Adjured - i. e. put an oath upon them; or, perhaps, actually caused them themselves to take an oath (compare Matthew 26:63). The words of the oath have in the original a rhythmical character which would tend to keep them on the lips and in the memory of the people.
Buildeth this city - i. e. rebuilds the fortifications. Jericho was at once occupied by the Benjamites. Joshua 18:21, and the natural advantages of the situation were such that it would not be likely to be left long desolate. Joshua speaks in the text as a warrior. He lays a ban on the re-erection of those lofty walls which had bidden defiance to God’s host, and been by God’s signal interposition overthrown. Hiel, the Bethelite, reckless of the prophecy recorded in our text, began and completed the circumvallation of the city a second time (see the marginal reference). Hiel did not found a new city but only fortified an existing one.
He shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born - i. e. when he begins this work his eldest son shall die, when he completes it his youngest shall die (see 1 Kings 16:34 note).
This chapter read in the light of the New Testament has indications of a further import and bearing than such as concerned Joshua and the Jews. As Joshua, the leader and captain of the Jewish theocracy, is a type of Christ, so is Jericho to be taken (with all Christian expositors) as a type of the powers opposed to Christ and His cause. The times which prepare for the close of God’s present dispensation are signified in the days during which the people obeyed and waited; as the number of those days, seven, the number of perfection, represents that “fullness of time,” known only to God, at which His dispensation will culminate and close. Thus the circumstances which lead up to the fall of Jericho are an acted prophecy, as was that fall itself, which sets forth the overthrow of all that resists the kingdom of which Christ is the head; and particularly the day of judgment, in which that overthrow will be fully and finally accomplished. Paul, in describing that day, seems to borrow his imagery from this chapter (see 1 Thessalonians 4:16).