March 12, 2021 Bible Study The Mystery Of The Battle Of Jericho

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 5-7.

The beginning of this passage describes an event which I have trouble understanding: Joshua had all of the men who had been born since the Israelites left Egypt circumcised because none of them had been circumcised while the Israelites were in the wilderness.  When I first read and comprehended this I went “Huh, what?” I still do not understand what to make of that.

Then we come to the story of the Battle of Jericho.  I was hoping that having spotted in the story of Rahab and the spies that there was something more than we normally talk about in that story that I would see something today that completed the thought.  Unfortunately, I did not.  Actually, that is not quite true.  The account tells us that the wall of Jericho collapsed so that the Israelite army could just rush straight in from wherever they were.  BUT, we were also told that Rahab’s house was part of the wall of Jericho.  And Rahab and her family were sheltering in her house, along with possibly others, the passage tells us that the spies went in and brought Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters, and everyone who belonged to her (we don’t really know what was meant by “everyone who belonged to her”).  Yet, I still do not have a clear understanding of what happened here.  I think there is another clue in what happened with Achan keeping some of the plunder for himself.  Not enough that we can really figure it out, but a clue nonetheless.  There is really some other important lessons to be taken from these stories, but this mystery caught my attention.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.