Joshua 6:1-27 — Sermon Prep & Expository Preaching Guide

Jericho: Palm-Tree Oasis and Gateway to Canaan

Jericho sits in one of the most striking geographic settings in the ancient world — a lush oasis city dropping nearly 850 feet below sea level in the arid Jordan Valley, sustained by the spring now known as Ain es-Sultan. In a landscape that otherwise resembles a desert, this abundance of fresh water created a pocket of agricultural richness that earned the city the ancient name "City of Palms" (Deuteronomy 34:3). But Jericho was far more than a pleasant stopover. It commanded the key western ascent from the Jordan crossing into the hill country of Canaan — the natural corridor leading toward Bethel, Ai, and eventually Jerusalem. To enter Canaan through its most accessible route was to encounter Jericho first. The city was not simply an obstacle; it was a gateway, and its conquest was the unlocking of the entire Promised Land. This is why the narrative places the Jericho account at the very front of Israel's campaign: the first victory establishes the theological grammar for everything that follows. If Jericho falls, it falls as a gift from God, and every subsequent battle is to be understood through that lens.

Late Bronze Age City-States and the Meaning of the Wall

The world of Joshua 6 belongs to the Late Bronze Age, roughly 1550–1200 BCE, when Canaan was not a unified kingdom but a mosaic of independent city-states, each governed by its own king. The text reflects this world without needing to explain it: Jericho is presented as a unit with "its king" as a distinct military and political identity (6:2). These cities were defended by elaborate earthwork ramparts, mudbrick walls, and sloped glacis surfaces engineered to exhaust and repel attackers. Archaeological investigation at Tell es-Sultan — widely identified as ancient Jericho — has uncovered impressive Bronze Age fortification systems, though the precise dating of destruction layers continues to generate scholarly debate. The material remains are consistent, at minimum, with the text's portrait of a formidably defended city. In the ancient Near East, the city wall was not merely a military installation. It functioned as a declaration — a visible claim that the city's patron deity was powerful enough to protect it and its inhabitants. The wall of Jericho, then, carries symbolic weight beyond its mud and stone: it represents the concentrated political and religious order of Canaan itself. When these walls collapse at the sound of a shout, something larger than a military victory is being narrated.

Herem: Holy War and the Logic of Sacred Consecration

The most ethically demanding element of Joshua 6 is the herem — the "devoted destruction" commanded across verses 17–21. Modern readers rightly press hard against the totality of this command. The ancient Near Eastern background adds a necessary layer of context without dissolving the difficulty. The concept of herem was not unique to Israel. The Mesha Stele, a ninth-century BCE Moabite inscription, records King Mesha devoting the population of Nebo to his god Ashtar-Chemosh in language that closely parallels Israel's practice. Herem was a shared conceptual inheritance of the ancient Semitic world — the consecration of a captured city and all it contained as an act of dedication to the deity. What distinguishes Israel's herem in Joshua 6 is its reorientation. Rather than serving royal territorial ambition, it is framed as an act of radical divine ownership: the silver and gold do not flow to Israel's treasury but to the LORD's (6:19, 24). Scholars have noted how deeply the herem legislation in these chapters is woven with priestly vocabulary — the language of holiness, contamination, and sacred quarantine. The destruction is not reducible to military strategy or ethnic aggression; it enacts the principle that what belongs to God cannot be co-opted for human use. The taking of Achan in chapter 7 reinforces this: the herem is not window dressing but an active covenant category.

Ark, Trumpets, and the Procession as Liturgy

The most distinctive feature of the Jericho account is its method: no battering rams, no siege towers, no tactical assault. Instead, Israel marches in silence behind the ark of the covenant, preceded by seven priests blowing rams'-horn trumpets, and repeats this ritual for seven consecutive days. The ark — the throne-footstool of God's invisible presence and sovereignty — placed at the head of the column makes unmistakably clear who the commanding officer of this campaign actually is. The rams' horn (yobel) carries deep resonance: it is the sound of Sinai's theophany (Exodus 19:16) and of the Jubilee declaration (Leviticus 25:9), clothing the march in the language of divine proclamation and eschatological claim. The sevenfold structure — six days of silent circling, followed by a seventh day of seven full circuits and a great shout — mirrors the rhythm of the creation week. The conquest of Jericho is framed not as a military operation but as an act of worship: a liturgical announcement that this city, and all it represents, now belongs to the Lord of heaven and earth.