Joshua 6

Translator Notes

1. Sogeret um'suggeret ('shut up and bolted shut') — the double participle intensifies the image: Jericho is not merely closed but sealed, barred, locked down. The city is in full siege posture, but the irony is that Israel has not laid siege. Jericho has imprisoned itself out of terror, confirming Rahab's testimony (2:9-11) and the report of verse 5:1.
2. Ein yotse v'ein ba ('none going out, none coming in') — a merism describing total isolation. No trade, no escape, no reinforcement. Jericho is cut off and waiting.

Translator Notes

1. Re'eh natatti b'yadkha ('See, I have given into your hand') — the perfect tense natatti ('I have given') declares the victory accomplished before a single march around the walls. As with the land promise in 1:3, God speaks of the outcome as already completed. The conquest of Jericho is divine fait accompli — Israel's role is obedience to the ritual instructions that follow, not military strategy.
2. Gibborei he-chayil ('mighty men of valor') — the same phrase used for Israel's own warriors (1:14). Jericho's defenders are formidable, but their strength is irrelevant because the battle belongs to God.

Translator Notes

1. V'sabbotem et ha-ir ('march around the city') — the verb savav ('to go around, to encircle') is processional, not military. This is not a siege tactic but a ritual act. The instruction to circle the city once per day for six days, then seven times on the seventh day (v. 4), follows a liturgical pattern saturated with the number seven — the number of completion and divine action throughout the Hebrew Bible.
2. Kol anshei ha-milchamah ('all the fighting men') — warriors participate, but they do not fight. They march. The army is present not for its combat function but as participants in a worship procession. This redefines military power: Israel's greatest victory will come through obedience to a ritual, not through tactics.

Translator Notes

1. Shiv'ah kohanim ... shiv'ah shofarot ha-yov'lim ... ha-yom ha-shevi'i ... sheva pe'amim — the sevenfold pattern saturates the passage: seven priests, seven trumpets, the seventh day, seven circuits. The number seven (sheva) is the number of completion, oath (the root sh-v-a relates to both 'seven' and 'to swear'), and divine rest (the seventh day of creation). Jericho falls not by force but by sacred numerology — by the completion of a divine cycle.
2. Shofarot ha-yov'lim ('ram's horn trumpets' or 'jubilee trumpets') — the yovel is the ram's horn associated with the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25:9-10) and with theophanic events (Exodus 19:13, 16 at Sinai). These are not military signals but liturgical instruments. The sound of the shofar announces God's presence and action, not a charge into battle.

Translator Notes

1. V'nafl'ah chomat ha-ir tachteha ('the wall of the city will fall beneath itself,' or 'collapse in place') — the wall does not fall outward or inward but drops straight down (tachteha, 'beneath it'). Archaeological excavations at Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) have found collapsed walls, though the dating and interpretation remain debated among archaeologists. The text presents the collapse as immediate, total, and supernatural — the walls fall at the sound, not from battering.
2. T'ru'ah g'dolah ('a great shout') — the t'ru'ah is a war cry and a worship shout. It is the same term used for the shout at God's enthronement (Psalm 47:5; Numbers 23:21) and for the alarm signal on the trumpets (Numbers 10:5-6). The shout at Jericho is simultaneously a battle cry and an act of worship — the two are indistinguishable in this narrative.
3. V'alu ha-am ish negdo ('the people will go up, each man straight before him') — there is no flanking, no concentration of force, no tactical approach. Every soldier advances straight forward from wherever he stands in the circle. The city is penetrated from every direction simultaneously — because the walls are gone. Military strategy is irrelevant when God removes the obstacle.

Translator Notes

1. Joshua transmits God's instructions from verses 2-5 to the priests without modification. The command chain operates flawlessly: God → Joshua → priests. The ark of the covenant leads, with the seven trumpet-bearing priests creating a sonic processional before it. The order of march will be specified further in verses 7-9: armed vanguard, trumpet priests, ark, rear guard.

Translator Notes

1. Ha-chaluts ya'avor lifnei aron YHWH ('the armed vanguard will pass before the ark of the LORD') — chaluts ('armed, equipped, stripped for action') designates the military advance guard. The marching order emerges: armed troops first, then the seven trumpet-priests, then the ark, then presumably a rear guard (v. 9). The army frames the ark — warriors before and behind — but the ark is the center. The formation is a moving sanctuary, not a military column.

Translator Notes

1. The procession begins. The narrative emphasizes the sound — v'taq'u ba-shofarot ('and they blew the trumpets'). The shofar blast accompanies the march and continues throughout the circuits. The sound of ram's horns around a walled city is psychologically powerful but militarily useless — it serves to announce God's presence and to unnerve the defenders, who are already terrified (5:1; 2:9-11).

Translator Notes

1. Ha-m'assef ('the rear guard,' literally 'the gatherer') — from the root asaf ('to gather'). The rear guard gathers up stragglers and protects the column's back. The full marching order is now clear: armed vanguard → seven trumpet-priests → ark of the covenant → rear guard. This is a military formation repurposed for liturgical procession — or perhaps a liturgical procession that happens to be militarily organized.
2. Halokh v'taqo'a ba-shofarot ('going and blowing the trumpets') — the infinitive absolute construction indicates continuous action. The trumpets never stop sounding throughout the march. The ceaseless blowing creates an unbroken wall of sound — the auditory counterpart to the physical wall they are circling.

Translator Notes

1. Lo tari'u v'lo tashmi'u et qolkhem v'lo yetse mippikhem davar ('do not shout, do not make your voice heard, do not let a word leave your mouth') — the triple prohibition creates absolute silence from the people. The only sounds during the six days of marching are the priests' trumpets and the rhythm of footsteps. The effect is eerie and psychologically devastating: a silent army circling the walls, day after day, with only the mournful blast of ram's horns. The silence also functions theologically — the people's voice is withheld until God's moment. Their shout will not be spontaneous but commanded, not human initiative but divine timing.

Translator Notes

1. Vayyassev aron YHWH et ha-ir haqqef pa'am achat ('the ark of the LORD circled the city, going around once') — the narrator says the ark circled the city, not the army or Joshua. The ark (and by extension, God's presence) is the subject of the action. The first day's circuit is completed in a single understated sentence — the narrative saves its dramatic energy for the seventh day.

Translator Notes

1. Vayyashkem Yehoshua ba-boqer ('Joshua rose early in the morning') — the same formula as 3:1. Joshua's early rising signals discipline and urgency. The daily repetition of the ritual requires the same obedience and the same early start each morning — faithfulness expressed as routine.

Translator Notes

1. The verse repeats the marching order from verses 8-9 almost verbatim, reinforcing the ritualized nature of the procession. The repetition is not narrative redundancy — it mirrors the repetitive nature of the act itself. Each day's march follows the identical pattern: same formation, same sounds, same silence. The ritual's power lies in its exact repetition over seven days. Halokh v'taqo'a ('going and blowing') — the continuous trumpeting creates a liturgical drone that defines the entire event.

Translator Notes

1. Koh asu sheshet yamim ('thus they did for six days') — six days of identical processions, one circuit per day, then return to camp. The narrative compresses six days of obedient marching into a single verse. The compression emphasizes the monotony and the discipline: nothing visible happens for six days. No walls crack, no defenders flee, no progress is apparent. The obedience is tested by six days of apparent futility.

Translator Notes

1. Ba-yom ha-shevi'i vayyashkimu ka'alot ha-shachar ('on the seventh day they rose at the going up of the dawn') — the early start is even earlier than usual, because seven circuits require the full day. The dawn of the seventh day marks the climactic moment the entire ritual has been building toward.
2. Sheva pe'amim ('seven times') — the escalation from one circuit to seven on the seventh day brings the total number of circuits to thirteen (6 + 7), though the text emphasizes the seven on the final day. The accumulation of sevens reaches its peak: seven priests, seven trumpets, seven days, seven circuits. The divine number saturates the event.
3. Raq ba-yom ha-hu savvu et ha-ir sheva pe'amim ('only on that day did they circle the city seven times') — the word raq ('only') marks the seventh day as unique. The pattern breaks: what was once (days 1-6) becomes seven (day 7). The break in pattern signals the climax.

