CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 6:26. Cursed be the man … that buildeth this city Jericho. It is exceedingly difficult to accept the generally received view, and to believe that this curse relates merely to the rebuilding of the city walls, and to the restoration of the fortifications.
(1.) The old city seems to have been burnt, and utterly destroyed (Joshua 6:24).
(2.) A new city of some extent appears to have been built within the next seven, or at latest, within the next twenty-five years (Joshua 6:21; Judges 1:16). Within the next century, Jericho became of sufficient importance for Eglon to make war against Israel by attacking it, and the fall of the city was accepted as the defeat of the Hebrew nation (Judges 3:13-14). It is therefore fair to suppose that even within the first quarter of a century after its overthrow by Joshua, Jericho began to assume considerable importance.
(3.) This new city would perhaps have been even more easily built on a new site than on the old site. It is not likely that it would be wholly rebuilt on any site during the earlier years of the war: a few houses on a new site would be accessible, whereas a few houses on the old site would be almost unapproachable. In any case, there is no improbability in supposing a new site not far removed from the former city.
(4.) It is quite natural to suppose that a new city on an adjacent site would take the old names.
(5.) If Jericho were rebuilt in the time of Joshua, or within a few years of his death, it is almost impossible to believe that the people of those days would build on the old site. (a) Joshua’s curse was no caprice of his own; he was bound to pronounce it by the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 13:16-17). (b) The curse on a devoted city was irrespective of whether it had any fortifications or not; the city itself was to “be a heap for ever.” (c) Though the law was ignored during the wicked times of the Judges, Joshua and the people of his day were too pious and too loyal to God to have set at defiance a law which Joshua had reiterated himself, and in the awful solemnity of which that generation had received such long and terrible instruction.
(6.) Finally, though city gates probably suppose walls, Hiel’s children are said to have been slain, not because of fortifying an old city by re-erecting the walls, but because he did “build Jericho.” Both the curse and its fulfilment are said to have regard to building the city, and not merely the walls of the city.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 6:26-27
THE RUINS OF JERICHO
Reasons have already been given for the conclusion that Joshua’s curse was pronounced against the man who should rebuild the city of Jericho on its original site, rather than against him who should re-enclose any newly built city with a wall. The very nature and object of the curse (cf. Deuteronomy 13:16) are so entirely lost sight of by the latter conjecture, that this alone seems sufficient to render the opinion untenable. The place could not be called “a heap for ever,” and thus stand as a memorial of Divine reprobation, merely because it lacked a wall. Strabo’s allusion to similar curses pronounced in connection with the rebuilding of Carthage, Troy, and Sidene, is well known. In the case of Jericho, the curse was doubtless intended to keep the memorial of desolation before the eyes of coming generations. The ruins of the city would go on speaking vividly for ages, while a new city on the old site would obliterate the traces, and thus also the memory of this judgment of God.
I. The ruined city a permanent memorial of God’s hatred of idolatry. There would be “sermons in stones,” which the Israelites could hardly fail to read. God made the vision of His anger so plain upon the tables of these dismantled walls, that he who read might well run from the desolating influences and issues of idolatry.
II. The ruined city a lasting monument of miraculous help from heaven. The Israelites would have other conflicts, in the future. Their future soldiers might come and see these walls as God had left them, and thus learn, that no enemies were strong enough, and no fortifications sufficiently solid, to resist the people whose helper was the Lord. The ruins would themselves take up the Divine word to Joshua, and continually preach, “Be strong and of a good courage.”
III. The ruined city a constant appeal to Israel not to trust in an arm of flesh. Jericho was a stronghold of the land, and a key to its possession. The old inhabitants could not stand with the fortress. The Israelites, with the Lord on their side, could take the city without lifting a single weapon against its walls. God meant His children to learn here how to sing, in all future emergencies, the song of after years, “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” The generations to come were to see that they were never to trust in their own strength, and never to doubt the sufficient power of the Lord.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 6:26. THE FAITHFUL WORD.
About five hundred and thirty years after this curse was pronounced, a Bethelite named Hiel rebuilt this city, and suffered the exact penalty here predicted. It cannot be doubted that Hiel knew of Joshua’s curse, knew that the city had been made cherem, and that, according to the law of Moses, it was to remain a heap for ever. Hiel would probably be as well acquainted with the curse as the writer of the history in the book of Kings. The very tone and manner in which the transgression is mentioned, seem also to indicate that this Bethelite knew that he was doing that which was forbidden. This record in Joshua, taken in connection with 1 Kings 16:34, suggests the following thoughts:—
I. The easy path to unbelief of God. The law itself might have assured Hiel that the curse was no mere utterance of Joshua’s vindictive or excited feelings, but the mind and will of Jehovah. Assuming that the man knew of the curse, it is impossible to think that he believed it would come true. No father would have thus recklessly sacrificed his children. It is interesting, and should be instructive, to place ourselves mentally in the position of this Bethelite, and endeavour to ascertain by what process of reasoning he might be led to conclude that the curse would not take effect.
