When the Walls Fall — Joshua 6 (Session 8)

In this verse-by-verse study of Joshua 6, Reasoning Through the Bible walks through the fall of Jericho and one of the most memorable victories in the Old Testament. God gives Joshua an unusual battle plan: march around the city, carry the Ark of the Covenant, blow the trumpets, remain silent until the appointed time, and then shout. From a human standpoint, this did not look like military strategy. But that is the point. When the walls fall, God gets the glory.

This session explores why Jericho was shut up in fear, what it means that God said, “I have given Jericho into your hand,” and why Israel had to conquer by faith rather than by human strength. The discussion also connects Jericho to the Christian life by showing how believers face worldly strongholds and overcome them through faith, the Word of God, and the blood of Christ.

The episode also addresses Rahab’s rescue, the command not to take the things under the ban, the difficult question of God’s judgment on Jericho, archaeological details that fit the biblical account, and the fulfillment of Joshua’s curse on anyone who rebuilt the city. Joshua 6 reminds believers that God keeps His promises, judges evil, saves those who trust Him, and brings down strongholds in His own way.

Topics in this episode include:

•  Joshua 6 study 
•  fall of Jericho 
•  walls of Jericho 
•  God’s battle plan 
•  Ark of the Covenant 
•  faith and obedience 
•  Rahab’s rescue 
•  worldly strongholds 
•  God’s judgment on Canaan 
•  archaeological evidence for Jericho 
•  God keeps His promises 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Questions in this session:  

• Is it difficult to follow God’s commands?
• Can God’s word overcome the world? 
• What is it like to fight against God? 
• What should I take up to help me against the world?  

Transcript

Welcome to Joshua Chapter 6

Speaker 1 0:19

Hello everyone . We'd like to welcome you back to another session of Reasoning Through the Bible podcast , and we've been walking through the book of Joshua . We've done the first five chapters so far and today we're going to delve into chapter six .

Speaker 2 0:34

So if you remember where we are so far , we're in the book where God is having Joshua take the people of Israel out of the wilderness into the promised land , and he commissions Joshua in chapter one . Chapter two , rahab believes God and hides two spies . Chapter three , the Ark of the Covenant is where the blood sacrifice pays for our sins and the Ark goes into the river which separates the people from the wilderness and the land of salvation , the land flowing with milk and honey . In chapter 4 , israel sets up a memorial so all the children can remember what God's done for them . And in chapter 5 , god cleans us up after we're saved .

Speaker 2 1:17

When God has Israel circumcise their son , and he appears to Joshua at the end of chapter 5 . Here , at the beginning of chapter 6 , we have this man who has appeared to Joshua . We have learned that this is the Lord , god Almighty , that's appeared in human form . Many theologians would hold this to be the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ and we know this because he accepts worship here in verse 2 . So it's the same person as the end of chapter 5 . The chapter divisions are not part of the original . He says at the end of chapter 5 , take off your shoes , and things like that . That's how we know this is the Lord talking . If we look at Joshua , chapter 6 , verses 1 through 11 , he gives instructions on how to take Jericho .

Speaker 1 2:15

So , steve , if you could read Joshua 6 , the first 11 verses . Now , jericho was shut up inside and outside because the people of Israel , none went out and none came in . And the Lord said to Joshua See , I have given Jericho into your hand , with its king and mighty men of valor . You shall march around the city , all the men of war going around the city once . Thus shall you do for six days . Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark . On the seventh day , you shall march around the city seven times and the priests shall blow the trumpets . And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn , when you hear the sound of the trumpet , then all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall down flat and the people shall go up , everyone straight before him .

Speaker 1 3:04

So Joshua , the son of Nun , called the priests and said to them take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord . And he said to the people go forward , march around the city and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the Lord . And just as Joshua had commanded the people . The seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Lord went forward blowing the trumpets , with the ark of the covenant of the Lord following them . The armed men were walking before the priests who were blowing the trumpets and the rear guard was walking after the ark while the trumpets blew continually . But Joshua commanded the people you shall not shout or make your voice heard , neither shall any word go out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout . Then you shall shout . So he caused the ark of the Lord to circle the city , going about at once , and they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp .

Speaker 2 4:07

So back in verse one , it says here that Jericho was tightly shut because of Israel . Now , what do we already know from a couple of times in the story ? What did Rahab tell us back in chapter two about how the people were afraid of Israel ?

