The Fall of Jericho and Ai is Destroyed, Remarks on Joshua 5 to Joshua 8

Moses had an aid by the name of Nun who had a son named Joshua. After Moses died, the Lord said to Joshua that you and your people people will cross the Jordan River into the land I will give to the Israelites. The Lord told Joshua no one will be able to conquer you all the days of your life. ‘As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.’

The Amorite and Canaanite kings heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan and they were afraid to go up against the Israelites.

At the same time, the Lord told Joshua to circumcise the Israelites again. Each male was required by G-d to be circumcised as a covenant sign by cutting off the old life and beginning the new life.

Joshua did so. All those of military age who came out of Egypt died in the wilderness. All the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not died.

The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years as punishment for their unbelief. And they wandered until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. The Lord raised up their sons were the ones Joshua circumcised.

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. The day after the Passover, unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

The significance here is that Manna was the food G-d miraculously supplied in the wilderness. G-d gave to the Israelites to feed them in the desert and to humble them and test them. It suddenly appeared and then disappeared to remind the people that manna was a present from G-d.

What followed was that much of the land of Canaan became the land of Israel after a series of battles led by Joshua.

 

The Fall of Jericho

When Joshua neared Jericho, he came upon a commander of the army of the Lord. Joshua fell face down to the ground and inquired what was the Lord’s message?

The Lord told Joshua he delivered Jericho, his king and his men into his hands.

The gates of Jericho were barred to the Israelites from entering since no one was able to enter or leave.  Consequently Joshua sent spies to Jericho. The spies were hidden by Rahab the prostitute.

When the spies returned, a plan was formed. Joshua was to have his men march around the city for six days. On the seventh day, he was to take the ark of the covenant and seven priests were to march in front of it, carrying ram’s horn, a shofar. When the priests blew their shofar, Joshua men were told to shout.

The shofar blew, the men yelled and the walls of the city collapsed. Joshua’s men stormed into Jericho, and killed every living thing in it, all the people, cattle, sheep and donkeys. They then burned the city to the ground, ‘but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. ‘

Only Rahab the prostitute, and her family and friends were forgave because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho.

Modern day archeologist found nothing substantial that remained of Jericho after Joshua decimated the city, as they the walls came tumbling down, and what was destroyed it by fire.

Achan’s Sin

After, some Israelites were unfaithful to G-d.^. And it was stealing that was the plight of Achan, of the tribe of Judah.

Joshua sent men from Jericho to spy on Ai.

The spies told Joshua to send two or three thousand men, there is no need to send the whole army. Joshua did and the army of Ai destroyed the men chased the Israelites.

Joshua and the elders the tore their clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. The Lord told Joshua to stand up.  Israel has sinned; they have violated  the Lord’s covenant.

The Lord told them they needed to eliminate the sinners. The next morning Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan was chosen.

Joshua asked Achan to tell him what he had done.  Achan replied he sinned against the Lord. He stole a robe, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels. He went on to say the stolen property were buried inside his tent.

Joshua took Achan, the stolen silver, robe, gold bar, his children cattle, donkeys and sheep to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.”

Then all Israel stoned him to death, and after, his family was stoned to death as well and then burned. They buried Achan’s family under a large pile of rock. The place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.

Ai Destroyed 

Ai in Hebrew means the ruin, and there is a reason why.

The Lord said to Joshua to not be discouraged. Take your army and attack Ai. Do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that now you may carry off their plunder and livestock.

Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men. Joshua sent them off, and they went to the outskirts to lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai; Joshua spent that night with the people.

Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai. When the king of Ai saw this, he and all the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle. But he did not know that an ambush had been set against him behind the city. 

All the men of Ai pursued them, lured away from the city. Not a man remained in Ai; they left the city open.

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out toward the city the javelin that was in his hand. As soon as he did this, the men in the ambush rose quickly from their position and rushed the city; they captured Ai and quickly set it on fire.

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. They killed everyone in Ai, twelve thousand men and women were killed.

The king of Ai alive was ushered to Joshua. Joshua burned Ai,  impaled him on a pole and left him there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

The Ark of the Covenant placed at Mount Ebal

Joshua then built an altar to the Lord. The Levitical priests who carried it and the people stood on both sides of the ark of the covenant. Joshua read all the words of the law, there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel.