Faithfullee

The Rites Before Battle

The entire generation of fighting men born in the wilderness had not been circumcised (Joshua 5:5). The rite had lapsed — not by defiance, but because the wilderness years were years of divine discipline rather than covenant privilege. Now, at the threshold of the land, God restores the sign of the covenant before Israel lifts a single weapon. The place is called Gibeath-haaraloth — "the hill of the foreskins" — and the camp remains at Gilgal while the men heal.

Then Israel keeps the Passover for the first time in Canaan, on the fourteenth day of the first month. The day after: the manna stops. For forty years the wilderness generation had eaten bread from heaven; now the land itself will feed them. Dale Davis, in his Joshua commentary (Christian Focus, 2000), observes that the cessation of manna is a milestone that the text records simply and without drama — the provision that sustained one season of Israel's life is complete; the provision for the next season begins. The wilderness is behind them. The land is home.

These rites — circumcision and Passover — are not spiritual preparation added before the real business of conquest begins. They are the real business. Israel cannot enter the land as a military force that happens to worship God. They must enter as a covenant people for whom everything, including war, flows from their identity as the LORD's own.

What strikes us here is the timing. Israel is at maximum strategic advantage — the enemy is terrified, the window is open. And God says: circumcision. Passover. The men are in recovery, the camp is stationary, and the military logic says to move now. But the covenant logic says: you are not a military force that happens to carry God's name. You are God's people who happen to be fighting. Get that right first. Everything depends on what you are before you act.

The Commander No One Recruited

Joshua, likely on a reconnaissance mission outside Jericho, encounters a man standing with a drawn sword. His question is military and reasonable:

"Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" — Joshua 5:13 (ESV)

The answer reframes the entire campaign before it begins:

"No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come." — Joshua 5:14 (ESV)

The commander of the LORD's army is neither for Israel nor against them in the terms Joshua's question assumed. He is not a divine ally available to be recruited for Israel's purposes — he commands the armies of heaven, and Joshua's role is to take orders, not extend invitations. Richard Hess, in his Joshua commentary (TOTC, 1996), notes that the instruction to remove sandals directly echoes Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:5). The holy ground at Sinai and the holy ground at Jericho's threshold are continuous: the same God is present, the same consecration is required, and the same posture of submission is demanded. Joshua falls on his face. He asks what his lord commands. The commander speaks.

We find that exchange — "Are you for us or against us?" "No" — one of the most reorienting moments in the whole book. Joshua was asking the right question, just from the wrong frame. The question is not whether God is on Israel's side. The question is whether Israel is on God's side. The commander did not come because Israel summoned him. He came because this is God's land, God's war, God's moment — and Israel has been invited into it. That changes everything about how you approach the next battle.

Jericho: The Battle That Was Not a Battle

The LORD's strategy for Jericho is explicit and unmilitary. For six days, Israel's armed men and the priests with the ark are to march around the city once and return to camp — in silence. On the seventh day, they march seven times. On the seventh circuit, the priests blow the rams' horns, the people shout, and the walls fall.

No battering ram. No siege ramp. No assault. No engineering.

"And the LORD said to Joshua, 'See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor.'" — Joshua 6:2 (ESV)

The perfect tense — "I have given" — is used before any action has been taken. Dale Davis notes that the strategy is deliberately designed to eliminate every possible natural explanation. Israel could not boast about Jericho. They could only testify to it. The only military element in the whole account is the shout — and that is not a weapon. It is an act of faith in a promise.

Rahab's household is preserved, marked by the scarlet cord in her window that the spies had instructed her to tie (Joshua 6:22–25). The woman who hid the spies because she believed in the LORD's power (Joshua 2:9–11) is the only resident of Jericho to survive. Her house, built into the wall, stands when everything around it falls. She is incorporated into Israel. Hess points out that she becomes a recurring example in later Scripture of faith demonstrated by action — cited in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25.

The city and everything in it is placed under the ban — the herem. Its silver, gold, bronze, and iron go to the LORD's treasury. Everything else is destroyed. Joshua pronounces a curse on anyone who rebuilds it (Joshua 6:26).

What we keep coming back to at Jericho is the shout. The walls don't fall because of sophisticated siege work. They fall because a people walked around them for seven days in obedience to instructions that made no military sense, and then shouted. The shout is not military. It is liturgical. It is an act of praise before the victory is visible. And the walls fell. We think there is something in that for anyone who has ever been asked to do something that seems insufficient to the scale of the problem they are facing.

Achan: The Cost of Hidden Disobedience

The victory at Jericho contains a prohibition that the very next chapter reveals was violated. Achan from the tribe of Judah sees a beautiful Babylonian cloak, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold among the devoted things. He takes them. He hides them under his tent.

At Ai — a smaller city, a straightforward target — Israel is routed. Thirty-six men die. The rest flee. The report is devastating in its simplicity:

"And the hearts of the people melted and became as water." — Joshua 7:5 (ESV)

Joshua's prayer to God borders on accusation — why did you bring us here only to be destroyed? God's response is not consolation but diagnosis: Israel has sinned. The herem has been violated. The covenant community is defiled. Until the sin is identified and the devoted thing removed, the LORD will not fight with Israel.

Achan is identified by lot — tribe by tribe, clan by clan, household by household. When the lot falls on him, his confession is one of the most candid in the Old Testament:

"Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them." — Joshua 7:20–21 (ESV)

He saw. He coveted. He took. The sequence echoes the garden — and perhaps deliberately. The items are recovered from under his tent. Achan and his household are stoned and burned in the Valley of Achor, "the valley of trouble."

We need to name what is hard about this passage and not move past it too quickly. One man took some things. Thirty-six men died at Ai. Achan's entire household was executed with him. The concept of corporate accountability — one person's hidden sin affecting the whole community — is deeply uncomfortable to a culture that prizes individual responsibility and individual consequences. The text does not apologize for it. It does not explain it away. It presents it as the mechanism by which holiness works in a covenant community: what one person does in secret is not sealed off from the rest. The camp where God dwells is affected. The army that fights in God's name is affected.

We don't think this is meant to make us paranoid about each other. But we do think it is meant to disrupt the idea that private sin is truly private. Achan's hidden cloak and silver and gold cost thirty-six men their lives before anyone knew what was under the tent. That is a picture of something real about how community holiness works — and how costly the gap between the outward and the hidden can be.

The narrative's placement immediately after Jericho is not accidental. Richard Hess observes that Achan's story demonstrates that the conquest is not a blank check. The same holiness that brought walls down can stop an army in its tracks. Covenant faithfulness is not a precondition for one battle — it is the condition for every battle.

After the sin is removed, Ai falls. Joshua burns it and hangs the king on a tree until evening. The city becomes a permanent heap of ruins. Then, on Mount Ebal, Joshua builds an altar of uncut stones and writes the law of Moses on plastered stones in the presence of all Israel — fulfilling the command Moses gave in Deuteronomy 27. The conquest's first act of worship at the new site is not celebration of victory but covenant affirmation.

Last updated: March 3, 2026.