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)

1839. That 'behold, a dread of great darkness was coming over him' means that it was a dreadful darkness, 'darkness' being falsities, is clear from the meaning of 'darkness' as falsities, to be dealt with immediately below. The state of the Church just before the close, or when the sun was going down, is described by 'the dread of great darkness', but the state when the sun had gone down is described by 'the thick darkness' and other details given in verse 17 below.

[2] The Lord spoke of it in the same way in Matthew,

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29.

He did not mean that the sun of the world will be darkened but the celestial entity of love and charity. Nor will the moon be darkened but the spiritual entity of faith. Nor will the stars fall from heaven but the cognitions of good and truth with the member of the Church, which are 'the powers of the heavens'. Nor will these things take place in heaven but on earth, for heaven is never plunged into darkness.

[3] 'A dread of great darkness fell on him' means His horror at such great devastation. In the measure that the heavenly or celestial things of love find acceptance in anyone, so great is his horror when he perceives the close. This applied to the Lord more than anybody else, since His love was heavenly and Divine love itself.

[4] 'Darkness' means falsities, as is clear from very many places in the

Word, as in Isaiah,

Woe to those who put darkness for light, and light for darkness! Isaiah 5:20.

'Darkness' stands for falsities and 'light' for truths. In the same prophet, He will look to the land, and behold, darkness, distress; and the light has been darkened. Isaiah 5:30.

'Darkness' stands for falsities, 'darkened light' for the fact that truth does not appear.

[5] In the same prophet,

Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. Isaiah 60:2.

In Amos,

The day of Jehovah is that of darkness and not light. Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light, thick darkness and no brightness in it? Amos 5:18, 20.

In Zephaniah,

The great day of Jehovah is near. A day of wrath is that day, a day of anguish and repression, a day of vastation and desolation, a day of darkness and thick darkness, a day of cloud and shadow. Zephaniah 1:14-15.

Here 'the day of Jehovah' stands for the final period and state of the Church, while 'darkness and thick darkness' stands for falsities and evils.

[6] The Lord too calls falsities 'darkness', in Matthew,

If your eye has been evil, the whole body has been made full of darkness. If therefore the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:23.

'Darkness' is used to mean falsities that have overtaken people who possess cognitions, a greater darkness than that found in those called gentiles, who have no cognitions.

[7] Similarly in the same gospel,

The sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness. Matthew 8:12; 22:13.

'Outer darkness' stands for the quite dreadful falsities of those inside the Church, for those people shut out the light and oppose truths with falsities, something gentiles are not able to do. In John,

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; but the light appears in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:4-5.

'The darkness' stands for falsities inside the Church.

[8] Falsities outside the Church too are called 'darkness' but these are capable of receiving light. Of them it is said in Matthew,

The people sitting in darkness have seen a great light; and for those sitting in the region and shadow of death, the light has arisen. Matthew 4:16.

'Darkness' stands for falsities that go with not knowing, such as exist with gentiles.

[9] In John,

This is the judgement, that light has come into the world, but men have preferred darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. John 3:19.

'Light' stands for truths, and 'darkness' for falsities. 'The light' also stands for the Lord since He is the source of all truth, while 'darkness' stands for the hells since they are the source of all falsity.

[10] In the same gospel,

Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in darkness. John 8:12.

In the same gospel,

Walk, as long as you have the light, lest darkness overtakes you, for he who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. I have come as light into the world in order that all who believe in Me may not remain in darkness. John 12:35, 46.

'Light' stands for the Lord, the source of all good and truth, 'darkness' for falsities, which are dispersed by the Lord alone.

[11] The falsities that prevail in the last times and which are called 'the darkness' here, that is, to which 'the dread of great darkness' has reference, were represented and meant by the darkness that came over the whole earth from the sixth to the ninth hour, and also by the sun's being darkened at that time, by which was represented and meant that no love, that is, no faith, existed any more, Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44-45.