Speaker 1 4:25

That they had heard of what God of Israel had done for them . And they were . Hearts were melted like wax they had , were fearful and scared of the nation of Israel or the people of Israel , the warriors . But not because of them , but because of their God and what their God had done before them .

Speaker 2 4:46

And it

God's Unusual Military Strategy

Speaker 2 4:47

says it again in the last chapter when it says Israel crossed the Jordan . And it said when the kings learned of that , what did it say ?

Speaker 1 4:55

It says that they were shaking in their boots . To paraphrase , they were scared witless .

Speaker 2 5:01

So these people are afraid of the God of Israel , and it says here in chapter 6 , verse 1 , that they had tightly shut up the city . Now that tells me they're fighting against God . They know the inevitable , they know the Lord's coming . They probably had God's prophets coming for a very long time and they've ignored them . So now God's about to send judgment . What is it like to fight against God ?

Speaker 1 5:29

It's futile . It's something that's not going to have an outcome in your favor .

Speaker 2 5:35

Now , steve , you and I , we never would have fought against God now , would we ? No , at least not this week . Anyway , we say that because we have . Every one of us has , at some point or another , resisted God to some degree , but , as you said , it's futile . What happens to the Christian that wakes up and finds themselves wait a minute , I think I'm fighting against God . What is that like ?

Speaker 1 5:57

It's not a good place to be in . It's not a good feeling , because you have that restlessness in your soul , in your spirit , that you know that it's not good .

Speaker 2 6:07

You know it's not a good place to be in and so what would end up happening whenever we do see somebody that goes to God and admits and says Lord , I admit I'm wrong , Please forgive me .

Speaker 1 6:21

Well , we're told over and over again that his response and his answer is that he honors that and that when you acknowledge that you have sinned against him and that you're not doing the things that he wants you to do , and that you acknowledge that he is the person that you should worship , then he acknowledges that and he's happy about it and he very often , if not always , responds in a positive way .

Speaker 2 6:45

Verse two , the Bible says the Lord said to Joshua see , I have given Jericho into your hand , with its king and valiant warriors . As we pointed out before , god said this in its past tense I have given . But at this point , have Israel actually taken Jericho yet ? No , they're still outside . Still outside . When God says I have given , it's a sure thing . From God's perspective , it's a done deal . In verses three to five , what did God ask the people to do ?

Speaker 1 7:16

He tells them , gives them instructions to march around the city one time per day , to be specific , to have the Ark of the Covenant going before them with ram's horns and trumpets , with the priests before them , and that they're to do that for six days and then on the seventh day they're to go and they're to blow the horns and to shout and the walls are going to fall down .

Speaker 2 7:39

Now that doesn't sound like some advanced military strategy that a military genius would come up with . Alexander the Great or Caesar or Napoleon , some of these great military leaders . I've never heard of that military strategy . Why would God come up with ?

Speaker 1 7:56

something like this . I think it's something that's out of the ordinary , just what you said . It's not something that , militarily , you would think of , and it's a demonstration of God's power that when the city walls do fall down , it's very clear that it's God doing it . It's not the people that are doing it .

Speaker 1 8:14

When the walls do fall who's going to get the credit ? God is , because they're not a direct assault on the walls . There's not a direct assault on the city at all . They're marching around the city , so when the walls fall , it's going to have to be God that gives the glory .

Speaker 2 8:28

Remember Gideon in the book of Judges , when he's going up against the enemy ? And he had I think it was 30,000 soldiers . How many did God pare it down to 300 . 300 . God does this simply because he wants it to be known who is actually doing the work . If it was Joshua's superior military strategy , who would have gotten the credit ? Joshua would , but in this case , who's going to get the credit ? God ? God does obviously this . Walking around the city . Is that a complicated thing to do ? Is this really hard to figure out what I'm supposed to do ?

Speaker 1 9:07

Is it physically demanding ? No , it isn't . In fact , the only hard thing about it might be that people want to break rank and actually go attack the city walls , but no , the actual instructions are just walking around once a day . They don't have to do it all day long , just once a day , once a day .

Speaker 2 9:24

Are God's commands difficult ? No , does God ask us to obey really complex , hard things in our lives today ?

Speaker 1 9:33

No .

Speaker 2 9:34

No , god's commands are really pretty simple and we shouldn't add to them either . Shouldn't add to them or subtract from them , right ? How good are you and I at keeping them ? That's the question .

