Ep. 50 - Jericho Falls

Last we left the Israelites, they had finally finally finally entered the Promised Land – Canaan.  God had done an amazing miracle and dried up the Jordan River, and the Israelites had rushed across on dry land.  They had made it!  All the promises that had been made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…the promises that had been passed down from generation to generation in Egypt…to the promise given to Moses at the burning bush all those years ago…they all had come true at last.  They were there…and all that was left to do was conquer the land.  They were living in exciting times…God was on the move…and so were the Israelites! 

But you know who wasn’t excited?  Yah, the people who were living in Canaan.  They weren’t excited at all!  The way the Bible puts it is like this - “So it was, when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel.” (5:1) So yah, the Amorites and the Canaanites were not happy.  The invaders had finally arrived…they’d already defeated the Ammonites and the Midianites on the other side of the Jordan…big crazy miracles were happening……and they were scared.  Especially the Canaanites who lived right where the Israelites had just crossed.  So, what were the Canaanites going to do?

Well, the Canaanites…and really all the people who lived in the Promised Land…had two choices.  First, they could…of course…run!  Yah…ya know…the obvious choice!  A hoard of invaders, well over a million Israelites, had arrived.  Their God had performed crazy miracles for the Israelites…they’d seen it with their own eyes.  How could you possibly fight against a God that could stop (and then un-stop) a huge river in an instant?  How could you possibly fight against a God that could part a sea?  How could they possibly fight against a God who could open up the ground to swallow people whole?  So yah, they could have taken the obvious choice and run.  And the second choice, the doesn’t-make-any-sense choice, was to stay and fight.  All throughout Canaan were these fortress cities…and many of these cities had huge walls, lots of weapons, and lots of food…they were ready to be attacked.  And who knows…maybe the God of the Israelites had power over water, and fire, and earth…but had a special weakness for walls?  Well, it didn’t seem likely, but they would find out soon…because the Israelites were already on the move…and the very first city that the Israelites ran into was one of the biggest and best defended cities in all of Canaan…the city that we have already heard so much about – Jericho!

Now, a few episodes back, we already talked about Jericho.  And I know you kidzos remember what we said about it…that it was a huge city that was built on top of a hill…and that there were two sets of walls surrounding Jericho – a stone retaining wall keeping the hill from washing away, and further up the hill another huge brick wall.  (By the way, this little detail about the retaining wall and the brick wall is important for later…so try not to forget!)  And as the Israelites marched forward, and Jericho came fully into view, no doubt the Israelites said to themselves, “Wow…we are going to have to invade THAT?” I’m sure many of the soldiers imagined what they thought they were going to have to do – they’d have to run as fast as they could up to the 6-10 foot stone retaining wall, climb that, then run a few feet ahead, and then find some way of climbing the towering brick wall – all the while the soldiers in Jericho would have been throwing rocks and spears at them, dumping scalding hot water on them, and shooting arrows at them.  If that’s what they were going to have to do…well a lot of the Israelites were going to die.  So, with all this swirling in their heads, the Israelites expectantly went to Joshua…what was the battle plan…what were they going to do?

And Joshua…well he had no idea what to do!  The Israelites were right to be afraid…those were some high walls to climb…and there were a lot of ways to die.  But God had led them there, and God would give them the answer.  And so Joshua went a little ways away from the camp to pray, and to ask God what to do. And while he was doing this the Bible says that all of a sudden Joshua, “lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand.” (5:13) At first, Joshua was probably like, whoa where did that guy come from…how had this Canaanite soldier snuck up on me so fast?  But as Joshua collected himself, and took a second look at the guy, Joshua realized that he didn't recognize the armor that the soldier was wearing. He didn't look like a Canaanite soldier, nut neither did he look like an Israelite soldier. So, naturally wanting to know whether he was going to have to fight this guy or not, Joshua asked him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” (5:13) But the strange soldier looked at Joshua and said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” (5:14) Commander of the army of the Lord…but wasn’t Joshua the commander of the army of the Lord?  Who did this guy think he was?  Ya know, you can’t just randomly show up and… And this is when it dawned on Joshua who he was talking to.  In truth Joshua wasn't the true commander of the army of the Lord…God was.  And God had just given the army to Joshua to take care of.  And putting that together with how he’d been snuck up on so easily, Joshua realized that this strange soldier standing in front of him was actually God Himself.  This had never happened to Joshua before…and he stood there frozen for a second.  And so, God said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” (5:15) Which Joshua immediately did.  And then God gave Joshua some encouragement, and said to him, “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.” (6:2) No matter what happened, God would give the Israelites the victory over this huge city.  Jericho was going down no matter what. 

Of course, the next question on Joshua’s mind was…how!  The city was so huge and so well defended…it didn’t seem possible to defeat it.  And then God gave Joshua kinda strange instructions on how to defeat the city.  God told Joshua to get the ark, along with 7 priests holding 7 trumpets, and all the Israelite soldiers, and assemble them together.  The soldiers were to form up, along with the ark and the 7 priests, and march around the Jericho.  While marching around the city, they were to be completely quiet…no talking…no shouting…nothing.  The only noise they were to make was from the 7 priests blowing their trumpets.  When they were done marching around the city one time, they were to go silently back to their camp until the next day.  This they were supposed to do for 6 days straight.  On the 7^th day, they were to do the same thing…march around the city in complete silence while the trumpets blew…except on the 7^th day, instead of marching around the city once, they were to march around the city 7 times.  And on the 7^th time, the priests were to make a long blast on the trumpets, and all the people were to shout as loud as they possibly could.  And once they did that, somehow, the walls of Jericho would fall down flat.  And once the walls had fallen down, all the soldiers were to, as God said, “go up every man straight before him.” (6:5)

