_THE FATE OF JERICHO._
JOSHUA vi. 8-27.
The instructions of Joshua to the priests and the people are promptly
obeyed. In the bright rays of the morning sun, on the day when Jericho
is to be surrounded, the plain between the Jordan and Jericho, a space
of some five miles, may be seen dotted over with the tents of Israel,
arranged in that orderly manner which had been prescribed by Moses in
the wilderness. The whole encampment is astir in the prospect of great
events. The erect carriage, the flashing eye, the compressed lip of
the soldiers show that something great and unusual is expected.
By-and-by, there is a stir near the spot where the ark rests, and,
borne on the shoulders of the priests, the sacred vessel is seen in
motion in the direction of Jericho. Right in front of it are seven
priests carrying trumpets of rams' horns, or, as some render it,
jubilee horns. The procession of the ark halts a little, till a body
of armed men advance and form in front of it. Others of the people
take up their places in the rear. The seven priests sound their
trumpets, and the procession moves on. Their course is round the walls
of Jericho, far enough removed to be beyond the reach of the arrows of
its defenders. Not a shout is raised. Not a sound is heard, save that
of the trumpets of the seven priests. At last the procession returns
to the camp, leaving Jericho just as it found it. Next day the same
process is repeated; and the next, and the next, on to the sixth. On
the seventh day, the march begins early and is continued late. The
spirits of the people are sustained during their weary, monotonous
tramp by the expectation of a crisis. At length, when the seventh
circuit has been made, the signal is given by Joshua. The air is rent
with the shouts of the people and the noise of the trumpets, and
immediately, all round, the wall falls flat to the ground, and the
people march straight into the city. Paralysed with astonishment and
terror, the inhabitants are unable to resist, and lie, men, women and
children, at the mercy of their assailants. And the instructions to
the Israelites are to destroy everything that is in the city, both man
and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass, with the edge of the
sword. As for the more solid part of the spoil, the silver and the
gold and the vessels of brass and iron, they are "devoted" to the
service of God (the Authorized translation unhappily uses the word
"accursed"). No one is to appropriate a single article to his own use.
An exception to the universal massacre was to take place only in the
case of the harlot Rahab, who was to be saved, with all her relations,
in accordance with the solemn promise of the spies.
There is no difficulty in perceiving the great lesson for all time to
be derived from this extraordinary transaction, or the great law of
the kingdom of God that was made so conspicuous by it. When we have
clear indications of the Divine mind as to any course of action, we
are to advance to it promptly and without fear, even though the means
at our disposal appear utterly inadequate to the object sought to be
gained. No man goeth a warfare at his own charges in the service of
God. The resources of infinite power avail for that service, and they
are sure to be brought into play if it be undertaken for God's glory,
and in accordance with His will. Who could have supposed that the
fishermen of Galilee would in the end triumph over all the might of
kings and rulers; over all the influence of priesthoods and systems of
worship enshrined in the traditions of centuries; over all the
learning and intellect of the philosopher, and over all the prejudices
and passions of the multitude? The secret lay manifestly in the
promise of Jesus--"Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the
world." Who could have thought that the efforts of a poor German
student in Berlin, on behalf of some neglected children, would expand
into the widespread and well-rooted "Inner Mission" of Wichern? Or
that the concern of a prison chaplain for the welfare of some of the
prisoners after their release would develop into the worldwide work of
Fliedner? Or that the distress of a kind-hearted medical student in
London for a batch of poor boys who "didn't live nowhere," and whose
pale faces, as they lay on a cold night on the roof of a shed, stirred
in him an irrepressible compassion, would give birth to one of the
marvels of London philanthropy,--Dr. Barnardo's twenty institutions,
caring for three to four thousand children, in connection with which
the announcement could be made that no really destitute child was ever
turned from its doors? When Carey on his shoemaker's stool
contemplated the evangelization of India, there was as great a gulf
between the end and the apparent means, as when the priests blew with
their rams' horns round the walls of Jericho. But Carey felt it to be
a Divine command, and Joshua-like set himself to obey it, leaving to
God from whom it came to furnish the power by which the work was to be
done. And wherever there have been found men and women of strong faith
in God, who have looked on His will as recorded in the Scriptures with
