When I ask folks, “who was Joshua in the Bible?” if they’re not regular Biblical students, the most likely answer is to quote the chorus of the spiritual, “Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho.”
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
Jericho, Jericho;
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
And the walls came tumbling down.
The music to this song is very powerful, and matches the lyrics beautifully; as a song seeking hope and freedom, it is a great aid to that imperative in the first chapter of Joshua, be strong and very courageous (Joshua 1:6). Because we know the song, it can be surprising that the Battle of Jericho occurs in chapter six and only in chapter six. Even more surprising to many first-time readers is just how ritualized that battle is. It is as much a ritual act as any of the previous three chapters witnessed, but this one brings together a story of destruction with the story of creation story Genesis, chapter one (the days).
Seven times Joshua and the Israelites encircle the city, led by the priests blowing the seven ram’s horns and bearing the ark with the tablets of the law. We are witnessing and remembering a boundary claiming ritual, not unlike the ritual of surveying or of separating sacred from profane space. The people must maintain silence until the seventh round is completed.
Now imagine being inside the city of Jericho’s walls. We know from Rahab’s testimony that the inhabitants are already terrified. Imagine how frightening it would be to have a silent army marching around your city; not once or twice, but silent seven rounds, only blowing the shofar. The immense discipline required of that army to assemble every day and march around the city once is itself intimidating. By the end of a week, it would take amazing strength and courage not to be terrified into submission.
We might ask, “why seven rounds and not twelve for the peoples of Israel or ten for the laws of the covenant?” The number seven is one of the great sacred numbers and we see multiples of seven regularly as divisions of sacred time throughout the Bible. When we see sevens, we want to remember the story that begins this library, the seven days of creation of order from chaos, and the charge to make meaning to humanity.
The Israelites marching in silence with only the sounds of the shofar are undoing the the seven days of creation, one by one:
- the day of rest and appreciation of what is good
- the creation of the wild animals and the domestic ones; the making of humanity and charging us with stewardship
- the creation of the birds of the air and the creatures of the water
- the creation of the moon and stars and of the sun
- the creation of green plants and fruits of every kind
- the separation of waters from dry land
- the separation of day from night
And then we return to chaos, and the walls fall around the city of Jericho. Only on the seventh day of the Battle of Jericho, the Israelites march seven times around the city and shout out and charge into and capture the city.
Then the fears of the people of Jericho come true and blood runs in the streets. Chaos indeed.
When you have a covenant, it takes a great act to create it and to unbind it without breaking it. Killing, coveting, and idolatry are all forbidden by the covenant that the Israelites just reconsecrated themselves to keeping (Joshua 5). Ritually, therefore, something is required to set apart this time and place as different. The truth chaos has to teach us is that from destruction, creation, just as death and decomposition are required to support life. But we live in covenants and with laws and in careful structures and stories because continual chaos does not allow much to actually bear fruit, let alone multiply. Our covenants and our societies require ways of releasing wealth and power and privilege and allowing others to access them, or we end up with haves and have-nots, and a set up for war and chaos.
When we are displaced or without place, when we do not belong with a people or to a place, when we are not accepted into society, our lives are threatened. We can have little physical sense of security without strong armaments and constant vigilance. To be outcast or left on the margins of society is, in some sense, to be separated from the order of creation and left in chaos. This is most evident in times of war, with displaced persons, but seek the overpasses and boarded buildings in America and you will find plenty of people who are displaced. Ask around and you’ll find even more people live in fear of displacement and dispossession: losing homes, jobs, family, friends, respect. It is a hard process and often results in spiritual loss and destruction as well.
The song, “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” joined the pantheon of other anthems and spirituals that held together the spirit of slaves in the U.S., of people dispossessed of their legal humanity. Why? We need to be strong and very courageous to survive such iniquity. We need to be strong and very courageous to thrive in the face of the continual degradation of our very humanity. We need to hold firm to a sense of a better day coming, to practice the discipline necessary to not just survive, but to thrive. And for that to happen, human laws and institutions had to fall, and even in the non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement, blood was spilled, sacrifices made, endured, witnessed.
In this time with increased dispossession and threat to belonging and place in American society, what must we as a society do to create a place for all, a place with dignity and freedom, equity and compassion? In this time with so much fear, and so many people and places experiencing destruction – foreclosures, abandonment, unemployment, immigration raids, domestic violence, hunger, addiction, disease, theft, and usury – how do we gather together our strength and courage, and reweave creation, restoring the seven days that we have so carelessly as a society undone?
