โยชูวา 6:20 วิจารณ์

Joshua opened the campaign with the siege of Jericho, a city which could not trust so much to the courage of its people as to act offensively, and to send out its forces to oppose Israel's landing and encamping, but trusted so much to the strength of its walls as to stand upon its defence, and not to surrender, or desire conditions of peace. Now here we have the story of the taking of it, I. The directions and assurances which the captain of the Lord's host gave concerning it (Jos 6:1-5). II. The trial of the people's patient obedience in walking round the city six days (Jos 6:6-14). III. The wonderful delivery of it into their hands the seventh day, with a solemn charge to them to use it as a devoted thing (Jos 6:15-21 and Jos 6:24). IV. The preservation of Rahab and her relations (Jos 6:22, Jos 6:23, Jos 6:25). V. A curse pronounced upon the man that should dare to rebuild this city (Jos 6:26, Jos 6:27). An abstract of this story we find among the trophies of faith, Heb 11:30. "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days."

INTRODUCTION TO JOSHUA 6 In this chapter Joshua is assured, though Jericho was closely shut up, it should be delivered into his hands, Jos 6:1; and he is directed, with the army, to go round the city six days together, seven priests bearing the ark of the Lord, with seven trumpets sounding; and on the seventh day to go round it seven times in like manner, when its wall should fall, Jos 6:3; which order Joshua communicated to the priests, and to the people, and which was put into execution by them, with some other instructions he gave them, Jos 6:6; particularly that the city, and all in it, should be devoted to the Lord, and none spared, but Rahab and her family, Jos 6:17; the success was according to the assurance given by the Lord, Jos 6:20; when all in the city were destroyed, and that was burnt with fire, and the gold, silver, brass, and iron, brought into the house of the Lord, and Rahab and her father's household were saved alive, Jos 6:21; and the chapter is closed with an adjuration of Joshua, cursing the man that should rebuild the city; and with this observation, that the fame of Joshua upon this was spread abroad throughout the country, Jos 6:26.

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.

But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, whose arrival that prior son of Nun designated, he sends priests, his apostles, bearing “trumpets hammered thin,” the magnificent and heavenly instruction of proclamation. Matthew first sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addition, John also sounds the trumpet through his epistles, and Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last one comes, the one who said, “I think God displays us apostles last,” and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets, he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations.

At the coming of Jesus [Joshua], the walls of Jericho were overthrown; at the coming of my Lord Jesus, the world is overcome. Yet I want to know more plainly how the world is overcome and to understand more clearly those things that are said. I myself, I who teach you, want to learn equally with you. Let us summon Paul as a teacher for all of us, for he is a fellow priest of Christ, so that he can disclose to us how Christ overcame the world. Therefore, hear him saying, “That which was opposed to us he took away from our midst and fixed to his own cross; and stripping principalities and authorities he exposed them openly, triumphing over them on the wood of the cross.” From these words, therefore, I understand that when the heavenly powers saw the fight of Jesus—the principalities and hostile authorities stripped of their authorities, “the strong one bound and his goods plundered”22—they thundered with their heavenly trumpets, because with the prince of this world bound, the world was overcome and the heavenly army gave the joyful shout at the triumph of Christ. Truly, therefore, blessed are the people of the nations, those who know this joyful shout of the heavenly army and who begin to recognize the mysteries and believe.

How, therefore, is Jericho captured? The sword is not drawn against it; the battering ram is not arranged, nor is the spear hurled. The priestly trumpets alone are employed, and by these the walls of Jericho are overthrown.We frequently find Jericho to be placed in Scripture as a figure of this world.… Consequently, this Jericho (that is, the world) is about to fall; for indeed the consummation of the age has already been made known a little while ago by the sacred books. In what way, therefore, will the consummation be given to it? By what instruments? By the sound, it says, of trumpets. Of what trumpets? Let Paul make known the mystery of this secret to you. Hear what he himself says: “The trumpet will sound,” he says, “and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible,” and, “The Lord himself with a command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven.” At that time, therefore, Jesus our Lord conquers Jericho with trumpets and overthrows it, so that out of it, only the prostitute is saved and all her house.