Translator Notes

1. Hari'u ki natan YHWH lakhem et ha-ir ('Shout, for the LORD has given you the city') — again the perfect tense: natan ('has given'). The city is already given before the shout goes up and the walls come down. Joshua speaks with prophetic certainty, declaring accomplished what is about to become visible. The shout is not a weapon — it is the response to a gift already given.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. V'hay'tah ha-ir cherem hi v'khol asher bah la-YHWH ('the city will be cherem — it and everything in it — to the LORD') — the entire city is placed under the sacred ban. Cherem here functions as a predicate adjective: the city is cherem, meaning it belongs entirely and irrevocably to God. Nothing within it may be taken for human use. The phrase la-YHWH ('to the LORD') specifies the recipient — everything destroyed is 'given' to God.
2. Raq Rachav ha-zonah tichyeh ('only Rahab the prostitute will live') — the sole exception to the cherem is the woman and household protected by the covenant agreement of chapter 2. The oath the spies swore to Rahab overrides the ban — or rather, Rahab's household was already exempted by the spies' divinely sanctioned oath before the cherem was announced. Her zonah identity is repeated, not to stigmatize but to underscore the extraordinary nature of her inclusion.
3. Ki hechb'atah et ha-mal'akhim asher shalachnu ('because she hid the messengers we sent') — the reason for Rahab's exemption is her active choice to align with Israel's God. The word mal'akhim ('messengers') is the same word translated 'angels' in other contexts — here it means human envoys, but the lexical overlap connects Rahab's act of hiding human scouts to the broader theme of divine agency.

Translator Notes

1. Shimru min ha-cherem pen tacharaimu ('guard yourselves from the cherem lest you become cherem') — the warning is terrifyingly logical: cherem is contagious. If anyone takes devoted property for themselves, they transfer the ban to the entire camp. The cherem would spread from Jericho to Israel — the very army of God would become a devoted-to-destruction object. This warning foreshadows the Achan crisis of chapter 7, where exactly this happens.
2. Va'akhartem oto ('and bring trouble/disaster upon it') — the verb akhar ('to trouble, to bring disaster') contains a wordplay that will become explicit in 7:25, where Achan (whose name sounds like akhar) is told 'Why did you bring trouble (akhartanu) on us? The LORD will bring trouble (ya'akhor'kha) on you today.' The wordplay is embedded in the narrative structure from this warning forward.

Translator Notes

1. Qodesh hu la-YHWH ('it is holy to the LORD') — metals cannot be destroyed by fire, so they are consecrated rather than annihilated. The principle of cherem is maintained: nothing from Jericho enriches any individual. What survives destruction enters the otsar YHWH ('treasury of the LORD'), the sacred storehouse associated with the tabernacle/sanctuary. The metals belong to God, not to Israel's soldiers.

Translator Notes

1. Vattipol ha-chomah tachteiha ('the wall fell beneath itself') — the climactic moment is described in seven Hebrew words. After seven days of elaborate ritual preparation, the actual fall of Jericho's wall is narrated with stark brevity. The understatement matches the theology: this is God's act, and divine acts do not require elaborate description. The wall simply falls.
2. Vayya'al ha-am ha-irah ish negdo ('the people went up into the city, each man straight before him') — as God instructed (v. 5), every soldier advances directly forward from wherever he stands in the circle. The city is penetrated simultaneously from every direction. There is no battle narrative — no clash of arms, no defenders rallying, no commanders shouting orders. The battle is over before it starts because the wall, the city's only defense, is gone.

Translator Notes

1. Vayyacharimu et kol asher ba-ir ('they devoted to destruction everything in the city') — the cherem is executed in full. The list me-ish v'ad ishah minna'ar v'ad zaqen ('from man to woman, from young to old') is a merism encompassing every human being. The inclusion of domestic animals (shor va-seh va-chamor, 'ox, sheep, and donkey') confirms total destruction — nothing of Jericho survives for human use.
2. The text presents this without editorial commentary. The narrator does not justify, explain, or soften the account. The theological framework (cherem as sacred devotion to God) is the only interpretive lens the text provides. Modern readers must reckon with the moral difficulty honestly — and the translator notes should acknowledge that difficulty without resolving it. This is what the Hebrew text says; this is what it claims God commanded. The Covenant Rendering translates the text faithfully and lets the reader engage the theological and moral questions.

