Battle of Jericho

Battle of Jericho
Part of Israelite conquest of Canaan
Date Late Bronze Age Location Jericho Result Decisive Israelite victory
Belligerents
Israelites	Caananites
Commanders and leaders
Joshua	King of Jericho
Strength
8000 fighting men	500
Casualties and losses
Unknown	2,500

The Battle of Jericho is described in the Bible (Joshua 6:1–27) as the first battle of the Israelites during their conquest of Canaan. According to the narrative, the walls of Jericho fell after Joshua's Israelite army marched around the city blowing their trumpets. According to conventional Bible chronology, this battle would have been in c. 1400 BC. The historicity of the battle is debated among modern scholars.

Biblical account

Spying on Jericho

Before crossing into the land west of the River Jordan, Joshua sent two spies to look over the land. The king of Jericho heard that two Israelite spies were within his city and ordered them to be brought out to him. The spies had to look out for things such as where guards were placed, whether anyone disliked the king and could help them, what weaponry and armour the guards had, when the guards changed shifts, how much food, water, and other supplies the city had, and the height and width of the walls so as to determine how to get over the walls.

The woman with whom the spies were staying was named Rahab and she protected them by hiding the two men on her roof. She tells them how the citizens of Jericho had been fearful of the Israelites ever since they defeated the Egyptians via the Red Sea miracle (some 40 years prior), and agrees to cover for them on condition that she and her family are spared in the upcoming battle. The spies agree provided three conditions are met:

1. she must distinguish her house from the others so the soldiers will know which one to spare
2. her family must be inside the house during the battle, and
3. she must not later turn on the spies.

Rahab complies with the conditions (hanging a scarlet rope outside her window to distinguish her house).

Safely escaping the city, the two returned to Joshua and reported that the "whole land was melting with fear".

Jean Fouquet: The Taking of Jericho, c. 1452-1460

The battle

The Biblical account describes the Israelites being lead by Joshua and crossing the Jordan into Canaan where they laid siege to the city of Jericho. There God spoke to Joshua telling him to march around the city once every day for six days with the seven priests carrying ram's horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times and the priests were to blow their ram's horns. This Joshua did, and he commanded his people not to give a war-cry until he told them to do so. On the seventh day, after marching around the city the seventh time, the priests sounded their ram's horns, and Joshua ordered the people to shout. The walls of the city collapsed, and the Israelites were able to charge straight into the city. The city was completely destroyed, and every man, woman, and child in it was killed. Only Rahab and her family were spared, because she had hidden the two spies sent by Joshua. After this Joshua burned the remains of the city and cursed any man who would rebuild the city of Jericho would do so at the cost of his firstborn son.

Historicity

The battle of Jericho has become a touchstone of the Bible's reliability as a source for the history of ancient Israel, and Jericho has accordingly been a focus of investigation since the earliest days of archaeology in Palestine. The first scientific investigation was carried out by Charles Warren in 1868, but amounted to no more than a site-survey (Warren's prime interest was in establishing the modern equivalents of Biblical locales). In 1907-09 and again in 1911 digging was carried out by two German archaeologists, Carl Watzinger and Ernest Sellin. Watzinger and Sellin believed that they would be able to validate the Biblical story of Jericho's destruction by Joshua and the Israelites, but concluded instead that the data indicated that the city was unoccupied at the time which the Bible indicated for the Conquest.

These results were tested in 1930-36 by John Garstang, at the suggestion of William F. Albright, the doyen of Palestinian archaeology at the time. Garstang discovered the remains of a network of collapsed walls which he dated to about 1400 BC, the time he believed the Israelites were on their conquest, that had apparently fallen in a dramatic fashion as opposed to being ruined by abandonment or decay from natural forces. Garstang's work thus reversed the conclusions of the earlier diggings.

By the post-war period a revolution had occurred in archaeological methodology, and Albright accordingly asked Kathleen Kenyon, one of the most respected practitioners of the new archaeology, to excavate at Jericho once more. Kenyon dug at Jericho over the seasons between 1952-1958. Kenyon traced the entire history of the city from the earliest Neolithic settlement. She did this by digging a narrow deep trench maintaining clean, squared off edges, rigorously examining the soil and recording its stratification, and thus building up a cross-section of the tell. When presented with an area that would require wider areas to be excavated - the floor plan of a house for example - she carefully dug in measured squares while leaving an untouched strip between each section to allow the stratification to remain visible. Kenyon reported that her work showed Garstang to have been wrong and the Germans right - Jericho had been deserted at the accepted Biblical date of the Conquest. This however was not true because the part she excamined was actually imported pottery.

</ref> Evangelical scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen, while largely accepting Kenyon's dating, continue to believe that the biblical battle represents real history.

See also

• Ai (Bible)
• Book of Joshua
• Biblical archaeology
• Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho