Joshua and the Battle of Jericho: When Obedience Is the Strategy

March in silence. Blow your trumpets. Shout. That was the battle plan for one of the most fortified cities in the ancient world. It made no military sense. It worked perfectly.

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THE HOOK

Has God ever given you an instruction that made no strategic sense — that looked foolish to everyone watching — but turned out to be exactly right?

Jericho was the first city standing between Israel and the Promised Land. Its walls were so wide that houses were built on top of them. It was bolted shut — no one going out, no one coming in. By every military calculation, it was impenetrable.

God’s strategy: walk around it. In silence. For six days. On the seventh day, walk around it seven times, blow the trumpets, and shout.

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THE SETTING

After forty years in the wilderness, Moses had died and Joshua — his faithful lieutenant — had been appointed leader. God made him a promise: every place your foot treads will be yours. Be strong and courageous. The LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

The Jordan River was in flood stage. God parted it — just as He had parted the Red Sea for Moses — and Israel crossed on dry ground. Jericho now lay before them. The new generation had to learn what their parents had refused to believe: God is true to His word.

THE STORY

The Commander’s Instruction

The night before the march, Joshua encountered a man standing with a drawn sword. He challenged him: Whose side are you on? The man answered: Neither. I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Joshua fell facedown in reverence. The commander gave him the battle plan.

It was unconventional by any standard: armed guards, seven priests carrying trumpets made of rams’ horns before the ark of the covenant, the ark itself, and a rear guard — all marching in silence around the city once each day for six days.

Six Days of Silence

For six days, Israel marched. The instructions were strict: no battle cry, no shouting, no word from anyone’s mouth until Joshua gave the command. The walls of Jericho stood. The people inside watched, presumably wondering what this silent march meant.

There is a discipline in this that should not be missed: six days of obedience with no visible result. Six days of looking strange to your enemy. Six days of trusting the plan without seeing the outcome. Faith is always tested by time.

The Seventh Day

On the seventh day, they rose at dawn and marched around the city seven times. On the seventh circuit, the priests blew their trumpets. Joshua commanded the people: Shout! For the LORD has given you the city.

They shouted. And the wall collapsed — completely, outwardly, on every side. Israel charged straight in. The city was taken. One instruction obeyed completely produced what no battering ram could have achieved.

THE LESSON

When the Strategy Is Obedience

The walls of Jericho did not fall because Israel developed a superior siege strategy. They fell because God gave the plan and Israel obeyed it completely — without shortcutting the six silent days, without improvising on day three, without giving up because nothing visible was happening.

There is a Jericho in most of our lives — a situation that has stood immovable, a wall that human strategy cannot breach. The question is not whether God has a plan. The question is whether we are willing to follow a plan that looks foolish from the outside and requires patience without visible results.

Notice Rahab — the woman in Jericho who had hidden the Israelite spies and hung a scarlet cord from her window as instructed. When the walls fell, her house alone stood. The cord of obedient faith holds what the walls of Jericho could not.

Scripture reference: Joshua 2, 6 (NIV)

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