The people had religiously observed the orders given them concerning the besieging of Jericho, and now at length Joshua had told them (Jos 6:16), "The Lord hath given you the city, enter and take possession." Accordingly in these verses we have,

I.The rules they were to observe in taking possession. God gives it to them, and therefore may direct it to what uses and intents, and clog it with what provisos and limitations he thinks fit. It is given to them to be devoted to God, as the first and perhaps the worst of all the cities of Canaan. 1. The city must be burnt, and all the lives in it sacrificed without mercy to the justice of God. All this they knew was included in those words, Jos 6:17. The city shall be a cherem, a devoted thing, at and all therein, to the Lord. No life in it might be ransomed upon any terms; they must all be surely put to death, Lev 27:29. So he appoints from whom as creatures they had received their lives, and to whom as sinners they had forfeited them; and who may dispute his sentence? Is God unrighteous, who thus taketh vengeance? God forbid we should entertain such a thought! There was more of God seen in the taking of Jericho than of any other of the cities of Canaan, and therefore that must be more than any other devoted to him. And the severe usage of this city would strike a terror upon all the rest and melt their hearts yet more before Israel. Only, when this severity is ordered, Rahab and her family are excepted: She shall live and all that are with her. She had distinguished herself from her neighbours by the kindness she showed to Israel, and therefore shall be distinguished from them by the speedy return of that kindness. 2. All the treasure of it, the money and plate and valuable goods, must be consecrated to the service of the tabernacle, and brought into the stock of dedicated things, the Jews say because the city was taken on the sabbath day. Thus God would be honoured by the beautifying and enriching of his tabernacle; thus preparation was made for the extraordinary expenses of his service; and thus the Israelites were taught not to set their hearts upon worldly wealth nor to aim at heaping up abundance of it for themselves. God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey, not a land abounding with silver and gold; for he would have them live comfortably in it, that they might serve him cheerfully, but not covet either to trade with distant countries or to hoard for after times. He would likewise have them to reckon themselves enriched in the enriching of the tabernacle, and to think that which was laid up in God's house as truly their honour and wealth as if it had been laid up in their own. 3. A particular caution is given them to take heed of meddling with the forbidden spoil; for what was devoted to God, if they offered to appropriate it to their own use, would prove accursed to them; therefore (Jos 6:18) "In any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing; you will find yourselves inclined to reach towards it, but check yourselves, and frighten yourselves from having any thing to do with it." He speaks as if he foresaw the sin of Achan, which we have an account of in the next chapter, when he gives this reason for the caution, lest you make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it, as it proved that Achan did.

II.The entrance that was opened to them into the city by the sudden fall of the walls, or at least that part of the wall over against which they then were when they gave the shout (Jos 6:20): The wall fell down flat, and probably killed abundance of people, the guards that stood sentinel upon it, or others that crowded about it, to look at the Israelites that were walking round. We read of thousands killed by the fall of a wall, Kg1 20:30. that which they trusted to for defence proved their destruction. The sudden fall of the wall, no doubt, put the inhabitants into such a consternation that they had no strength nor spirit to make any resistance, but they became an easy prey to the sword of Israel, and saw to how little purpose it was to shut their gates against a people that had the Lord on the head of them, Mic 2:13. Note, The God of heaven easily can, and certainly will, break down all the opposing power of his and his church's enemies. Gates of brass and bars of iron are, before him, but as straw and rotten wood, Isa 45:1, Isa 45:2. Who will bring me into the strong city? Wilt not thou, O God? Psa 60:9, Psa 60:10. Thus shall Satan's kingdom fall, nor shall any prosper that harden themselves against God.

III.The execution of the orders given concerning this devoted city. All that breathed were put to the sword; not only the men that were found in arms, but the women, and children, and old people. Though they cried for quarter, and begged ever so earnestly for their lives, there was no room for compassion, pity must be forgotten: they utterly destroyed all, Jos 6:21. If they had not had a divine warrant under the seal of miracles for this execution, it could not have been justified, nor can it justify the like now, when we are sure no such warrant can be produced. But, being appointed by the righteous Judge of heaven and earth to do it, who is not unrighteous in taking vengeance, they are to be applauded in doing it as the faithful ministers of his justice. Work for God was then bloody work; and cursed was he that did it deceitfully, keeping back his sword from blood, Jer 48:10. But the spirit of the gospel is very different, for Christ came not to destroy men's lives but to save them, Luk 9:56. Christ's victories were of another nature. The cattle were put to death with the owners, as additional sacrifices to the divine justice. The cattle of the Israelites, when slain at the altar, were accepted as sacrifices for them, but the cattle of these Canaanites were required to be slain as sacrifices with them, for their iniquity was not to be purged with sacrifice and offering: both were for the glory of God. 2. The city was burnt with fire, and all that was in it, Jos 6:24. The Israelites, perhaps, when they had taken Jericho, a large and well-built city, hoped they should have that for their head-quarters; but God will have them yet to dwell in tents, and therefore fires this nest, lest they should nestle in it. 3. All the silver and gold, and all those vessels which were capable of being purified by fire, were brought into the treasury of the house of the Lord; not that he needed it but that he would be honoured by it, as the Lord of hosts, of their hosts in particular, the God that gave the victory and therefore might demand the spoil, either the whole, as here, or, as sometimes, a tenth, Heb 7:4.