The consummation of the world will not happen in stages, but suddenly. With this ought to be compared, I think, what was written in Joshua, when by a single sound of a trumpet the crumbling city of Jericho suddenly perished; and like this example Babylon also in the consummation of the age will fall and suddenly be obliterated.

And did Joshua, the son of Nun, err in recognizing the leader of the heavenly host? But after he believed, he forthwith conquered, being found worthy to triumph in the battle of faith. Again, he did not lead forth his armed ranks into the fight, nor did he overthrow the ramparts of the enemy’s walls, with battering rams or other engines of war, but with the sound of the seven trumpets of the priests. Thus the blare of the trumpet and the badge of the priest brought a cruel war to an end.

Besides the signs just mentioned and the voices which could be heard in the neighborhood of the ark, other miraculous testimonies to the law were witnessed. For example, when the people were entering the promised land and the ark was crossing the Jordan, the river stood still above them and flowed on below them so that the ark and the people had a dry place for crossing. Again, when they came upon the first hostile city where the religion was pagan and polytheistic, the ark was carried around it seven times and then, suddenly, the walls collapsed before a hand was raised or a battering ram was used.

So the walls of that city, called Jericho, which in the Hebrew tongue is said to mean moon, fell when they had been encircled seven times by the ark of the covenant. What, then, does the announcement of the kingdom of heaven portend—signified by the encircling of the ark—except that all the battlements of mortal life, that is, all the hope of this world, which is opposed to the hope of the world to come, will be destroyed by the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, working through the free will? For, those walls fell of their own accord, not by any violent push of the ark in its circuit. There are other references in Scripture which suggest the church to us under the symbolism of the moon, as it makes its pilgrimage in this mortal life, amid toils and labors, far from that Jerusalem whose citizens are the holy angels.

Human salvation is useless, and my strength lends me no strength if I lack the strength of God. What good was the boundless vigor of giants? Or the kings of Egypt? Or mighty Jericho? Their own inflated glory was the cause of death for all of them, and God’s power broke them not by the strength of heroes but by that of the weak. The famed giant died like a dog, felled by a shepherd boy’s sling. The din of trumpets shook down the famous city. The renowned and haughty king lay dead on the sand of the shore, and the riches of the kingdom were equated with his naked corpse. So wherever Christ is with us, a web is a wall; for the person without Christ, a wall will become a web.

The divine reading attests that the walls of Jericho at once collapsed at the din of trumpets. So there is no doubt that the sounds of music, at the Lord’s command or with his permission, have unleashed great forces.

The inhabitants of Jericho close their gates, Jos 6:1. Continuation of the discourse between the captain of the Lord's host and Joshua. He commands the people to march round the city six days, the seven priests blowing with their trumpets; and to give a general shout, while marching round it on the seventh, and promises that then the walls of the city shall fall down, Jos 6:2-5. Joshua delivers these directions to the priests and to the people, Jos 6:6, Jos 6:7. The priests and people obey; the order of their procession, Jos 6:8-16. He commands them to spare the house of Rahab, Jos 6:17, and not to touch any part of the property of the city, the whole of which God had devoted to destruction, Jos 6:18, Jos 6:19. On the seventh day the walls fall down, and the Israelites take the city, Jos 6:20, Jos 6:21. The spies are ordered to take care of Rahab and her family - the city is burnt, but the silver, gold, brass, and iron, are put into the treasury of the house of the Lord, Jos 6:22-24. Rahab dwells among the Israelites, Jos 6:25; and the city is laid under a curse, Jos 6:26.

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.

JERICHO SHUT UP. (Jos 6:1-7) Now Jericho was straitly shut up--This verse is a parenthesis introduced to prepare the way for the directions given by the Captain of the Lord's host.

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.