Seven days. Seven times on Day Seven. Seven priests with seven trumpets. Talk about a perfect plan!
The situation seemed challenging, to say the least. “Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in” (Jos 6:1). The sentence actually repeats the words—shut up and shut up. It was double barred and bolted. But God had no intention of using the gates; that’s what ordinary folk do. He would simply remove the walls. The Lord called Joshua to look at the challenge by faith: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor” (v 2). Blessed past completed tense! A done deal. But as the Lord said earlier, “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours” (Deut 11:24). Thus the divine instructions: “You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat” (Jos 6:3-5). For six days, the army and the ark went once around the city. But on the seventh day, they went around seven times. Then seven priests blew the charge on seven ram’s horn trumpets, the people shouted in victory, and goodbye walls. Note, “the people shall go up every man straight before him.” What a lesson! Don’t waste your time running around looking for something to do for the Lord. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Eccl 9:10). Does God have something right at hand for you to do? Then by faith go straight in!