IV.The preservation of Rahab the harlot, or inn-keeper, who perished not with those that believed not, Heb 11:31. The public faith was engaged for her safety by the two spies, who acted therein as public persons; and therefore, though the hurry they were in at the taking of the town was no doubt very great, yet Joshua took effectual care for her preservation. The same persons that she had secured were employed to secure her, Jos 6:22, Jos 6:23. They were best able to do it who knew her and her house, and they were fittest to do it, that it might appear it was for the sake of her kindness to them that she was thus distinguished and had her life given her for a prey. All her kindred were saved with her; like Noah she believed to the saving of her house; and thus faith in Christ brings salvation to the house, Act 16:31. Some ask how her house, which is said to have been upon the wall (Jos 2:15), escaped falling with the wall; we are sure it did escape, for she and her relations were safe in it, either though it joined so near to the wall as to be said to be upon it, yet it was so far off as not to fall either with the wall or under it; or, rather, that part of the wall on which her house stood fell not. Now being preserved alive, 1. She was left for some time without the camp to be purified from the Gentile superstition, which she was to renounce, and to be prepared for her admission as a proselyte. 2. She was in due time incorporated with the church of Israel, and she and her posterity dwelt in Israel, and her family was remarkable long after. We find her the wife of Salmon, prince of Judah, mother of Boaz, and named among the ancestors of our Saviour, Mat 1:5. Having received Israelites in the name of Israelites, she had an Israelite's reward. Bishop Pierson observes that Joshua's saving Rahab the harlot, and admitting her into Israel, were a figure of Christ's receiving into his kingdom, and entertaining there, the publicans and the harlots, Mat 21:31. Or it may be applied to the conversion of the Gentiles.

V.Jericho is condemned to a perpetual desolation, and a curse pronounced upon the man that at any time hereafter should offer to rebuild it (Jos 6:26): Joshua adjured them, that is, the elders and people of Israel, not only by their own consent, obliging themselves and their posterity never to rebuild this city, but by the divine appointment, God himself having forbidden it under the sever penalty here annexed. 1. God would hereby show the weight of a divine curse; where it rests there is no contending with it nor getting from under it; it brings ruin without remedy or repair. 2. He would have it to remain in its ruins a standing monument of his wrath against the Canaanites when the measure of their iniquity was full, and of his mercy to his people when the time had come for their settlement in Canaan. The desolations of their enemies were witnesses of his favour to them, and would upbraid them with their ingratitude to that God who had done so much for them. The situation of the city was very pleasant, and probably its nearness to Jordan was an advantage to it, which would tempt men to build upon the same spot; but they are here told it is at their peril if they do it. Men build for their posterity, but he that builds Jericho shall have no posterity to enjoy what he builds; his eldest son shall die when he begins the work, and if he take not warning by that stroke to desist, but will go on presumptuously, the finishing of his work shall be attended with the funeral of his youngest, and we must suppose all the rest cut off between. This curse, not being a curse causeless, did come upon that man who long after rebuilded Jericho (Kg1 16:34), but we are not to think it made the place ever the worse when it was built, or brought any hurt to those that inhabited it. We find Jericho afterwards graced with the presence, not only of those two great prophets Elijah and Elisha, but of our blessed Saviour himself, Luk 18:35; Luk 19:1; Mat 20:29. Note, It is a dangerous thing to attempt the building up of that which God will have to be destroyed. See Mal 1:4.

Lastly,All this magnified Joshua and raised his reputation (Jos 6:27); it made him not only acceptable to Israel, but formidable to the Canaanites, because it appeared that God was with him of a truth: the Word of the Lord was with him, so the Chaldee, even Christ himself, the same that was with Moses. Nothing can more raise a man's reputation, nor make him appear more truly great, than to have the evidences of God's presence with him.

