Joshua 6:15,16 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

Probably this was the Lord's day; one of the seven clays must have been so; and as this was the glorious day of victory, it is more than probable that this might have been the very day. No doubt the whole process, both in the preceding six days, and now, seven times going round the walls on the seventh was intended for the exercise of the people ' s faith. And hence the Apostle next to the arm of Jesus, ascribes all the victory to this glorious principle, when he tells us, that it was by faith the walls fell down. Hebrews 11:30. But I beg the Reader to remark with me, to what an exalted degree of faith, must the mind of Joshua have been carried, when, before a single stone fell, and exactly at finishing the seventh time of compassing the walls, he commanded the people, to shout. Dearest Jesus! what cannot a lively active faith in thy precious salvation, and the assurance of being interested in it, do? Had not Balaam this victory in contemplation, when he was constrained before the son of Zippor, to testify that the Lord his God was with Israel, and the shout of a king in his camp. Numbers 23:21. And was not this shout, when commanded by the Lord, like the triumphs of faith answering to the promise of God, by the words of his ministers, as did the trumpets of the priests? I cannot dismiss this view of the subject without detaining the Reader just to observe, that an ancient writer upon the passage, hath very properly remarked, that as God's people compass the walls of their enemies round about by faith, during the six days of their pilgrimage, and though they sometimes go heavily on, from the body of sin and death they carry about with them, none of the enemies' entrenchments all the while seeming to give way; yet on the seventh day of salvation, when their God and Saviour shalt descend from heaven, with a shout and the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the whole of Satan ' s kingdom shall then fall at once before our Jesus; and his people shall go up and enter in, to the everlasting possession of their Canaan! But, Reader, remember, that in all this there is nothing of human strength or human foresight. Every event in the circumstances of God's people joins issue, with that voice, not by might tear by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. Zechariah 4:6.