Speaker 1 9:44

It's sometimes , like I said , the holding back of wanting to do something on your own and not necessarily always trusting that God has this Surely . I have to do something to help God accomplish this .

Speaker 2 9:58

So in this case , god asked them to walk around the city . Very simple , very straightforward . They do this out of faith . The people obey . Was there a relationship between having faith in God's commands and the obedience to them ? Absolutely ? If we really trust God and his commands even though he usually asks us very simple things then I submit that there's a greater chance that we'll actually obey if we'll just trust him . Then I submit that there's a greater chance that we'll actually obey if we'll just trust Him . That's why the Bible talks so much about faith and so much about trusting God . It's having faith that if we just follow His simple and straightforward commands then life is easy . It's when we fight against them it's hard . The contrast here between the people of Jericho and the people of Israel is very straightforward . People of Jericho are fighting against God , so they're inside , they're scared , they're shaking in their boots and they're shut up , fighting against God and they're miserable .

Speaker 1 10:55

The people outside that are Israel , that are just walking around , they should have all the confidence in the world because they know who's with them . One thing too , glenn as we're looking at this , we know , because we're reading and it's been recorded , that the people are scared and shaking in their boots and the kings . But the people of Israel themselves might not have known that and , to your point , they're acting on faith and taking it by faith that God is going to win the victory for them . Yes .

Speaker 2 11:28

Now we said earlier that when Israel moves from the wilderness into promised land , it symbolizes salvation . Once we get into God's best , we get into a right relationship with God , a state of salvation . Jericho is symbolic of something we experience in the Christian life , the world . When we bump up against the things of the world , sometimes there's a conflict . We have conflict in the Christian life . I hope that's not a surprise to any of our listeners , but there comes a time when we have the world , the flesh and the devil that we have to wrestle with . 1 John 5 , 4 says the victory that overcomes the world is our faith . So here we have a picture of that . We have Joshua and the people of Israel that have come up against the world . Jericho represents the world . And how do they conquer the world ? Not through superior strength and military strategy on their own . It's through the simple act of following God's command . Now , what are they supposed to carry around ? The city ?

Speaker 1 12:31

What you referred to before as the box , but it's the Ark of the Covenant .

Speaker 2 12:36

Right , the Ark of the Covenant . It really was a wood box , but they covered it in gold and it had angels over the top of it . And this was where , once a year , the high priest would take the blood from the sacrifice and take it and sprinkle it on top of the box , on top of the ark , and the picture was that God would look down and , before he saw that we had violated the law , he would see the blood sacrifice . So inside the ark were the what , the tablets that came from ? Where ?

Speaker 1 13:06

From Mount Sinai the tablets of the Ten Commandments .

Speaker 2 13:09

Tablets of the Ten Commandments , the things that we are supposed to do . We have the words of God covered by the blood of the sacrifice of God , and that is what we're supposed to carry up against the world . That is what conquers the world , not our own superior strength , but the words of God , jesus' blood sacrifice and our faith in those things . That's the picture here is that Israel is to take those things the word of God and the blood atonement , and if we take those up against the world , then we'll overcome them . That's the picture here . Anything , steve , that you get out of this about the trumpets and the people . What were the people supposed to do here as they're walking ?

Speaker 1 13:50

around . They're supposed to follow the priests . They're supposed to be quiet , they're not supposed to say anything or say any word until they're given the command to do it . And then they're going to shout .

Speaker 2 14:03

How hard is it sometimes to just be quiet .

Speaker 1 14:06

And listen and be still and let God work .

Speaker 2 14:10

How hard is it for me to just let God work and keep my big mouth shut and let God do what he needs to do . Sometimes I want to jump in and help him , as you alluded to a minute ago . Let me read the next

Marching Around Jericho

Speaker 2 14:23

section . This will be starting in verse 12 . Now Joshua rose early in the morning and the priest took up the ark of the Lord . The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord went on continually and blew the trumpets , and the armed men went before them and the rear guard came after the ark of the Lord while they continued to blow the trumpets . Thus , the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp . They did so for six days . Then , on the seventh day , they rose early in the dawning of the day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times . Only on that day they marched around the city seven times .

