” (kherem), in other words, yet allowed to live despite the rules for kherem (e.g., Deut. 7:2).

6:26 Joshua’s curse on Jericho becomes one of the great prophetic arcs in the OT, giving divine shape to human history. Its counterpart is found in 1 Kings 16:34 as the last action before the great prophet Elijah comes on the scene. Elijah’s ministry testifies to the fact that the Lord rules Israel, not Baal or any other pretender. Here, as the oracle is delivered, the same principle has just been demonstrated: Israel’s God rules over this land, as over every other.

6:27 But the last word concerns Joshua. The declaration of his fame carries forward to the eyes of the nations what has already been confirmed to Israel in the Jordan crossing (Josh. 3:7; 4:14). Joshua’s ability has not won him this recognition; rather, it is wholly a matter of the Lord’s presence with him. Rahab saw Israel as being bound up with the actions of Israel’s God; so now Joshua is seen in this same light.