Joshua spoke to God and God instructed Joshua to gather his people and to place Jericho under siege. He instructed Joshua to march around the city once a day for six days with seven priests carrying rams horns.
On the seventh day they were to march around the walls of Jericho seven times blowing their rams horn, as they blew their horns Joshua commanded his army to shout and give a war cry!
As they marched around the city they were followed by the Arc of the covenant and in the sky over the Ark was a dark powerful cloud. The walls fell and the Israelite’s charged over the city, every man, woman and child were slaughtered, except for one family, the family of Rahab, who provided refuge for Joshua’s spies before the siege.
Where ever the Ark goes, death and carnage follow, just my uneducated opinion, but one wonders how the Israelite army had the means to lay siege, and produce this kind of carnage, in the course of a week in time.
Before we discuss the Ark let’s take a look at the size of the Israelite force, It is said at the time of exodus the Egyptian army was around 20,000. There are reports that the Israelite’s had a force of forty thousand which I take issue with.
Let’s remember that the Israelite’s were banished to the desert for forty years, which is two generations of growth pretty much just eating manna. Prior to their banishment they were slave labor who broke out of prison/ slave quarters, which means they were flat broke, without anything that could be considered possessions.
In exodus it states that 650,000, able bodied adults were the slave's that Moses led out of Egypt, just as a wild number but it wasn’t in the millions. If the Israelite’s had 40,000 soldiers they would need to have had a population of 2,500,000.
What is more likely the population was forty thousand and the number of soldiers five to eight thousand.The Bible says that Joshua and the Israelites were encamped at Shittim, and the spies were sent out from this town. Shittim lies approximately 10 miles (16km) east of the River Jordan, and approximately 15 miles (24km) east of Jericho.
The Bible lists the fighting men of Israel at 40,000 (Josh. 4:13).However, the number of troops involved in the battle of Jericho is another controversy. This controversy centers around the Hebrew word Eleph, which is usually translated as "thousand". However, the word has had a number of different meanings and uses throughout its Sementic history.
It was originally connected to "head of cattle", signifying its application of a village unit, or population unit within an agricultural based society.
Next, the word was used to describe the quota of men in a village, or clan, that was required to produce for the military (originally a very small number).
Finally, the word became a technical term to describe a military unit of significant size. Concerning the battle of Jericho, the word is translated as "thousand”, producing the number 40,000 fighting men.
Critics of this interpretation claim it should be translated as a military unit, though significant in size, not literally 40,000 fighting men.If the number 40,000 fighting men is taken as the original intent of the author, then the number of Israelites, coming out of Egypt, would have numbered between 2 million, to 2.5 million; men, women, and children .
This would have not counted the amount of livestock, and other members not included among the number of Israelites that made the journey.
Some of these men would have participated on the Israelite side in the battle of Jericho. However, if one allows for an error in copying, and a misinterpretation of the word eleph, then the number of fighting men in Israel, and the population of ancient Israel itself, is more manageable. Regardless, the battle of Jericho involved thousands of people.
Without going into great detail, proponents of this theory have ranged the number of fighting men in Israel, at the time of the Exodus and conquest, from 5,000 to 8,000 men.
The total population at the battle of Jericho, then, is numbered from 20,000 to 40,000 men, women, and children.. More would have actually fought. Evidence suggests that the Exodus was a mix of peoples. People not of Israelite blood would not have been counted among the Israelite s, though they were part of the group.
Rahab and her household became part of this group. The actual number of people traveling, thus, would have been much larger. This number seems to fit ancient records of other countries.
For example, at the height of the Egyptian empire, the standing ancient Egyptian army numbered 20,000 fighting men, In any case, the King of Jericho would have noticed the mass of people encamped opposite the Jordan.
Jericho, though a small city in size, exerted a mighty influence in the region. This influence would have easily spread the approximately 15 or so miles eastward to the Israelite camp, and into the plains of Moab.
Upon the sight of so many people, and the news of their previous victories, people from miles around would have fled to the city of Jericho for protection.
The imminent battle of Jericho loomed over the region like a storm cloud. Though small in stature, Jericho possessed extremely heavy fortifications, and could have easily survived a siege of perhaps up to a year or so. Local village residents fared a much better chance of survival by fleeing to the protection of the walls of Jericho.
The battle of Jericho would have influenced the entire region's political and social structure. As the spies stealthily crept into ancient Jericho, they entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab (2:1).
Joshua (2:4-5) “but the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, ‘yes, the men came to me, but I didn’t know where they were from. When it was time to close the gates at dark the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly for you will overtake them.”
Rahab reported that the men had left before the city gates were closed, and then sent the King and his men on a wild goose chase! In truth she hid them on the roof of her house.
(2:2-7) Rahab had sensed the impending doom, she chose to side with the Israelite spies, despite the appearance that Jericho would survive. After she deceived the King, Rahab retrieved the spies from the roof top and pleaded with them to spare her family from the upcoming doom.
The spies agreed to spare her and her family in the upcoming Battle of Jericho, they told her to hang a red velvet chord in her window, to identify her house, so the soldiers would pass it by.
After they agreed she then lowered the two spies out the window to the ground below. She then began immediate preparations for the upcoming battle.
Joshua (2:15) “So she let them down by a rope through a window for the house she lived in was part of the exterior city wall. The spies returned to the Israelite camp and reported to Joshua what had just transpired. Joshua satisfied with the reported events moved the camp to the banks of the River Jordan. (3:1)
The Bible tells us they spent three days at this camp site before the Battle of Jericho. Joshua received more instructions from the Lord regarding the invasion and how to structure it.
He sent his officers throughout the camp instructing the people what was about to happen. Joshua (3:3-4) depicts the orders given to his soldiers:
“when you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests who are ‘Levites’ carrying it you are to move out from your positions and follow them.
This will be a new route to you; you have not been this way yet. You must keep a good distance of 1,000 yard (1/2mi) between you and the Ark; do not go near it.
The power of the Ark is seen here, as Joshua warned his people to stay 1,000 yards from it. After the third day, the Israelite s set out to cross the River Jordan.
Capt EJ's Explortion's
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