The Walls That Came Down for a Shout

The Jordan had rolled back into its bed behind them, and in front of God's people stood Jericho, its gates shut so tight that no one went in and no one came out.

Near the city, Joshua saw a man standing in his path with a sword in his hand. Joshua walked right up to him. "Are you on our side, or on our enemies' side?"

"No," said the man. "I have come as the commander of the LORD's army."

Joshua fell on his face.

"Take off your sandals," said the commander. "The place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did.

Then the LORD gave Joshua his plan. "I have given Jericho into your hands. March around the city once a day for six days. Seven priests will carry trumpets made of rams' horns in front of my ark. On the seventh day, march around seven times. When the horns blow a long blast, all the people must give a great shout, and the wall will fall down flat."

Joshua added one rule. "Do not say one word until the day I tell you. Then shout!"

So they set out: soldiers, then priests blowing horns, then the ark, then everyone else. All the way around Jericho they walked, past the gates, past the high stone walls, past one window with a red cord hanging from it, and not one person said a thing.

They did the same the next day, and the next, six days in a row.

On the seventh day they rose at dawn. Once around. Twice. Three, four, five, six times. Then the priests blew one long blast.

"Shout!" cried Joshua. "The LORD has given you the city!"

The people shouted with everything they had, and CRASH! The wall fell down flat, and the army walked straight in over the rubble. Then, as God had commanded, they killed everyone in Jericho except the people in Rahab's house: men and women, young and old, and even the animals. God had given the people of that land hundreds of years to turn from their evil, and they had not.

Joshua turned to two men he had once sent sneaking into Jericho as spies. "Go and get Rahab," he said, "and everyone with her, just as you promised."

The spies ran straight to the house with the red cord in the window. Rahab had believed God when nobody else in Jericho did, and now they brought her out with her whole family, and she lived among God's people from then on.

One shout brought down one city's walls. It could not keep God's people from turning away from him, and soon they would be doing it again and again.

Many years later, another baby boy was given Joshua's own name. It means "the LORD saves." He never marched around a city or knocked down a wall. He let himself be nailed to a cross, and he died there, and on the third day he rose. The Bible says he will come back with a shout and the blast of God's trumpet, and everyone who belongs to him will rise.

In English we say that one name two ways. For the man at Jericho we say Joshua. For the baby we say Jesus.