what was the town Jericho in the bible about?

Answer 1

The story is found in the book of Joshua, beginning with Chapter 2.

Joshua, the leader of the Israelites instructs a couple of spies to survey the land they are heading into, specifically instructing them to scout out the town of Jericho. They went there and found shelter in the house of a prostitute named Rahab.

The king of Jericho, however, found out that there were a couple of spies in town and ordered the men found. Rahab hid her house guests and told the king's men that the spies had been at her house, but them they had fled right before the city gates were closed at dusk. She then helped the Israelite spies escape and they promised to save her and her family when the city fell into their hands. She was to put a scarlet cord out her window on the day of the attack and they would spare anyone at that residence.

The spies got away and made their report back to Joshua. The Lord told him that he would deliver Jericho into the Israelites hands if they marched around the city walls six days in a row with the army and seven priests blowing trumpets. On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times and at the last all the horns would blow and the people would shout and the walls would "come tumblin' down."

Joshua ordered the plan - and on the seventh day, the walls did indeed collapse and the Israelites destroyed the city and everything in it - except Rahab's family, who had gathered by the window with the scarlet cord.

Answer 2

Joshua walked around the town of Jericho before it came tumbling down.

Answer 3

This was the scene of a genocidal attack by the jews against the citizens of Jericho; the city was destroyed and all the people massacred , men, women and children.
This was part of the programme of ethnic cleansing carried out by the jews in the area that they now claim.

Answer 4

Ironically, both poohba and brainstorm have answered your question accurately.

What is the town Jericho about?

If you are a believer in the Hebrew scriptures, it represents the impenetrable city, with a wall that could not be breached, that falls to the people of God who follow the will of God. Furthermore, it represents paganism falling to Judaism, polytheism falling to monotheism, power falling before faith, the unbelievable being accepted by believers.

In modern times, for instance to African Americans, the walls that "came tumblin' down" came to represent the walls of slavery, discrimination, alienation, lack of freedom. Singing this spiritual was not unlike Joshua who "fit the battle of Jericho," for his forces blew their trumpets and the walls fell. His God rewarded faith, perseverance (marching seven times around the walls), and believers' assertiveness.

And, by the way, Rahab (who saved the spies and in turn was saved when the walls of Jericho fell) was a prostitute of Jericho. She is also one of only three or four women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew as one of the ancestors of Jesus, and in Hebrews (11.31) as a person of faith and James (2.25) as a person of good works.

So Rahab of Jericho becomes a representative of the unrighteous accepted as righteous, the commoner become noble, the outsider welcomed into the inner circle, faith over the Law, fallen humanity redeemed through God's grace.

Those are some of the metaphorical meanings of Jericho.

But if one reads it historically, it obviously is imperialistic invasion of one nation by the encroaching forces of another, the latter claiming they are doing the will of their god. In other words, the fall of Jericho is a prime example of jihad in the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Bible. Iraqis and other Middle Easterners see the US invasion and occupation of Baghdad as another such Jericho, not to mention the Israeli revolution overturning and exiling the Palestinians or bombing of Lebanon.

I think we'd better pay more attention to the metaphorical meanings in this day and age. The impenetrable walls of Jericho are the continuing, apparently unsolvable problems in the Middle East, the enmity, the hatred, the agression, the insurgency, the implacability.

What can we do to bring those walls down? Instead of dropping more bombs and killing more innocent civilians, we'd better find a way to blow Joshua's trumpet and sing spiritual songs, to make the music of negotiation, compromise, imaginative visions, respect for others, even empathy the basis of our mediation, NOT wars and rumors of wars.

War hasn't worked. Invasion and imperialism haven't worked. As strange as it may sound (like God's choosing Rahab), maybe we need to try faith, perseverance, and a peacemaker's assertiveness.

Remember Jimmy Carter? I suspect history will remember the Camp David Accord as a far more glorious feat that the ill-timed, ill-planned, "preemptive," "unilateral" invasion and ineffective occupation of Iraq.

That's one Christian's reading of what Jericho is (or should be) all about.

Let Rahab reign!

Answer 5

There's a song about this, right?
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, JERICHO, da da da, da da da, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down, down down to the ground to get out of the rain, boom boom boom...Oh, wait. I think I got that mixed up with a song about ants.

Try here:
http://msssbible.com/oldtestament/jericho.htm