Date: 1405/1406(?) b.c.
Location: just west of the Jordan River in modern eastern Israel.
Forces Engaged:
Hebrew: unknown. Commander: Joshua.
Canaanite: unknown. Commander: unknown.
Importance:
The Hebrew destruction of Jericho cleared the first major hurdle for settlement in the Promised Land.
Historical Setting
Like the siege of Troy, the siege of Jericho is the subject of much speculation over the recorded source (which was written after a significant amount of time had elapsed) and the archaeological evidence. Although the details of the biblical account of the fall of Jericho are much sketchier than the extended story of Troy told by Homer, modern evidence unearthed at Tel es-Sultan (the modern site of ancient Jericho) gives a greater substantiation to the Hebrew-Canaanite battle.
According to the Holy Bible, the Hebrews left Egypt in a massive exodus, probably around 1446/1445 b.c. (The exodus, too, is a matter of great debate, but not precisely relevant to the events at Jericho.) After a forty-year tour of the Arabian desert to weed out those deemed unfit for entrance into Canaan (the Hebrews’ Holy Land), the people of the twelve tribes of Israel approached their target. Their first battle was with the Amorite kings Sihon and Og, whose forces they obliterated. That victory gave them clear access to the Jordan River north of the Dead Sea for their crossing. They easily crossed the Jordan owing to an earthquake that blocked the riverbed upstream. (Similar blockages have been recorded in later accounts, as in 1267 during Sultan Baybars’ campaign against the crusaders and in 1927 when archaeologist John Garstang was excavating in the region.) The timing of the earthquake certainly must have had a positive psychological effect on the invading Hebrews.
With his people across the river, the Hebrew leader Joshua sent spies into Jericho. As it is no more than 5 miles from the river, it seems highly unlikely that the town’s inhabitants were unaware of the Hebrew presence, yet they did nothing to oppose the river crossing. The two spies found themselves in the company of Rahab, whose dwelling was on the city walls. Jericho is thus far the oldest walled city located by modern archaeology, and investigations have shown that houses were built in such a way that the city wall was the back wall of the dwelling. Rahab has always had the epithet “the Harlot” attached to her name, and it is indeed possible that she was engaged in the world’s oldest profession although some scholars find the original Hebrew language suggests innkeeper. Certainly an inn would be a logical place to go to catch up on the local news and gossip. Here they learned from Rahab that Jericho’s population was terrified of the approaching Hebrews: “your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did to the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed” (Joshua 2:9b–10). When the king of Jericho learned that two probable spies were staying at Rahab’s, he sent soldiers to capture them. Rahab hid the Hebrews, then aided in their escape. For this she was promised safety during the upcoming battle.
The Siege
Jericho around 1400 b.c. was already a well-established town built around the spring of Ain es-Sultan. It was in the Plain of Jericho, a lush agricultural area in the midst of surrounding barren land. As a stopping place for travelers and merchants it had to have been wealthy, and possession of it would give the Hebrews a fertile base from which to operate as well as a key access point for trade. Twentieth-century excavations have shown that the level of Jericho at the end of the fifteenth century had a retaining wall 12 to 15 feet high topped by a mud-brick wall an additional 20 to 26 feet in height and 6 feet thick. Outside the retaining wall was a second wall of mud bricks. Rahab lived between the walls in what has been regarded as the poorer quarters of the city, which numbered perhaps 1,200 within the 6 acres enclosed by the interior walls. An earlier level of excavation shows the city had been destroyed by Egyptians perhaps 150 years earlier, and it is probable the walls of Joshua’s time were built using the earlier walls as a foundation. The spring gave the city a ready water supply and food was plentiful. Supplies were not a problem, but the condition of the walls might have been.
Joshua’s orders to his soldiers were to do nothing more than walk to the city, then around the walls, then back to the river. This was to be done for six days, with no sound to come from the marchers. By marching and not attacking, or even threatening the city, this probably lulled the defenders. “For six days the entire Israelite host solemnly filed around the walls of Jericho in full array. And for six days the good burghers of Jericho sprang to their weapons and manned the ramparts, at first in uneasy expectancy, afraid both of the marching columns and the possible magic involved in this procession headed by the priests and the Ark of the Covenant. But after the first terror and anxiety had subsided, the people of Jericho grew accustomed to the strange performance and relaxed” (Herzog and Gichon, Battles of the Bible, p. 48).
A change in pattern on the seventh day, however, should have alerted the defenders. The silent marchers appeared as before, but this time marched around the city seven times. This completed, they turned toward the walls and the priests leading the column each blew a ram’s horn and the multitude shouted. At this, the walls fell (another well-timed earthquake?). According to the King James Version of the Bible, the “walls fell flat.” In his 1990 work on Jericho, Bryant Wood remarked that the better translation from the Hebrew would be “fell beneath itself,” in other words, collapsed. Such an occurrence would have given an easy slope up the earthen embankment between the inner and outer city walls, allowing the Hebrews to proceed “up into the city, every man straight before him” (Joshua 6:20). No description is given of resistance, only of results. “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21).
Results After looting the city of its gold, silver, and brass, the Hebrews burned it. Joshua pronounced a curse on the site, predicting the death of the firstborn of whoever would rebuild a city there. The fulfillment of that prophecy came in the time of Israel’s King Ahab, more than 500 years later, when reconstruction took place under the direction of Hiel of nearby Bethel. Only Rahab and her family survived the onslaught, as previously promised. Excavations carried out by an Italian team in 1996 found that a section of the north wall did not fall as did the rest of the city walls; perhaps that was where Rahab lived.
With Jericho in hand, the Hebrews were positioned to fan out into the remainder of Canaan. Although the biblical account describes a long series of battles and victories, most scholars seem to think that the remainder of the occupation was probably more in the nature of a migration than a conquest. That view seems to be supported when later accounts of the experiences of the Hebrews describe their falling in with local customs and religions rather than conquering and slaughtering the population as the biblical book of Joshua describes. Joshua divided the lands among the twelve tribes of Israel and for a time they remained a united people. After the reigns of David and Solomon, however, they divided into two nations, Israel and Judah. That division laid the groundwork for future conquests by other powers, including Assyria, Babylon, and Rome. The conquest of Jericho, however, gave the Hebrew practitioners of the Jewish faith a homeland that they claim to this day, although the fighting for the land continues.
References:
John Garstang, “Jericho and the Biblical Story,” in Wonders of the Past, ed. J. A. Hammerton (New York: Wise, 1937); Chaim Herzog, and Mordechai Gichon, Battles of the Bible (London: Greenhill, 1997); Kathleen Kenyon, Digging up Jericho (London: Ernest Benn, 1957); Bryant Wood, “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” Biblical Archaeology Review 16, no. 2, March–April 1990, pp. 44–58.
