The Berean Table

Joshua 6 Summary — The Walls of Jericho Fall and Rahab Is Spared

Companion: Deep Study

A condensed companion to the full study. For each section of the expanded outline: key insights, applications, and the application questions for discussion.

Section 1 — The Shut City and the LORD’s Strange Command (Joshua 6:1–5)

Key Insights

  • Jericho barred its gates against Israel, trusting its walls even after hearing what the LORD did at the Red Sea and the Jordan (5:1).
  • The LORD announced the victory before the battle: “See, I have given Jericho into your hand” (6:2).
  • The Hebrew perfect, I have given, treats the outcome as already settled in God’s purpose.
  • God’s plan of marching, horns and a shout looked like child’s play (Calvin), so that Israel would lean on His word alone.
  • Christ, the Captain of the LORD’s host, wins the battle first and calls His people to walk by faith in His finished victory (Colossians 2:15).

Applications

  • Measure every wall in your life against God’s promise, not against your own strength.
  • Obey God’s commanded way even when it looks foolish or slow, rather than substituting a strategy of your own.
  • Do not turn Jericho into a technique, since the church’s appointed weapons are the word, sacraments and prayer (2 Corinthians 10:4).

Application Questions

  1. What wall in my life am I treating as stronger than God’s promise, and what has He actually said about it?
  2. When God’s commanded way looks foolish or slow to me, do I obey it or quietly substitute my own strategy?

Section 2 — The Ark Circles the City in Silence (Joshua 6:6–14)

Key Insights

  • The whole procession was arranged around the ark, the throne of the invisible King.
  • The narrator says the priests went on before the LORD, because the ark signified His presence among His people (6:8).
  • The priests blew humble rams’ horns rather than silver trumpets, so that the power would plainly be God’s.
  • The people marched in silence, echoing the word that “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exodus 14:14).
  • The ark and its mercy seat point to Christ, God’s presence with us and the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25).

Applications

  • Keep faithfully to the daily, ordinary means of grace even when their fruit is unseen.
  • Put Christ at the center of your plans, your week and your hopes.
  • Speak and act at God’s word, not at your own impulse, without mistaking this for silence about the gospel.

Application Questions

  1. Have I grown weary of the ordinary, repeated obedience God asks of me because I cannot see what it accomplishes?
  2. Is the presence of Christ truly at the center of my life, or have I arranged my plans around something else and invited Him to follow?

Section 3 — The Seventh Day and the Ban Declared (Joshua 6:15–19)

Key Insights

  • The number seven runs through the chapter, marking this as God’s completed work.
  • Joshua’s command was a confession of faith: “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city” (6:16).
  • Jericho was devoted (cherem) wholly to the LORD as the firstfruits of the land, its metals made holy for His treasury.
  • The warning against taking devoted things foreshadows Achan, whose sin would trouble the whole camp (7:1).
  • In one breath Joshua declared both judgment and mercy, a pattern fulfilled when Christ became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

Applications

  • Give God the first and best, confessing that everything you have is His gift.
  • Renounce, rather than manage, what God has claimed or forbidden in your life.
  • Remember that private sin affects the whole body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:26).

Application Questions

  1. Is there anything God has clearly claimed in my life that I am quietly keeping back for myself?
  2. Do I believe that my private obedience or disobedience affects the church around me?

Section 4 — The Wall Falls and the City Is Devoted (Joshua 6:20–21)

Key Insights

  • The wall fell down flat exactly as the LORD had promised in 6:5.
  • The people are praised for obedience and God for His faithfulness (Calvin).
  • The walls fell by faith, the instrument God honored with His power (Hebrews 11:30).
  • The ban on Jericho’s people was a judicial sentence from the Judge of all the earth, after long patience, applied to Israel too, and open to faith, as Rahab proves.
  • Jericho’s trumpet and sudden fall preview Christ’s return in judgment with the sound of the trumpet of God (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

Applications

  • Trust God’s promises and fear His warnings with equal seriousness.
  • Speak to unbelievers with humble urgency, since we too deserved judgment and the door of refuge is still open.
  • Never use this chapter to justify violence in Christ’s name, for the church’s only sword is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).

Application Questions

  1. Does the exactness with which God kept His word at Jericho strengthen my trust in His promises and my fear of His warnings?
  2. How should the reality of God’s judgment at Jericho shape the way I think and speak about my unbelieving neighbors?

Section 5 — Rahab and Her Household Are Saved (Joshua 6:22–25)

Key Insights

  • Joshua kept the oath sworn to Rahab, sending the two spies she had saved to save her (6:22).
  • Calvin traces her rescue to the special grace of God, not to any merit of her own.
  • Her whole household was spared because they had gathered under the scarlet cord (2:18).
  • She moved from outside the camp to dwelling in Israel, a picture of conversion and incorporation.
  • Rahab the prostitute became an ancestor of Jesus Christ, who later brought salvation to a house in Jericho (Matthew 1:5).

Applications

  • Believe that no one’s past, including your own, is beyond the reach of Christ’s grace.
  • Let your faith reach out to bring your household and friends under the shelter of Christ.
  • Welcome converts fully into the church, without keeping them at the edges.

Application Questions

  1. Do I truly believe that no one’s past places them beyond the reach of God’s grace, including my own?
  2. Am I seeking to bring the people nearest to me under the shelter of Christ, as Rahab gathered her family into the marked house?

Section 6 — The Curse on Jericho and the LORD with Joshua (Joshua 6:26–27)

Key Insights

  • Joshua laid a solemn curse on anyone who would rebuild Jericho’s fortifications (6:26).
  • The ruins were to stand as a trophy of God’s power, reminding every generation how the land was won (Calvin).
  • The curse fell five centuries later on Hiel of Bethel, at the cost of his firstborn and youngest son (1 Kings 16:34).
  • Joshua’s fame was the fruit of God’s presence, fulfilling the LORD’s opening promise to be with him (6:27).
  • Christ bore the curse of the law for His people, and He promises, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Applications

  • Do not rebuild in your life what God has torn down (Galatians 2:18).
  • Keep memorials of grace, above all the Lord’s Supper, and tell your children what God has done.
  • Seek God’s presence rather than your own reputation.

Application Questions

  1. Is there anything God has torn down in my life that I am tempted to rebuild?
  2. Do I want God’s presence more than I want my own reputation?

The LORD who gave Jericho and spared Rahab has given His Son to bear the curse, so that all who shelter under His blood will stand when the last trumpet sounds.

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