Speaker 2 15:04

At the seventh time , when the priest blew the trumpets , joshua said to the people Shout , for the Lord has given you the city . The city shall be under the ban and it and all that is in it belongs to the Lord Only . Rahab , the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live , because she hid the messengers whom we sent . But as for you , only keep yourselves from the things under the ban so that you do not covet them and take some of the things under the ban and make the camp of Israel accursed and bring trouble on it . But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord , for they shall go into the treasury of the Lord .

Speaker 2 15:43

So the people shouted and the priest blew the trumpets . And when the people heard the sound of the trumpet , the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city , every man , straight ahead , and they took the city . They utterly destroyed everything in the city , both man and woman , young and old , ox and sheep and donkey , with the edge of the sword . So back in verse 13, . How many priests were there ? Seven priests ? How many trumpets ?

Speaker 1 16:12

Seven .

Speaker 2 16:12

How many days did they march ? Seven ? How many times around on the seventh day , seven . What's the deal with all the sevens ? Where in the Bible do we see sevens besides here ? Seven days of creation .

Speaker 1 16:25

Or six days of creation and the seventh day of rest .

Speaker 2 16:28

Where's another place ? Book of Revelation maybe ? Seven seals , seven churches . In the book of Revelation , seven bowls . There's a series of sevens In the ark of Noah . There were seven pairs of clean animals in Noah's ark . Seventh day is a day of rest . Seven in the Bible is a number of completion . Seven represents God . What does six represent ? Man , man or incompletion , things like that . It's the beast in Revelation that has three sixes . Should we , as Christians , go around the world looking for sixes and sevens and trying to use those as where to make our decisions from ?

Speaker 1 17:09

No .

Speaker 2 17:10

No , I don't think so at all . I think that we can draw some applications in scripture , but I think it's just silly to be driving our life based on oh wow , there's six freeways in the city , so I'm going to avoid it , but I'm going to go to the other one that has seven . I mean , things like that are not not what God is talking about here . The people were to be quiet while they were marching around . Do we get enough quiet today in our lives ?

Speaker 1 17:36

No , and the quiet that he said . They weren't even to utter anything . So there wasn't supposed to be any whispering . There wasn't any idle chit chat anything . There wasn't any idle chit-chat anything . They were just supposed to be solemn and focused on following the ark and following the priests that were carrying the ark .

Speaker 2 17:53

We said that Jericho represented the world . What were the people of Israel supposed to do with all the belongings they found in Jericho ?

Speaker 1 18:03

They were to leave them alone . Those things were not to be touched . They were to leave them alone . Those things were not to be touched . They were to be devoted to God .

Speaker 2 18:10

So if Jericho represents the world , how much of the world should we keep in our lives as Christians ? Nothing , how about ? If I just take just a little bit of the world .

Speaker 1 18:21

Well , a little bit goes a long way , as the saying goes

Victory Through Faith Not Strength

Speaker 1 18:24

sometimes .

Speaker 2 18:24

You know , we said last time , right after Israel got into the promised land , one of the things God did was he had the men circumcised , and the circumcision was removing of unclean flesh . And so we're supposed to do away with the unclean things . And here the people of Israel were not supposed to touch any of the unclean things . What I'm always reminded of is , you know , coming to Christ . Well , if we come to Christ , he'll clean our house after we come to Christ , or he'll tell us where all the filthy parts are so that we can get rid of them . We don't have to do that prior to coming to Christ . But what we tend to do is say okay , god , I'm submitting to you , I'll clean all my house except for this one corner over here . I want to keep some little messy stuff over , or this one back of this one closet . I'm going to keep a little bit worldly things back there in the closet . What does God then say ?

Speaker 1 19:15

No , you're supposed to let all of it go . You're supposed to turn all of it and leave all of it alone .

Speaker 2 19:19

He wants to go the back of that one closet and say that's the piece that I want gone . That's the one piece In verse that are in Jericho .

Speaker 1 19:31

They're all to be destroyed , with exception of Rahab and her family , and of course , the deal was that she had to have all of her family inside of her house and there had to be that scarlet cord that was hanging outside the window . Other than that , everybody in the city was to be killed .

Speaker 2 19:50

Now . We talked some about Rahab when we dealt with her before , but here was a person in Rahab that had lived a hard life . She had a very difficult way in life but she recognized the true God and had faith in the true God and therefore God spared her . What can we learn from Rahab about people in our day that may have had a really hard time in life or maybe have done some things that they really shamed of ? Could that kind of a person still be in a right relationship with God ? Can God still forgive them for things that they feel very guilty about ?