1. Hiel might have thought that time had rendered the curse null and void. Nearly five centuries and a half had rolled away since the fall of the ancient city; and it would be easy to hope, and presently get to feel, that the curse must have lost all its vitality during that long period. It is not difficult for men to persuade themselves that the threatenings of the Bible are very old, and to treat them as correspondingly weak. Men read of sin’s penalty on Eli, on David, on Gehazi, on Ananias and Sapphira, and see that sin was punished; and they are told that God still is angry with the wicked. Then they remember that the Scriptures are not merely five hundred, but some eighteen hundred, years old; and forthwith they persuade themselves that time must have rusted away the edge from the sword of Divine threatenings. So Hiel might have thought, but, for all that, Abiram dies, and Segub also. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
2. Hiel might have reasoned, It is unlike the mercy of God to deal with me thus severely, even if this be a trespass. Think of this man as sitting down to study the character of God: he would find mercy in Egypt, mercy in the wilderness, and mercy in the after-history of Canaan; and might presently conclude, It is altogether unlike God to punish my innocent children, even though my act might be guilty in His sight. Nevertheless, this man’s children died. Life is everywhere vicarious, and God seems to have chosen this way to teach very emphatically that no man can sin without doing wrong to his fellows, and especially to his own children. Meanwhile we are left to see that our reasoning on Divine mercy never alters facts.
3. Hiel might have said, I can see no reason for this strange command. He might have thought it of little consequence in heaven whether he should build on a hundred acres lying towards his right hand, or on a hundred other acres lying on his left. It is not enough that we can call God’s commandments strange: this is no sufficient reason for disobedience, or for unbelief. The ordinances of the Old and New Testaments may not be after the pattern of human fancy; they were given, nevertheless, for faithful observance. The cross is strange, and salvation through faith not less so, but if God be gracious enough to save us, it ill becomes us to cavil at the method.
4. Hiel might have persuaded himself, This curse, after all, may be merely a tradition; or it may be the curse of Joshua, and not the utterance of God. Hiel ought to have known the law of Moses; but probably the neglect of God, common at this period, was accompanied by neglect of God’s word. The man, if he much wished to build the city, might not find it difficult to treat the reported history as a tradition, or to consider the curse as the outcome of Joshua’s excitement in the hour of victory. Men may treat the Scriptures as uninspired, calling this Gospel the book of a man named John, and another a history by a Jew named Mat hew, and the Epistles so many different letters by various writers; but when men have succeeded in taking all thoughts of Divine inspiration out of their creed, the inspiration of the Scriptures remains exactly as it was before. The promises are as precious as ever, and the threatenings as terrible.
5. Most likely, however, Hiel built Jericho without troubling himself to think upon the curse with any earnest consideration whatever. While he probably knew of the history, and had most likely heard of the curse, and possibly loved his children, he might proceed in a sort of careless hope that no harm would follow. More men are lost by careless unbelief than by deliberate disbelief. Where intelligent and honest scepticism slays its tens, carelessness destroys its millions.
II. The absolute and unfailing truthfulness of God’s words. Not one jot or tittle of this curse passed away. Abiram and Segub both died, the one at the laying of the foundation, the other at the setting up of the gates of the city. History shews an unbroken fulfilment of the Scriptures. It cannot be denied that much learning and enmity have for many years been arrayed against the Bible: it is something to say that no serious attempt has ever been made by infidels to prove it guilty of broken promises.
III. The bad influences of unholy associations. It was in the days of Ahab that Hiel built Jericho, and the man himself was a Bethelite, In the city where Jeroboam had set up his calf, making the place a metropolis of idolatry; and during the reign of Ahab, “who did more to provoke the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him;” there and then did Hiel build Jericho. This single sentence of history is one of God’s many and everlasting monuments, erected in solemn protest against our association with wicked men; and from north, south, cast, and west there looks out from the grim column this inscription, “Stand not in the way of sinners.”
IV. The power of unbelief, when it is once seriously entertained. When Abiram died, it might have been thought that Hiel would have desisted; the curse was seen to be effective: yet this miserable man appears to have gone on building, losing, as some think, other children while the work was proceeding, and seeing his youngest child expire when he had set up the gates of the city. What must have been his feelings while disobedience and death were thus working together? We do not know; this we know, the early death, or deaths, did not prevent the continuation of the work. It is hard to win men from carelessness; it is still harder to rescue them from cultivated unbelief.
“The imprecation upon Jericho;
(1) a well-deserved sentence; hence
(2) fulfilled as a prophetic word, when Hiel again built the city.
“Rather bless than curse, because we are Christians. Men not to be cursed, but only sin.” [Lange.]
