The Story

The first city in the promised land was Jericho, and Jericho was shut up tight. Its great strong walls stood high all around it, its gates were barred, and no one went out and no one came in, because the people inside were afraid of Israel. No army could climb those walls — but God had already decided what would happen. He told Joshua: "See, I have given into thine hand Jericho". The city was God's gift before a single stone had moved.

Then God gave Joshua the strangest battle plan anyone ever heard. All the fighting men were to march around the city once a day for six days. Seven priests would walk before the ark of the LORD, blowing trumpets made of rams' horns, and the ark would be carried in the middle of the procession. And until the very last moment, the people had to keep perfectly quiet. Joshua commanded them: "Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice" — not one word until the day he told them to shout.

So that is what they did. Day after day, the priests blew the trumpets, the ark was carried around the city, and thousands of people marched in silence and went back to camp. One day, two days, three, four, five, six — marching, trumpets, silence. Inside the walls, the people of Jericho watched and wondered what on earth Israel was doing.

On the seventh day, they rose very early, at the dawn, and marched around the city not once but seven times. At the seventh time round, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua gave the word — the words of our memory verse: "Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city." And God had promised what would happen next: when the people heard the trumpet, "all the people shall shout with a great shout" — and so they did. Every man, woman, and child shouted with all their might.

And down came the walls! The Bible says "the wall fell down flat" — not a little gap in one place, but the whole great wall, flat, so that the army walked straight in, every man in front of him, and took the city. Rahab, the woman who had hidden Israel's spies and trusted in Israel's God, was brought out safely with all her family, exactly as she had been promised. And the best ending of all is the last line of the story: "So the LORD was with Joshua". The walls of Jericho did not fall because Israel marched, or because Israel shouted. They fell because God knocked them down — and all Israel had to do was obey His strange plan and trust Him.