“Now Jericho was strongly fortified because of the Israelites—no one leaving or entering. The Lord said to Joshua, “Look, I have handed Jericho, its king, and its best soldiers over to you.” Joshua 6:1–3. (CSB)
Word had spread. Forty years earlier, God had split the Red Sea and brought His people out of Egyptian bondage. Prior to Israel crossing the Jordan, they had been the victors over two Amorite kings (Joshua 2:9-11). These two accounts struck fear in the hearts of the people of Jericho. Whatever happened in the 40 year span, one thing was clear to the Jerichonians, The God of Armies that brought this people out from under the Pharaoh of Egypt is still with them as they obliterated, back-to-back, the two Amorite kings (Deuteronomy 2:32-3:7); and now 2 Israelite spies were somewhere in the city. What they didn’t know was that God had brought these two Israelite spies into the home of one of these Jerichonians; a gentile prostitute named Rahab, in whose heart He had put the fear of The LORD.
The entire city was up at arms because of the pending threat of God’s people heading their way. But the general populous of Jericho was unlike the prostitute. Where her heart knew The God of Israel is the God of heaven and earth and she submitted to His rule, the fear of the rest of the populous only served to stir up the city inhabitants to more resistance.
“Now Jericho was strongly fortified...” This was no cardboard fort. These Jerichonians didn’t merely cobble together all the scrap metal they could find in a pinch and spot-weld a barrier over the front entrance of the city. They had hunkered down. They were strongly fortified and well stocked. No one was leaving or entering that city. They had food, they had walls, and they had weapons. They were fully prepared to stand their ground. All the while, inside this city marked for destruction, there was a not-so-well respected prostitute who was staking her entire life and future well being on the word of two men. Doubtless, her profession had made her well aware of how lies flow from men’s lips as quickly as their money did from their pockets. But these two men had given her their word with The LORD as their witness. It was as if she knew just as other men are liars, but these men were not; so her gods were false but their God is true.
As God told Joshua to “Look” this is what Joshua would have seen. Impenetrable walls, all the signs of being able to withstand a siege, and a single scarlet cord hanging from a window of a house within the wall. A reminder that there is no wall of resistance that The God of heaven and earth cannot demolish. Even the walls we can’t see, the most stalwart of all resistances like the stone-heart of a pagan prostitute, He can overcome. As Joshua looked at these breach-proof walls, God continued to promise him, “I have handed Jericho, its king, and its best soldiers over to you.”
The barrier of the Red Sea could not hem them in 40 years earlier, and the walls of Jericho would not keep them out. The LORD of Armies, the Commander Himself, had directed Joshua. This is the God we serve! We can look at a hopeless situation and like Rahab, we don’t need to see a solution. Like Joshua the orders don’t have to make sense. Our hope is not in the sensibility of a solution, our hope is God alone.
The God of heaven and earth is good.
The God of heaven and earth is faithful.
The God of heaven and earth is our God and we have His word. Trust Him.