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

Of rams' horns Of the basest matter and the dullest sound, that the excellence of the power might be of God. The original words, however, here and Joshua 6:4, שׁופרות יובלום, shoperoth jobelim, may be properly rendered, trumpets of jubilee; that is, such trumpets as were to be blown in the year of jubilee. And many prefer this translation, alleging that, as the horns of rams are not hollow, trumpets cannot be made of them, even when bored, capable of giving any thing of a strong sound. They would, therefore, understand the words here as signifying trumpets made in the shape of rams' horns. But others have urged that there is no difficulty in making such an instrument of a ram's horn as may give a pretty strong sound: “it being certain that the inside of these horns is no ways hard, and may easily be taken out, excepting a space at the point of about four or five inches, part of which is sawed off, in order to proportionate the aperture to the mouth; after which, the rest is easily pierced. And we can assure our readers,” say the authors of the Universal History, “that we have seen some of these trumpets, thus made, used by the shepherds in the southern parts of Germany.”