Now, these instructions would have been quite strange to Joshua.  Joshua was a solider, and he knew that this was not how cities were normally defeated.  Normally, an army would surround a city and siege it.  That is to say they would stay around the city for a long time…months…sometimes years…and stop all the food and supplies from entering the city.  Once the people in the city got hungry enough, the city would surrender.  Or, if you didn’t have months or years to wait for the city to surrender, the army would build huge ladders to climb over the walls or build huge siege weapons which would throw big rocks at the city walls to break them down.  Instead, they were going to march around the city a bunch of times, and shout at the walls, and somehow that would make the walls fall down?  Of course, Joshua didn’t understand.  But Joshua also knew that God doesn’t always do things they way that we would expect.  Joshua had learned to trust God, and after he’d received all his instructions, he passed them along to the rest of the Israelites. 

And the Israelites followed God’s instructions exactly.  Each day all the soldiers, the 7 priests with the trumpets, and those carrying the ark assembled themselves in front of the city, and marched around Jericho in complete silence.  You can imagine that this would have really weirded out the soldiers in Jericho.  Just imagine getting yourself ready for a big attack…you look over the walls and see the Israelites coming…ok here it is…brace yourself…and then…nothing.  You’d peek over the walls and all you see is some priests carrying a glowing box, some other priests blowing some trumpets every once in a while, and a whole bunch of soldiers marching in complete silence.  It would have been really really weird.  And as soon as this army had finished marching around the city once, as quickly as they had come, they disappeared.  And then the next day, the exact same thing happened.  This is not how these things were supposed to go. 

On the 7^th day, all the Israelites woke up very early…today was the day.  They did their usual march around the city, and then they did it a 2^nd time, then a 3^rd time, a 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th time.  On the 7^th time, the Israelites suddenly stopped, and the priests blew the trumpets as hard as they could…and then Joshua gave some last minute instructions, “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city!  (17)  Now the city shall be doomed by the LORD to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.  (18)  And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.  (19)  But all the silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are consecrated to the LORD; they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.” (6:16-19) And with those final instructions out of the way, the Israelites shouted as loud as they could.  And while the Israelites were shouting and the trumpets were blowing, the people looked as the walls of Jericho creaked, and cracked, and then began to sway, and then all at once fell down with a big crash! 

Wow…it was a miracle.  The huge intimidating walls of Jericho, the walls of the most fortified city in Canaan had crashed to the ground.  And not only had they crashed to the ground, but they had fallen in such a way that they’d made it easy for the Israelite army to rush quickly into the city.  You see, archeologists have found Jericho and dug it up.  And do you kidzos remember that there were actually two walls - a stone retaining wall and then a brick wall?  Well, as it turns out, the brick wall fell over the stone retaining wall and fell in just such a way that the bricks of the brick wall filled up the space in front of the stone wall and formed a ramp.  So, the Israelites were able to march right over the bricks and right into the city without having to climb up the stone retaining wall.  And this is how each man was able to go “straight before him” as God had instructed.  (BTW kidzos if this doesn’t make too much sense to you, then you can go to papasbiblestories.com and I’ve put a diagram there showing you what I’m talking about.  And I’ve also put a link to the YouTube video that talks more about all the other things that archeologists found when they dug up Jericho.)

Once the Israelites had marched into the city, they completely destroyed it as God had instructed.  The Bible says that they, “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.” (6:21) The only people that survived were Rahab and her family because they had helped the Israelite spies.  And after the Israelites had killed all the people, and after they had taken all the gold, silver, bronze and iron (and dedicated them to the tabernacle), they burned the city to the ground.  The Israelites weren’t even supposed to take anything of worth for themselves.  And then even after the city had been completely destroyed, Joshua went further and cursed the city, and said, “Cursed be the man before the LORD who rises up and builds this city Jericho; he shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest he shall set up its gates.” (6:26) If the Canaanites had had any doubts that the Israelites’ God had some kind of weakness for walls…well those doubts were put to rest.  The Israelites were coming, the God of the Israelites was all powerful, and everyone in Canaan had better find another place to live…soon.

Now, what lesson can we draw out of this story kidzos?  Well, here’s a question to ask…why do you think that God defeated Jericho in this strange and unique way?  Why not defeat them the same way that the Amorites and Midianites had been defeated…with the usual warfare?  Well, believe it or not, but God was trying to be merciful to the people who lived in Jericho and to the rest of the people who lived in Canaan.  Even though the Canaanites were doing all kinds of bad things (which we talked about in our bonus episode), God wanted to give them every chance to survive.  By causing the walls of Jericho, one of the largest and most prepared fortress cities in Canaan, to fall down by a miracle, it was sending a clear message to everyone else…you had better get out of Canaan…because none of the remaining fortress cities can protect you against God.  I mean, even the strange way that the Israelites marched around Jericho once per day and then disappeared back to their camp…every day that the Israelites did that God was giving the people in Jericho a chance to leave…for their lives to be spared…because once the city fell, everyone inside was going to die.  God is not someone who wants to trap people in their sin…he wants to give everyone as many chances to live as possible…as many chances to turn away from their sin as He possibly can.  Even if you are a terrible sinner like the people who lived in Jericho.