Translator Notes

1. Ka'asher nishba'tem lah ('as you swore to her') — Joshua upholds the spies' oath. The covenant with Rahab, negotiated by two scouts on their own authority, is honored by the national commander in the midst of a divinely mandated destruction. An oath sworn in YHWH's name (2:12) cannot be broken, even by the demands of cherem. This establishes a hierarchy: oath → cherem. The sworn word outranks the sacred ban.

Translator Notes

1. The list — Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, and everyone belonging to her — matches her original request in 2:13 precisely. The oath is honored to the letter. The addition v'et kol mishp'choteha ('and all her clans/extended family') expands the circle beyond the nuclear family, suggesting Rahab's influence brought a wider group under the protection of the scarlet cord.
2. Vayyanikhum michutz l'machaneh Yisrael ('they settled them outside the camp of Israel') — Rahab's family is placed outside the camp initially, likely for ritual purity reasons (as Canaanites, they would need to undergo some process of incorporation). The note 'outside the camp' is transitional — verse 25 will clarify that Rahab ultimately dwelt 'in the midst of Israel.'

Translator Notes

1. V'ha-ir sar'fu va-esh v'khol asher bah ('they burned the city with fire and everything in it') — the burning completes the cherem. Fire is the ultimate agent of destruction, leaving nothing usable. Archaeological evidence at Tell es-Sultan shows a destruction layer with evidence of intense burning, though the dating of this layer remains one of the most debated questions in biblical archaeology.
2. Otsar beit YHWH ('the treasury of the house of the LORD') — the metals are consecrated to the sanctuary. The 'house of the LORD' at this period would be the tabernacle. Jericho's wealth goes to God's house — the firstfruits principle applied to conquest.

Translator Notes

1. Vatteshev b'qerev Yisrael ad ha-yom ha-zeh ('she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day') — the transition from 'outside the camp' (v. 23) to 'in the midst of Israel' is complete. Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, is fully incorporated into Israelite society. The formula 'to this day' indicates the narrator writes from a later period when Rahab's descendants are a known presence in Israel. According to Matthew 1:5, Rahab married Salmon and became an ancestor of David — and of Jesus. A gentile woman from a condemned city enters the covenant people and ultimately the messianic lineage.
2. The narrator repeats the reason for her survival: ki hechbi'ah et ha-mal'akhim ('because she hid the messengers'). Her act of faith — choosing YHWH's side at personal risk — saved her and her family. The New Testament draws on this in Hebrews 11:31 ('by faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient') and James 2:25 ('was not Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers?'). Her story serves as evidence that covenant membership is based on faith and action, not ethnicity.

Translator Notes

1. Arur ha-ish lifnei YHWH ('cursed is the man before the LORD') — Joshua places a solemn imprecation on anyone who rebuilds Jericho. The curse operates on a devastating principle: rebuilding will cost the builder his firstborn at the foundation and his youngest at the gate-setting — his entire family line will be consumed by the project. This curse is fulfilled in 1 Kings 16:34, when Hiel of Bethel rebuilds Jericho under King Ahab: 'He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD spoken through Joshua son of Nun.'
2. Biv'khoro y'yass'dennah u-vitse'iro yatsiv d'lateha ('at his firstborn he will found it, and at his youngest he will set up its gates') — the preposition be- ('at, in, with, at the cost of') is ambiguous: it could mean the deaths coincide with the construction stages, or that the sons are sacrificed as foundation offerings (a practice attested in ancient Near Eastern archaeology). The text does not specify the mechanism — only the cost.

Translator Notes

1. Vayhi YHWH et Yehoshua ('the LORD was with Joshua') — the fulfillment of 1:5 ('as I was with Moses, I will be with you') and 3:7 ('today I will begin to exalt you'). The three promises are now realized: God is present, Joshua is exalted, and no one can stand against him. The summary statement closes the Jericho narrative with a theological conclusion: Joshua's fame is not self-made but a consequence of the divine presence that accompanies him.
2. Vayhi shom'o b'khol ha-arets ('his fame was in all the land') — shom'o ('his fame, his report, what is heard about him') spreads throughout Canaan. The Canaanite terror that Rahab reported (2:9-11) and that 5:1 confirmed now intensifies. Every subsequent city in Canaan knows what happened to Jericho.