as much reverence as if it had been announced personally to
themselves, and who have set themselves to obey that will with a sense
of its reality, and a faith in God's promised help, like that of
Joshua as the priests marched round Jericho, the same result has been
realized; before Zerubbabel the great mountain has become a plain, and
success has been achieved worthy of the acknowledgment--"The Lord hath
done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
Far more effectual has this brave and thorough method of doing the
Divine will proved than all the contrivances of compromise and worldly
wisdom. The attempt to serve two masters has never proved either
dignified or permanently successful. "If the Lord be God, follow Him;
but if Baal, then follow him;" but do not attempt to combine in one
what will please God and Baal too. It is the single eye that is full
of light, and full of blessing. If God really is our Master, all the
resources of heaven and earth are at our back. If we are able to go
forward in sole and simple reliance on His might, as David did in the
conflict with Goliath, all will go well. If we waver in our trust in
Him, if we fly to the resources of human policy, if we seek
deliverance from present evil at whatever cost, we arrest, as it were,
the electric current flowing from heaven, and become weak as other
men. Still more if we are guilty of deceit and cunning. How different
was David confronting Goliath, and David feigning madness before King
Achish! In the one case a noble hero, in the other a timid, faltering
child. It is a dear price we pay for present safety or convenience
when we forfeit the approval of our conscience and the favour of God.
It is a sublime attitude that faith takes up even in the face of
overwhelming danger--"Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether
with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God;
for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O
Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail AGAINST THEE" (2 Chron.
xiv. 11).
This, however, is but one half the lesson of the siege of Jericho. The
other and not less valuable lesson is, that in many good enterprises,
all that is done may appear for a long time to be labour lost, and not
to advance us by one step nearer to the object in view. For six days
the priests carried the ark round Jericho, but not one stone was
loosened from the walls, not by one iota did the defences seem to
yield. Six times on the seventh day there was an equally complete want
of result. Nay, the seventh perambulation on the seventh day appeared
to be equally unsuccessful, until the very last moment; but when that
moment came, the whole defences of the city came tumbling to the
ground. It is often God's method to do a great deal of work unseen,
and then on a sudden effect the consummation. And whenever we are
working in accordance with God's will, it is our encouragement to
believe that though our visible success is hardly appreciable, yet
good and real work is done. For one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. Sometimes in a thousand years
God does not seem to accomplish a good day's work, but at other times
in a single day He does the work of a thousand years. The reformation
of the Church in the Middle Ages,--how little progress it seemed to
make during weary centuries; and even when victory seemed to be
drawing nigh, how thoroughly was it arrested by the martyrdom of Huss
and Jerome in Bohemia, the extinction of the light of Wicliffe in
England, and the suppression of the Lollards in Scotland! And when in
Providence some causes began to operate that seemed to have a bearing
on the desired consummation, such as the invention of printing, the
revival of learning, and the love of freedom, how feebly they seemed
to operate in opposition to that overwhelming force which the Papacy
had been accumulating for centuries, and which nothing seemed able to
touch! But when Luther appeared, nailed his theses to the door of the
church at Wittemberg, and took up the bold attitude of an out-and-out
opponent to Rome, in one hour the Church was struck as with an
earthquake; it reeled to its foundations, and half of the proud
structure fell. The conflict with American slavery, how slowly it
advanced for many a year, nay, at times it seemed to be even losing
ground; till in the midst of the great Civil War the President signed
a certain proclamation, and in one moment American slavery received
its death blow. An eminent historian of England has a striking picture
of the slow, steady, awful triumph of iniquity in the career of
Cardinal Wolsey, and the sudden collapse of the structure built up so
carefully by that wicked man. Speaking of the final retribution, he
says: "The time of reckoning at length was arrived. Slowly the hand
had crawled along the dial plate, slowly as if the event would never
come, and wrong was heaped on wrong, and oppression cried, and it
seemed as if no ear had heard its voice, till the measure of the
wickedness was at length fulfilled; the finger touched the hour, and
as the strokes of the great hammer rang out above the nation, in an
instant the mighty fabric of iniquity was shivered to ruins."
