Joshua 6:6

And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Joshua 6:6. Of rams’ horns — Of the basest matter and the dullest sound, that the excellence of the power might be of God. The original words, however, here and Joshua 6:4, שׁופרות יובלום, shoperoth jobelim, may be properly rendered, trumpets of jubilee; that is, such trumpets as were to be blown in the year of jubilee. And many prefer this translation, alleging that, as the horns of rams are not hollow, trumpets cannot be made of them, even when bored, capable of giving any thing of a strong sound. They would, therefore, understand the words here as signifying trumpets made in the shape of rams’ horns. But others have urged that there is no difficulty in making such an instrument of a ram’s horn as may give a pretty strong sound: “it being certain that the inside of these horns is no ways hard, and may easily be taken out, excepting a space at the point of about four or five inches, part of which is sawed off, in order to proportionate the aperture to the mouth; after which, the rest is easily pierced. And we can assure our readers,” say the authors of the Universal History, “that we have seen some of these trumpets, thus made, used by the shepherds in the southern parts of Germany.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:6-16 Wherever the ark went, the people attended it. God's ministers, by the trumpet of the everlasting gospel, which proclaims liberty and victory, must encourage the followers of Christ in their spiritual warfare. As promised deliverances must be expected in God's way, so they must be expected in his time. At last the people were to shout: they did so, and the walls fell. This was a shout of faith; they believed the walls of Jericho would fall. It was a shout of prayer; they cry to Heaven for help, and help came.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Trumpets of ram's horns - Render rather here and in Joshua 6:5-6, Joshua 6:8, etc., "trumpets of jubilee" (compare Leviticus 25:10 note). The instrument is more correctly rendered "cornet" (see Leviticus 25:9, note). Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes, as, e. g., by the undermining of the walls, or by an earthquake, or by a sudden assault. But the narrative of this chapter does not afford the slightest warrant for any such explanations; indeed it is totally inconsistent with them. It must be taken as it stands; and so taken it intends, beyond all doubt, to narrate a miracle, or rather a series of miracles.

In the belief that a record is not necessarily unhistorical because it is miraculous, never perhaps was a miracle more needed than that which gave Jericho to Joshua. Its lofty walls and well-fenced gates made it simply impregnable to the Israelites - a nomad people, reared in the desert, destitute alike of the engines of war for assaulting a fortified town, and of skill and experience in the use of them if they had had them. Nothing line a direct interference of the Almighty could in a week's time give a city like Jericho, thoroughly on its guard and prepared (compare Joshua 2:9 ff and Joshua 6:1), to besiegers situated as were Joshua and the Israelites.

The fall of Jericho cogently taught the inhabitants of Canaan that the successes of Israel were not mere human triumphs of man against man, and that the God of Israel was not as "the gods of the countries." This lesson some of them at least learned to their salvation, e. g., Rahab and the Gibeonites. Further, ensuing close upon the miraculous passage of Jordan, it was impressed on the people, prone ever to be led by the senses, that the same God who had delivered their fathers out of Egypt and led them through the Red Sea, was with Joshua no less effectually than He had been with Moses.

And the details of the orders given by God to Joshua Jos 6:3-5 illustrate this last point further. The trumpets employed were not the silver trumpets used for signalling the marshalling of the host and for other warlike purposes (compare Numbers 10:2), but the curved horns employed for ushering in the Jubilee and the Sabbatical Year (Septuagint, σάλπιγγες ἱεραί salpinges hierai: compare the Leviticus 23:24 note). The trumpets were borne by priests, and were seven in number; the processions round Jericho were to be made on seven days, and seven times on the seventh day, thus laying a stress on the sacred number seven, which was an emhlem more especially of the work of God. The ark of God also, the seat of His special presence, was carried round the city. All these particulars were calculated to set forth symbolically, and in a mode sure to arrest the attention of the people, the fact that their triumph was wholly due to the might of the Lord, and to that covenant which made their cause His.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6, 7. Joshua … called the priests—The pious leader, whatever military preparations he had made, surrendered all his own views, at once and unreservedly, to the declared will of God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests,.... Not the Levites and Kohathites, whose business it was in common to bear the ark, but upon this occasion the priests; not all of them, but as many as were sufficient for the purpose:

and said unto them, take up the ark of the covenant; by putting the staves into the rings of it, and so carry it, Exodus 25:14; see Numbers 7:9,

and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the Lord: See Gill on Joshua 6:4.

Geneva Study Bible

And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6–21. Capture and Destruction of Jericho

6. And Joshua] In obedience to the commands thus received Joshua implicitly carries out the instructions given him and issues the needful orders to the host.

Joshua 6:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Taking of Jericho. - In the account of this we have first of all a brief statement of the announcement of the divine message by Joshua to the priests and the people (Joshua 6:6, Joshua 6:7); then the execution of the divine command (Joshua 6:8-20); and lastly the burning of Jericho and deliverance of Rahab (Joshua 6:21-27).

Joshua 6:6-7

In communicating the divine command with reference to the arrangements for taking Jericho, Joshua mentions in the first place merely the principal thing to be observed. The plural ויּאמרוּ ("they said"), in Joshua 6:7, must not be altered, but is to be explained on the ground that Joshua did not make the proclamation to the people himself, but through the medium oft he shoterim, who were appointed to issue his commands (see Joshua 1:10-11; Joshua 3:2-3). In this proclamation the more minute instructions concerning the order of march, which had been omitted in Joshua 6:3-5, are given; namely, that החלוּץ was to march in front of the ark. By החלוּץ, "the equipped (or armed) man," we are not to understand all the fighting men, as Knobel supposes; for in the description of the march which follows, the whole of the fighting men ("all the men of war," Joshua 6:3) are divided into החלוּץ and המּאסּף (Eng. Ver. "the armed men" and "the rereward," Joshua 6:9 and Joshua 6:13), so that the former can only have formed one division of the army. It is very natural therefore to suppose, as Kimchi and Rashi do, that the former were the fighting men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh (הצּבא חלוּצי, Joshua 4:13), and the latter the fighting men of the rest of the tribes. On the meaning of מאסּף, see at Numbers 10:25. If we turn to the account of the facts themselves, we shall see at once, that in the report of the angel's message, in Joshua 6:3-5, several other points have been passed over for the purpose of avoiding too many repetitions, and have therefore to be gathered from the description of what actually occurred. First of all, in Joshua 6:8-10, we have the appointment of the order of marching, namely, that the ark, with the priests in front carrying the trumpets of jubilee, was to form the centre of the procession, and that one portion of the fighting men was to go in front of it, and the rest to follow after; that the priests were to blow the trumpets every time they marched round during the seven days (Joshua 6:8, Joshua 6:9, Joshua 6:13); and lastly, that it was not till the seventh time of going round, on the seventh day, that the people were to raise the war-cry at the command of Joshua, and then the walls of the town were to fall (Joshua 6:10, Joshua 6:16). There can be no doubt that we are right in assuming that Joshua had received from the angel the command which he issued to the people in Joshua 6:17., that the whole town, with all its inhabitants and everything in it, was to be given up as a ban to the Lord, at the time when the first announcement concerning the fall of the town was made.