Joshua 6:26 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Joshua adjured them at that time Hebrew, ישׁבע, jashbang, he made them to swear. As soon as the city was destroyed, it seems, he convened the heads of the tribes, to signify to them that it was the will of God this idolatrous city should never be rebuilt, and then engaged them to take an oath that they would leave it in ruins. And they doubtless bound the people in like manner not to rebuild it, on pain of the divine malediction. Cursed be the man before the Lord That is, from God's presence, and by his sentence, as Joshua is said (Joshua 18:8; Jos 18:10) to cast lots before the Lord, expecting the decision from God. He intimates that he does not utter this of himself, or in consequence of any particular dislike of that place; but from Jehovah, and by divine inspiration. God would have the ruins of this city remain as a standing monument of his justice against this wicked and idolatrous people, and of his almighty power in destroying so great and strong a city by such contemptible means. Thus Maimonides, the Jewish rabbi: “Joshua pronounced a curse against those who should build up Jericho, that the remembrance of the miracle which God had wrought by destroying it might never be effaced; for all who looked on these ruins, thus sunk into the earth,” (he thought the walls were swallowed up rather than overthrown,) “clearly saw them to be the ruins of a city destroyed by a miracle, and not by the hand of men.” Cursed be the man that buildeth this city That is, that shall attempt to build it. So this curse was restrained to the builder, but no way belonged to those who should inhabit it after it was built, as is evident from 2 Kings 2:18; Luke 19:5. In his youngest son That is, he shall lose all his children in the work, the first at the beginning, others in the progress of it, and the youngest in the close, when the gates were wont to be set up. This was exactly fulfilled, as we read, (1 Kings 16:34,) Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, who died in the beginning of the work, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, who died when it was finished, and the gates were setting up.