It is the prerogative of faith to believe that the same law of
Providence is ever in operation, and that the rapidity with which some
great drama is to be wound up may be as striking as the slowness of
its movement was trying in its earlier stages. May we not be living in
an age destined to furnish another great example of this law? The
years as they pass seem laden with great events, and we seem to hear
the angel that hath power over fire calling to the angel with the
sharp sickle,--"Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of
the vine of the earth, for the grapes thereof are fully ripe." We
cannot tell but before a year ends some grand purpose of Providence
shall be accomplished, the death blow given to some system of force or
of fraud that has scourged the earth for centuries, or some great
prophetic cycle completed for which Simeons and Annas have been
watching more than they that watch for the morning. God hasten the day
when on every side truth shall finally triumph over error, good over
evil, peace over strife, love over selfishness, and order over
confusion; and when from every section of God's great but scattered
family the shout of triumph shall go up, "Alleluia: for the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth."
But let us return to the narrative of the fall of Jericho, and advert
to two of the difficulties that have occurred to many minds in
connection with it; one of comparatively little moment, but another of
far more serious import.
The lesser difficulty is connected with the order to march round
Jericho for seven successive days. Was it not contrary to the spirit
of the law to make no difference on the Sabbath? As the narrative
reads we are led to think that the Sabbath was the last of the seven
days, in which case, instead of a cessation of labour, there was an
increase of it sevenfold. Possibly this may be a mistake; but at the
least it seems as if, all days being treated alike, there was a
neglect of the precept, "In it thou shalt not do any work."
To this it has usually been replied that the law of the Sabbath being
only a matter of arrangement, and not founded on any unchangeable
obligation, it was quite competent for God to suspend it or for a time
repeal it, if occasion required. The present instance has been viewed
as one of those exceptional occasions when the obligation to do no
work was suspended for a time. But this is hardly a satisfactory
explanation. Was it likely that immediately after God had so solemnly
charged Joshua respecting the book of the law, that it was "not to
depart out of his mouth, but he was to meditate therein day and night,
to observe to do according to all that was written therein," that
almost on the first occurrence of a public national interest He would
direct him to disregard the law of the Sabbath? Or was it likely that
now that the people were about to get possession of the land, under
the most sacred obligation to frame both their national and their
personal life by the Divine law, one of the most outstanding
requirements of that law should be even temporarily superseded? We
cannot help thinking that it is in another direction that we must look
for the solution of this difficulty.
And what seems the just explanation is, that this solemn procession
of the ark was really an act of worship, a very public and solemn act
of worship, and that therefore the labour which it involved was
altogether justifiable, just as the Sabbath labour involved in the
offering of the daily sacrifices could not be objected to. It was a
very solemn and open demonstration of honour to that great Being in
whom Israel trusted--of obedience to His word, and unfaltering
confidence that He would show Himself the God of His chosen people. At
every step of their march they might well have sung--"I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." The absurdity
of their proceeding to the eye of flesh invested it with a high
sanctity, because it testified to a conviction that the presence of
that God who dwelt symbolically in the ark would more than compensate
for all the feebleness and even apparent silliness of the plan. It was
indeed an exception to the usual way of keeping the Sabbath, but an
exception that maintained and exalted the honour of God. And, in a
sense, it might be called resting, inasmuch as no aggressive
operations of any kind were carried on; it was simply a waiting on
God, waiting till He should arise out of His place, and cause it to be
seen that "Israel got not the land in possession by their own sword,
neither did their own arm save them: but Thy right hand, and Thine
arm, and the light of Thy countenance, because Thou hadst a favour
unto them" (Psalm xliv. 3).
A more serious objection in the eyes of many is that which is founded
on the promiscuous massacre of the people of Jericho, which, according
to the narrative, the Israelites were ordered to make. And it is not
wonderful that, with the remarkable sense of the sanctity of human
life attained in our country and in our age, and the intense horror
which we have at scenes of blood and death, the idea of this slaughter
should excite a strong feeling of repugnance. For in truth human life
has never been held so sacred among men as it is in these our days and
in this our island, where by the mercy of God war and bloodshed have
been unknown for nearly a century and a half. We must remember that
three thousand years ago, and in the tumultuous regions of the East,
such a sentiment was unknown. The massacre of one tribe by another was
an event of frequent occurrence, and so little thought of that a year
or two after its occurrence the survivors of the massacre might be
found on perfectly good terms with those who had committed it. This of
course does not affect the righteousness of the sentence executed on
the men of Jericho, but it shows that as executioners of that sentence
the Israelites were not exposed either to the harrowing or the
hardening influence which would now be inseparable from such a work.