The curse on Jericho, though fulfilled on Hiel and his children, seems to have been absolutely and definitely removed in the time of Elisha, and by that prophet, about twenty-two years after the city was rebuilt (cf. 2 Kings 2:19-22). The school of the prophets at Jericho (cf. 2 Kings 2:5) may not have been in the Jericho that Hiel built, but in the city which we have supposed to have been built on an adjacent site, and assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21). If this were so, there was no recognition by God, or by godly men, of the city which Hiel built on the original site, until after the curse was removed by Divine direction. After the curse was thus removed, the city became again famous, and was conspicuous as the scene of several of our Lord’s miraculous works. Taken in this light, the history suggests the following important subject:—
THE CURSE OF SIN AND ITS DIVINE REMOVAL
I. The occasion of sin’s curse.
1. The curse of sin ever comes by man. It is not arbitrary. God does not pronounce it on men because He has any pleasure in human pain and death. He swears by His own existence that this is not the case: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” So far from that, the Scriptures represent God as “grieved” on account of human sin and woe. Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, weeps at the grave of Lazarus, and over the coming desolation of Jerusalem. As we have been told, God is
“Not in blessedness supernal,
Sitting easy on a throne,
Dealing sorrow out to others,
With no sorrow of His own.”
Rather let us remember that “In all our afflictions He is afflicted.”
2. The curse of sin is only pronounced after plain warnings. It was so in Eden: God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” before He spake the curse which followed the fall. It was so with these Canaanites, who had been warned solemnly and often.
3. The curse of sin is, after all, full of mercy. Sin could have no severer curse than to remain uncursed. Not only of necessity, but also of love, “sin worketh death.” Death is within sin, as fruit is within the plant: that being so, Divine Love itself could do nothing more gentle, and nothing more kind, than to threaten punishment, and sometimes to inflict it from without.
II. The fulfilment of sin’s curse (cf. 1 Kings 16:34). This fulfilment is:
1. Sometimes long delayed. Hiel’s punishment was five hundred and thirty years after Joshua’s execration.
2. Exceeding bitter. Hiel’s punishment seems more painful than if he had himself died.
3. Falls on men not only directly, but representatively. This, in the case of Hiel’s children, was only symbolical of the usual and essential consequence of sin: “By one man sin entered into the world, and so death passed upon all men.” If the children of this Bethelite died in infancy, we who believe that the infants of both dispensations are saved, can think of no greater mercy to them. The chastisement is on the father, who wronged himself, and, in an earthly sense, wronged them also; while the children are taken from the evil to come to a Father who wipes all tears from the eyes of all who dwell with Him.
4. Faithful to the Divine word. Hiel’s punishment tells how not one jot or one tittle of what God says passes away until all is fulfilled.
III. The removal of sin’s curse (cf. 2 Kings 2:19-22). The people who lived in the city which Hiel rebuilt seem to have suffered severely till God annulled the curse through Elisha. When God removes the curse of sin, He makes it as though no curse had ever been. He takes it away entirely. He forgets that it has ever been: “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” The Saviour throughout His ministry treats this city as though it had never known the curse. Here Jesus healed blind Bartimæus and his fellow-sufferer; there Zacchæus was told of Him who had come to seek and to save that which was lost, and heard his Lord say to him personally, “This day is salvation come to thine house.” Not least, it was on an incident occurring on the way down to Jericho that our Lord founded the parable of the Good Samaritan. Thus graciously does God take away the curse of sin, and enable His servants to say, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Although quite unsuitable for homiletical purposes, the reader is referred to the article on “Barrenness” in Calmet’s Dictionary, for an exposition of the passage in 2 Kings 2:19-22; and also to the remarks of Josephus, Wars, iv. 8. 3. It will be noticed that Josephus plainly distinguishes between “the old city, which Joshua took the first of all the cities of the land,” and an adjacent Jericho, thus supporting the remarks previously made on this verse.
Joshua 6:27. When the Lord is with His servants,
(1) Their methods of service will appear singular to the world (Joshua 6:9-16);
(2) Their triumphs will be manifest, notwithstanding all obstacles (Joshua 6:20);
(3) Their obedience will be complete, even where difficult (Joshua 6:21);
(4) Their mercy and integrity will be conspicuous in the midst of indignation (Joshua 6:22-23);
(5) Their consecration will be thorough in the presence of temptation (Joshua 6:22);
(6) Their fame will eventually be as apparent as their faithfulness (Joshua 6:27). They will say with Paul, “Thanks be to God who leads me on from place to place in the train of His triumph, to celebrate the victory over the enemies of Christ; and by me sends forth the knowledge of Him, a steam of fragrant incense throughout the world. For Christ’s is the fragrance which I offer up to God, whether among those in the way of salvation (as with Rahab), or among those in the way of perdition (as with the Canaanites); but to these it is an odour of death, to those of life.” [Conybeare’s Paraphrase, 2 Corinthians 2:14-16.]