Joshua 6: The Fall of Jericho

Here, the first conflict for Israel in Canaan presents itself: the taking of the city of Jericho, which stands directly and obstinately in the path of the Israelites, preventing them from moving forward. This conflict embodies the whole essence and scope of all the rest of the conquests in the Joshua story, which in the inner meaning is to overcome and rule the things in our lives which oppose what God wants for us.

Jericho is to be taken with a siege, and God gives Joshua a procedure to follow: You shall march round the city once a day for six days in absolute silence. Seven priests shall carry seven rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march round the city seven times, and then the priests shall blow their trumpets. All the people are to shout with a huge shout, and then the walls of the city will fall down flat. And all the people are to go up and take the city.

This is quite unlike any other siege, where walls have to be scaled and fire catapulted in to burn things, but... this is a spiritual siege. The siege of Jericho represents how we are to lay siege to, or deal effectively with, our own evils and tendencies. It is the description blueprint for the battle between good and evil, which is our battle too. (See Doctrine of Faith 50).

In the Bible, Jericho is sometimes called the ‘city of palm trees’, giving a lovely idea of it. Its name means “a place of fragrance”, or, “his (the Lord’s) sweet breath”. It sounds perfect, but this has been usurped by invaders and takers who are now in complete possession of this sweet city and who will hold on for all they're worth (Apocalypse Explained 502[11]). This is really an account of the influence of hell in human life, and especially our unregenerate lives, when we are open to whatever feels self-gratifying.

Jericho, we hear, is shut up tight. It is not going to be an easy matter – because the work of regeneration never is – but this also describes hell’s fear; it is shut up tight because of the Israelites (Heaven and Hell 543). In us, when we become aware of a better way to live and we want to follow the Lord - whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light - hell will soon hit back in some devious imperceptible way to hold on to what it has got. It is scared of losing us.

This takes us to the siege and its tactics. The march once a day around the city for six days, carrying the ark, is to see every part of our situation from every angle, and it is also to parade our worship and adoration of the Lord (by parading the ark). The time period, six days, is always to do with the work involved in our regeneration as we see evil and shun it, pray to God, stand back and determine. (Arcana Caelestia 10373)

The seventh day involves seven marches round the city, then the trumpets and the shouts. This is the culmination, the Sabbath. For us, it is the avowal that we know the Lord is now ruling our will and our life and there will be no turning back or weakness of giving in. Jericho is now taken! The command is that every living thing in the city is to be completely destroyed because we must be unrelenting against all the things in our lives that go against God.

The gold, the silver, and the vessels of brass and iron, were put into the treasury of the house of Jehovah. The "gold and silver" represent the knowledges of spiritual truth and good, and "the vessels of brass and iron" represent knowledges of natural truth and good. In the profane hands of the idolaters of Jericho, those knowledges could be tools to serve dire falsities and evils. In the house of Jehovah, they could be serviceable knowledges, applied to good ends - hence their being salvaged. (See Heaven and Hell 487)

The prostitute Rahab (who had hidden Israel’s spies and confessed the Lord’s power) and all her family are brought out and given safekeeping. For us, this is the acknowledgement of the truth that we are sinful (as she was) and that if it were not for the Lord we would plunge into who knows what. But now we know and confess the power and truth of God. And then, the Israelites burn the city with fire and Joshua pronounces a curse on anyone who ever rebuilds this city. We are to abhor evil for what it is and be faithful to the Lord our God.

The story of the destruction of Jericho is then the pattern for all our resistance and resolve in seeing and overcoming evil, while confessing, as we do this, that the battle is the Lord’s. (Charity 166)

10373. 'For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth' means the state of conflict and labour while the Church is being established. This is clear from the meaning of 'six days', when the subject is the establishment of the Church and a person's regeneration, as the state of conflict against evils and falsities, thus the state which comes before and is preparatory to the joining together of goodness and truth, dealt with above in 10366, 10367; and from the meaning of 'heaven and earth' as the Church.

[2] In the Word 'creating heaven and earth' is not used to mean what happened when the sky above and this planet were first created, but the establishment of the Church and the regeneration of a person there, 'heaven' being used to mean his internal and 'earth' his external. The fact that this kind of creation is what should be understood is clear from places in the Word in which the verb 'create' is used, as in David,

A people who will be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth [Your] spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth. Psalms 104:30.

In Isaiah,

Thus said Jehovah, I am your Creator, O Jacob; I am He who formed you, O Israel. For I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are Mine. Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, and also I have made him. Isaiah 43:1, 7.

And in other places. The expressions 'creating', 'forming', and 'making' are used, and elsewhere 'Creator', 'He who forms', and 'Maker'. 'Creating' means bringing something into being that did not exist before, 'forming' means giving it specific quality, and 'making' means carrying into effect. 'Creating and making a new heaven and a new earth' means establishing a new Church, its internal and its external, as in Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1 - see 1733, 1850, 2117 (end), 2118 (end), 3355, 4535. 'Earth' in the Word means the Church, 9325. And also 'the creation of heaven and earth' in the first chapter of Genesis means the establishment of the Most Ancient Church, 8891, 9942.