Speaker 1 20:27

Absolutely , and Rahab shows that and that she placed her faith in God . When she talked to the spies earlier , she told them it was because of the God that had gone before them , and so her faith was being placed in their God , in the God of Israel . Her faith wasn't being placed in Israel , the nation or the people of Israel . Her faith was being placed in their God .

Speaker 2 20:51

And the sign that was hung out the window was what again ?

Speaker 1 20:55

That scarlet cord . And what did that represent ? That represented that she had given her word or the promise that had been given to them .

Speaker 2 21:04

And the red symbolizes the blood of Christ . So if we merely put our faith into the blood of Christ , then he will save us . And that was the symbol . Now , Rahab was saved because of the promises that they had made earlier . God keeps his promises . Isn't that great ? Yes , it is . Isn't it really great to know that whatever God has promised us , he is faithful . People fail you , people disappoint you , but we can have rest and comfort in knowing that God is going to keep his promises . And another question is that Jericho represents the world

Dealing With Worldly Strongholds

Speaker 2 21:42

. As we cross over from the lost state into the promised land of salvation , we will bump into worldly things , and Jericho represents the world . Is there a Jericho in our life , a worldly stronghold in our life ? I think sometimes the question is when is there not a worldly stronghold in my life ? What do we do to overcome strongholds ?

Speaker 1 22:05

You have to put your faith in God that you're going to be able to conquer that stronghold . There's going to be certain strongholds that you're going to have to have help to conquer and you're going to have to rely on God to give you that help to do it 2 Corinthians 10.4, .

Speaker 2 22:19

the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to demolish strongholds . And the symbolism here is very clear the Ark of the Covenant represented both the Word of God and the Ten Commandments that was in it and the blood atonement of Jesus Christ that was sprinkled on top of it . So we take the blood of Jesus and the Word of God and we put that around the worldly stronghold and through that the power of God will help us overcome it . We can't do it by coming up against it with our own strength , just like Joshua couldn't overcome Jericho with his own strength , but he could through the word of God and the blood sacrifice . And in chapter 6 , verse 18 , the people were to do what ? What were they supposed to stay away from when they were in the city ?

Speaker 1 23:08

There were certain things that were banned , certain things that they weren't supposed to take , or certain things that they weren't supposed to touch at all . It was supposed to be devoted to God . They were leaving it alone .

Speaker 2 23:20

When we encounter worldly things in our life . Is there things that God would have us leave alone and not hide away ?

Speaker 1 23:27

Yes .

Speaker 2 23:28

What always ends up happening when I hide away worldly things in my life .

Speaker 1 23:31

They get exposed at some point and they can distract , and they can lead you away .

Speaker 2 23:36

They can distract , they can lead things away , as we're going to find out in AI . They remove God's power and so they become a distraction . They become a stronghold . Somehow they don't stay where I think they're going to be and they grow and grow . We shouldn't dabble in accursed things and worldly things simply because the little dabbling just keeping a few of them , as we're going to find out here in the coming verses and chapters , that's where we end up with problems .

Speaker 2 24:02

Now , if you look at verse 21 , it says here that the people of Jericho were to be killed , utterly destroyed everything in the city , both man and woman , young and old , ox and sheep and donkey , with the edge of the sword . Now this has raised a question . It's a valid question that's come up in our day of whether it was moral for God to command the total destruction of the people of Canaan . This is important enough that we're going to dedicate an entire podcast to this , so we'll deal with this problem at length . But what can we say quickly here as far as whether this was a good idea and whether this was right in the sight of God to order the destruction of these people ?

Speaker 1 24:45

Well , you have to trust God , that God knows the reason why that it needed to be done . And it is difficult to think about and to understand and , as you said , we're going to spend some time talking about that and going into more detail of it . And I think that some people can also see that , well , okay , the destroying the people of the city , but then they also destroy the animals and everything the donkeys , the sheep . Why did every single thing have to be destroyed ?

Speaker 2 25:19

One of the reasons , and we'll deal with it quickly here and then the other podcast . We'll get into it at length . But what ended up happening is Joshua and the people of Israel stopped before they killed everybody in Canaan . God had ordered them all killed , but Joshua and the people of Israel didn't do that . They stopped and what ended up happening was , over time , instead of Israel influencing the people of Canaan for good , the opposite happened the people of Canaan influenced Israel for evil . So towards the end of the Old Testament , the people of Israel had taken up some of the practices of the people of Canaan . Israel had adopted child sacrifice , child sacrifice . They were also incorporating ritualistic sex worship .