We reserve the general question for consideration further on.[10] We
confine ourselves for the present to the inquiry, Why was Jericho
singled out for treatment so specially severe? Not only were all its
inhabitants put to the sword, as indeed the inhabitants of other
cities were too, but the city was burnt with fire, and a special curse
was pronounced upon any one that should set up its gates and its
walls. Of only two other cities do we read that they were destroyed in
this way--Ai and Hazor (viii. 28, xi. 13). And in regard to all the
three we may see special considerations dictating Joshua's course.
Jericho and Ai were the first two cities taken by him, and it may have
been useful to set an example of severity in their case. Hazor was
the centre of a conspiracy, and being situated in the extreme north,
its fate might read a lesson to those who were too far from Jericho
and Ai to see what had happened there. But in the case of Jericho
there was another consideration. Gilgal, which Joshua had made his
headquarters, was but three or four miles distant. At that place there
were no doubt gathered a great part of the flocks and herds of the
Israelites, with the women and children, as well as the ark and the
sacred tabernacle. It was necessary to prevent the possibility of a
fortress being again erected at Jericho. For if it should fall into
the enemy's hands, it would endanger the very existence of Gilgal. We
shall see in the after part of the narrative that the policy of
sparing the towns even when the inhabitants were destroyed proved a
mistake, and was very disastrous to the Israelites. We shall find that
in very many cases, while Joshua was occupied elsewhere, the towns
were taken possession of anew by the Canaanites, and new troubles
befell the Israelites. For Joshua's conquest was not a complete
subjugation, and much remained to be done by each tribe in its
settlement in order to get quit of the old inhabitants. It was the
failure of most of the tribes to do their part in this process that
led to most of the troubles in the future history of Israel, both in
the way of temptation to idolatry and in the form of actual war.
[10] See Chapter XXXI., "Jehovah the Champion of Israel."
The only things saved from utter destruction at Jericho were the gold
and the silver and other metallic substances, which were put into the
treasury of the house of the Lord. The fact that the "house of the
Lord," situated at this time at Gilgal, was an establishment of such
size as to be able to employ all these things in its service refutes
the assertion of those critics who would make out that at the
settlement in Canaan there was no place that might be called
emphatically "_the_ house of the Lord." It indicates that the
arrangements for worship were on a large scale,--a fact which is
confirmed afterwards by the circumstance that the Gibeonites were
assigned by Joshua to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water _for the
house of my God_." If little is said about the arrangements for
worship in the Book of Joshua, it is because the one object of the
book is to record the settlement of the nation in the country. If it
were true that the book was overhauled by some priestly writer who
took every opportunity of magnifying his office, he must have done his
work in a strange manner. We find in it such hints as we have noticed
showing that the service of the sanctuary was not neglected, but we
have none of those full or formal details that would have been given
if a writer with such a purpose had worked over the book.
We hear of Jericho from time to time as a place of abode both in the
Old Testament and in the New; but when Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it
with walls and gates, "he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his
firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub,
according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Joshua the son of
Nun" (1 Kings xvi. 34). It was ordained that that first fortress which
had withstood the people of God on the west of Jordan should remain a
perpetual desolation. As the stones set up in the channel and on the
banks of the river witnessed to future generations of God's care for
His own people, so the stones of Jericho cast down and lying in ruined
heaps were designed to testify to the dread retribution that overtook
the guilty. The two great lessons of Providence from Jericho are, the
certainty of the reward of faith and obedience on the one hand, and of
the punishment of wickedness on the other. The words which Balaam had
proclaimed from the top of the mountain on the other side now received
their first fulfilment:--
"How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,
Thy tabernacles, O Israel!...
God bringeth him forth out of Egypt;
He hath, as it were, the strength of the wild ox;
He shall eat up the nations his adversaries,
And shall break their bones in pieces,
And smite them through with His arrows."