Joshua Takes Jericho

• Found: Joshua 2, 6

Rahab Helps the Spies (Joshua 2)

Before attacking Jericho, Joshua sent in two spies to assess the city. The spies came to the house of a woman called Rahab, and asked her to stay there. She took them in, not knowing they were spies. Someone in the city had spotted them, though, and went to the king, telling him two spies were in the city. When Rahab learned they were spies, she took them and hid them on her roof, under some drying flax. When the king's guards came to Rahab's house, she said the spies had been there but had moved on. Bringing the spies down, she told them she believed their God was the true God, because of the things she had heard of him. She let them down a rope out of the city, her house being on the wall, and they told her if she wanted to be saved when they came to destroy the city she should hang a red cord out of her window. If she did this, she and everyone in her house would be saved.

Joshua Attacks the City (Joshua 6)

God had told Joshua how he was to attack Jericho, and it was a strange plan. The city was large and well protected with a great wall. The people were to go to the city and march round it, the priests with the ark led by priests holding trumpets at the front, the soldiers after and all the peole after that. They marched once round the city and retired to the camp. The next day they came and did the same thing. They did this for six days.

On the seventh day the Israelites came and marched round the city again; but they didn't stop this time. They went round and round, seven times. After the seventh time Joshua shouted that the Lord had given them the city. The people shouted, the priests blew their trumpets and the walls fell down. God had commanded that they destroy everyone in the city, and that all the spoils should go to him. Every person in the city was killed, with the exception of Rahab, who was saved along with her family. Rahab later married into the Israelites and was an ancestor of David, who was an ancestor of Jesus.

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