Speaker 1 26:08

The evil grew rather than shrink , and it wasn't just the people themselves . The king of Israel started to partake in worshiping other gods and idol worship .

Speaker 2 26:18

Because they didn't do what God said to do here . The evil grew and grew until it infected more and more people , and it was a greater problem as a result of it , whereas if they had just obeyed God here then we would have gotten rid of a lot of this . But there's several answers to that and we'll deal with that in the future .

Archaeological Evidence and Biblical Truth

Speaker 2 26:40

I'd like to touch on a couple of extra things here . The archaeologists have excavated this area . Basically , the archaeologists have determined some things that align well with what the Bible says here in Joshua . When they excavated Jericho , they found the city was well fortified . The city was attacked after harvest time in the spring . The inhabitants did not have time to flee with their food . The siege was short , so they didn't consume all their supplies . The walls were leveled in a way that allowed access to the city , and the city wasn't plundered , and then it was burned after the walls fell . All that the archaeologists have confirmed , and so these things align very well with what the Bible tells us .

Speaker 1 27:24

And along with that , in this excavation of the city and the archaeological things , there were two walls . There were an inner wall and an outer wall , which harkens back to verse one , where it said that inside and out were locked . So that's probably that inner wall was locked as well as the outer wall . It was up on a hill , so it was a very well defensible position . It was eight to nine acre site , so it was something that could easily be walked around in a day's time . And they found , to your point , that part of the walls were burned , were charred , they found grain that were in some of the storage areas that talked about what you said , that they didn't have time to flee . And then also they found apartments or houses on the outside of the wall . In the structure of the outside wall itself , which speaks to where Rahab , it says that Rahab lived .

Speaker 2 28:16

And then in Joshua 6 , 25 , it says this Rahab the harlot and her father's household and all she had Joshua spared . And she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day , for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho . Now , one of the reasons I point that out is because there have been some scholars over the years that have questioned when these books were written and how close to the events they were written . And if we read carefully , starting in Genesis all the way up to here in the Bible , we find that it's all written in past tense and it's written in third person and there's not very many places where we can get an idea of when it was written . Well , this is one of them .

Speaker 2 29:00

Now our critics , the skeptics , would say these were myth stories that were put together many centuries later . Usually they'll say it's in the time of the Babylonian captivity , hundreds of years down the road , and some of them even go as far as to claim that Moses didn't exist and that these stories were just religious stories that were compiled . The reason I bring this up we talk about the archaeology . It aligns well . This wasn't written by someone that was in another country , hundreds of years down the road and if you look at several places in Joshua , it says this exists to this day . The stones that were set up as a memorial from the Jordan River are there to this day . The next chapter they're going to have a place where a man's killed and they pile rocks on him , and that is there to this day .

Speaker 2 29:53

The writer of Joshua knew that land very well and he's a contemporary . And he's a contemporary and this verse proves it . Joshua 6.25 says Rahab was still alive when this was written . She lives there to this day . So what the writers actually claim is that this was written within the lifetime of the first generation that came . Again , rahab was still alive when it was written .

Speaker 2 30:20

So we can have trust in our Bibles . We can have confidence in our Bible . These things were written by eyewitnesses that lived in the land close to the events and were inspired by the living God . We can have confidence that the Bible is what it claims to be . Now , at the last verse in Joshua 6 , actually the next to the last verse 26 says Joshua made them take an oath at that time saying Cursed before the Lord is the man who rises up and builds this city , jericho , with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation . With the loss of his youngest , he shall set up its gates .

Speaker 2 30:58

Now that prophecy was literally fulfilled In 1 Kings 16 , 34 , a man

Closing Thoughts

Speaker 2 31:05

started to rebuild Jericho and he says he did so with the life of his son . The word of God is trustworthy . When God wants it destroyed , it's going to be destroyed and stay destroyed and stay destroyed . So that's Joshua , chapter 6 , and we will get to chapter 7 . Next time we're going to find out what happens when they destroyed Jericho very easily . But what about little Ai ? What happens when there's a little sin in your life , and what happens then ? What happens when a little sin comes , and what does that do to the rest of our influence in our ministry ?

Speaker 1 31:45

We thank you very much for being here with us on this session of Reasoning Through the Bible . Thank you .