Chapter 6
They are to take Jericho by blowing rams horns while marching around it each day for a week. It says this:
[Jos 6:5 ESV] 5 And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him."
Wasn't Rahab's house built into the wall? Apparently that little part did not fall, because after the walls fall, and after Israel has killed every living thing in the city except for Rahab and those in her house, Rahab is rescued out. Here were the instructions from Joshua to the army on the seventh day:
17 And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent. ... 19 But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD." [Jos 6:17, 19 ESV]
Rahab and all hers to be saved alive. The only people - men, women, or children - that would survive this. Gold, silver, bronze, and iron declared holy, and to become part of the tabernacle treasury. Nothing else would survive - no clay or wood pots, no clothing, no jewels, no livestock, no food stores...only Rahab and metal.
A note in TCR says that the phrase translated "flat" is literally "under itself" in Hebrew. So the wall fell down under itself. The picture I get is that the base of the wall crumbled and what was above it crashed down since there was no longer any foundation. But some could have come down intact while other places disintegrated into rubble. We also don't know how high up on the wall Rahab's house might have been. We know it had a red scarf hanging out the window. My guess is that the walls crashed down around her house, and only her house was left standing.
This verse:
25 But Rahab the prostitute and her father's household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. [Jos 6:25 ESV]
That she was alive "to this day" gives us a clue as to when the book of Joshua was written. Rahab the harlot was still alive, and named as a witness to the events recorded.
2023 - Jericho was shut up tight, and anticipating a siege - the common method of taking a strong city in those days. There was probably speculation about whether Jericho would be able to hold out a year, or two years, and so on, or whether Israel might in fact give up after a time and go away. There was likely a lot of food and water stored up in the city, and it would have been packed with people from the surrounding area. And in seven days it fell, completely and totally, and the people inside - men women children and animals - all still healthy and unhindered in any way by the siege, die by the sword. Each is personally killed by an Israelite. Cowering in corners, hidden in "safe rooms", running away screaming for their lives, alone and in groups, they are all stabbed or sliced with swords by the men of Israel. This would have changed forever the look in the eyes of these men, this army of Israel. Before this time, wandering around for years in the desert, they had seen very little of violent death. Violence wasn't allowed. And now, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, die screaming before them. They saw God's power when the walls fell down, and then they were changed by God's orders and afterward looked at the world in a different way.
2/9/25 - In his sermon today Bobby Kelly preached on this. He said it was ok to ask how a God who says to love our enemies in the NT could have ordered the death of non-combatants in Jericho, and so many other as Israel conquers the land. First, this battle is not between Israel and the Jericho-ites. It is between God and the Canaanite idols. Idolatry is the first sin, it is THE sin. The base on which sin is built. People who have worshiped idols will not only ALWAYS do that, but they will seduce any around them to worship idols. It was idolatry as a practice that had to be eliminated. Second, God's work is being done in the context of an evil and violent world. Jericho was not the world as God had created it, but the world that sank into the depravity of sin. It is evil and violent. Not like they were going to say ok, you win, we'll move on, no problem. NO! Violence was REQUIRED to displace the Canaanites from the land. Survivors would not be grateful, they would be future enemies, subversives, the resistance! Third, the bigger picture is of what God is doing in the world. He is redeeming all creation. This story of Jericho is just one page in that bigger story. Don't define God by this one instance. That is called a hasty generalization. Drawing a conclusion about a God who created all that is, who forever was, is, and will be, based solely on his actions during this hyper-violent period of history, is a logical fallacy, known and recognized. We have to look at it in context both of who it is we presume to "judge", and in the context of how things worked in that period of history.