Joshua 6:12-27

Imagine that you or I had been in that army when God gave Joshua the instructions to march around Jericho.  Did you notice how the Ark of the Lord was involved again as it was in the crossing of the river Jordan?  Wouldn’t we have thought it strange that just walking around the city would do any good?  I am sure Joshua had gotten these instructions from the Captain that we read of in chapter 4:14-15.  There is no record of Joshua or the army complaining about this order.  They did it because God said it.  Then there is the fact that the ark represented the presence of God. 

Now comes the seventh day and the marching around the city seven times.  They must have wondered what that would do.  The most I get out of this is the importance of obedience to God even when one doesn’t understand what He is doing.  Has God ever asked you to do something you considered strange?  Of course He doesn’t speak with an audible voice, but His Spirit is the one who prompts us to obey.  Anyway, the walls fell down and the battle was won!  Next we find Joshua instructs them that all the silver and gold was to be given to the treasury of the Lord.  If anyone kept anything from the city of Jericho he would find himself accursed and it would make the whole camp of Israel a curse as well (verse 18).  Isn’t it amazing how our disobedience can affect not only ourselves but others as well?  True to the promise of the two spies, all that was in Rahab’s house were spared from this peril and no one perished.  Joshua said that anyone who attempted to rebuild Jericho would be accursed.  He would do it at the expense of losing his oldest and youngest sons.  This was true in I Kings 16:34.  A man named Hiel did this and lost both of his sons.  This teaches us how very important obedience is to God and how costly disobedience is.

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