Until the Shout

Jericho was tightly shut because of the Israelites. No one went out, and no one came in. For Rahab and those who would shelter with her, the terms remained the ones spoken at the window: the scarlet cord in its place, the family inside the house.

Outside the city, the LORD told Joshua that He had delivered Jericho into his hand, along with its king and its fighting men. He instructed the men of war to circle the city once each day for six days. Seven priests were to carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark.

On the seventh day, they were to go around seven times. At a long blast of the horn, the people were to give a mighty shout; the LORD told Joshua that the wall would collapse and the people would charge straight into the city. That was the wall into which Rahab’s house was built.

Joshua summoned the priests and gave the orders. Armed troops went ahead, followed by the seven priests blowing their horns, then the ark, with the rear guard behind it. The horns sounded as the procession moved around the shut city.

But the people had received a different instruction for their own voices. “Do not give a battle cry or let your voice be heard; do not let one word come out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you are to shout!” The horns continued; the people were to wait.

They circled the city once and returned to camp for the night. The first day ended with the wall still standing. The account gives no words from Rahab’s house, no conversation to fill the interval between that circuit and the next.

Joshua rose early the following morning, and the priests took up the ark again. The armed men, the priests with their horns, the ark, and the rear guard went around Jericho. On the second day, too, they circled once and returned to camp.

They did this for six days. The account measures those days by the same movement around the city and the same return. For the household covered by the spies’ oath, there was no new instruction to replace the one they already had: remain together inside.

On the seventh day, the Israelites rose at dawn. This time they went around the city seven times in the same manner. After the seventh circuit, the priests blew the horns, and Joshua commanded the people to shout because the LORD had given them the city.

He declared that the city and everything in it were to be devoted to destruction. “Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent.” Before the wall fell, Joshua named the woman and the household who were to be spared.

He warned the people to keep away from the things devoted to destruction. “For all the silver and gold and all the articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD; they must go into His treasury.” The taking of Jericho came with commands about what they must leave and whom they must preserve.

The horns sounded, and the people gave a great shout. The wall collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city and captured it. They put its people and livestock to death by the sword.

The account does not explain how Rahab’s house stood through the collapse. It has named her among those who must live, and now the city has been taken. Within it is the household the two spies have sworn to bring through alive.