The people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down - There has been much learned labor spent to prove that the shouting of the people might be the natural cause that the wall fell down! To wait here, either to detail or refute any such arguments, would be lost time: enough of them may be seen in Scheuchzer. The whole relation evidently supposes it to have been a supernatural interference, as the blowing of the trumpets, and the shouting of the people, were too contemptible to be used even as instruments in this work, with the expectation of accomplishing it in a natural way.

So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets,.... As Joshua had charged them, Jos 6:16,

and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet,

and the people shouted with a great shout; that is, gave a loud shout, on hearing the long blast of the trumpets blown by the priests the seventh time, as they were no doubt directed by Joshua, agreeably to the order given to him; see Jos 6:5,

that the wall fell down flat; the wall of the city of Jericho, as the Lord said it should; see Gill on Jos 6:5,

so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city; they went up to it from the plain, where they were, and entered it without any difficulty, the wall being fallen, and that everywhere: so that they went directly from the place where they were, and went in right over against them, into every quarter and, part of the city, and seized on it, and possessed it at once. Various things may be observed concerning this surprising event; as that it was supernatural, and cannot be ascribed to second causes, there being nothing in the procession round the city, the blowing of the trumpets, or shout of the people, that could occasion the wall to fall; and that no defences or fortifications are anything against God, when it is his will a city should be taken, with whom nothing is impossible; and that sometimes unlikely means are appointed and used by him for doing great things, that the power may appear to be his by which they are done; and that faith stops at nothing, when it has the word and promise of God to encourage and support it; and that God does everything in his own time and way. The falling of the walls of Jericho may be considered as an emblem of the fall of Babylon; these two cities agree, as in their greatness, so in their wickedness, Rev 17:4; and as Jericho stood in the way of Israel's inheriting the land, being a frontier and barrier town; so mystical Babylon stands in the way of the kingdom of Christ, and its spread in the world, and particularly of the conversion of the Jews, Rev 11:14. The fall of Jericho was very sudden, and when not expected by the inhabitants of it; and so will be the fall of Babylon, Rev 18:7; and as Jericho fell at the sound of rams horns, the destruction of antichrist, or mystical Babylon, will be through the preaching of the Gospel, Rev 14:6; and as the one was by the sounding of seven priests, at the seventh time of sounding, on the seventh day; so the ruin of antichrist will be at the seventh angel's sounding the seventh trumpet, and pouring out the seventh vial, Rev 10:7; and as at the destruction of the one, so of the other, but few saved from the common calamity, Rev 18:4; and both never to be raised up and built again, Rev 18:21; And it may be considered also as an emblem of the subjection of the Gentile world to Christ; which, like Jericho, or the moon, as some observe the name signifies, is very changeable; and as that city, and the inhabitants of it, an enemy to God, and his people, and yet made subject by the ministry of his word; as particularly it will be when the kingdoms of this world shall become his: or rather it may be an emblem of the subjection of particular souls to Christ, and the means thereof; who are like the walled city of Jericho in their unregenerate state, their hearts hard, stubborn, and inflexible, and enmity to God; are self-confident, vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds, and shut up in unbelief, and kept and guarded by Satan, the strong man armed; but all these strong holds of sin and Satan are brought down and demolished in conversion; and that by means of the sound of the Gospel, which is as despicable with men as the sound of the rams' horns were to the inhabitants of Jericho; but is a jubilee and joyful sound, a sound of love, grace, mercy, and salvation; and being accompanied with the Spirit and grace of God, is the power of God unto salvation; and mighty through him for the removing the hardness of men's hearts, and bringing them into subjection and obedience to Christ.

THE WALLS FALL DOWN. (Jos 6:20-21)

So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets--Towards the close of the seventh circuit, the signal was given by Joshua, and on the Israelites' raising their loud war cry, the walls fell down, doubtless burying multitudes of the inhabitants in the ruins, while the besiegers, rushing in, consigned everything animate and inanimate to indiscriminate destruction (Deu 20:16-17). Jewish writers mention it as an immemorial tradition that the city fell on the Sabbath. It should be remembered that the Canaanites were incorrigible idolaters, addicted to the most horrible vices, and that the righteous judgment of God might sweep them away by the sword, as well as by famine or pestilence. There was mercy mingled with judgment in employing the sword as the instrument of punishing the guilty Canaanites, for while it was directed against one place, time was afforded for others to repent.