Lecture X: The Conquest of Western Palestine — The Fall of Jericho
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
The Conquest of Eastern Palestine has been drawn
out at length in the preceding Lecture, because, from
the scanty and fragmentary notices of it in the nar-
rative, we are in danger of losing sight altogether of
a remarkable portion both of the Holy Land and of
the Sacred history. But it is a true feeling which
has caused the chief attention to be fixed on the
conquest of the western rather than of the eastern
shores of the Jordan, as the turning-point, in this
stage, of the fortunes of the Jewish Church and
nation.
We have seen what the Eastern territory was, —
how congenial to the nomadic habits of a
hitherto nomadic people: a land in some re-
spects so far superior, both in beauty and fertility,
to the rugged mountains on the further side. "The
Lord had made them ride on the high places of
the earth, that they might eat the increase of the
fields; and he made them to suck honey out of the
'cliff,' and oil out of the flinty rock; butter of kine
and milk of sheep; with fat of lambs, and rams of
the breed of Bashan, and goats; with the fat of kid-
neys of wheat and . . . the pure blood of the grape."
So, we are told, spoke their Prophet-leader, whilst
they were still in enjoyment of this rich country.
Yet forward they went. It was the same high call-
ing — whether we give it the name of destiny, or
Providence — which had already drawn Abraham from
Mesopotamia, and Moses from the court of Memphis.
They knew not what was before them; they knew
not what depended on their crossing the Jordan, —
on their becoming a settled and agricultural, instead
of a nomadic people, — on their reaching to the shores
of the Mediterranean sea, and from those shores re-
ceiving the influences of the Western world, and
sending forth to that Western world their influences
in return. They knew not, but we know; and the
more we hear of the beauty of the Transjordanic ter-
ritory, the greater is the wonder — the greater, we
may almost say, should be our thankfulness — that
they exchanged it for Palestine itself; inferior as it
might naturally have seemed to them, in every point,
except for the high purposes to which they were
called, and for which their permanent settlement on
the eastern side of the Jordan would, humanly speak-
ing, have wholly unfitted them.
It was to inaugurate this new era, of a dangerous
present and a boundless future, that a new character
appears on the scene. In the Eastern conquest, we
have but faintly perceived the hands by which the
victory was won, and the people guided. Moses, in-
deed, is still living; but his command in battle is
hardly noticed. Of Jair and Nobah we know scarce
anything but the names. The most remarkable leader
of the transitional period, whose career over-
laps also that on which we are no entering, is the
famous son of the High Priest Eleazar, who in his
Egyptian name bore the last trace of their Egyptian
sojourn. Phinehas, rather than his father, figures
throughout this period as the leading member of the
hierarchy. In the conflict with Midian, in the dispute
with the Reubenites, in the war with the Benjamites,
he is the chief oracle and adviser. On him is pro-
nounced the blessing which secured to his descendants
the inheritance of the priesthood, as though up to
that time the succession had been in uncertainty.
He was long known as the ruler or commander of
the Levite guard, and as the type of indomitable
zeal. In later Jewish traditions, he is supposed to
have received, through the blessing upon his zeal,
the gift of immortality, and to have continued on
the earth until he reappeared as Elijah; and thus, in
Mussulman fancy, he claim, with Elijah, Jethro, and
S. George, to be identified with the mysterious Wan-
derer, who goes to and fro on the earth, to set
right the wrong and to make clear the dark.
But the first Priest was not to be the successor
of the first of the Prophets. It was from an-
other tribe, and from another class of character, that
Moses had chosen his constant companion, his minis-
tering servant. Every great prophet had such an
attendant, and the attendant of Moses was Joshua
the son of Nun. He according to Jewish tradition,
was the bosom friend, the first example of pure and
dear friendship in the Jewish Church; and to him,
rather than to any hereditary kinsmen, was the guid-
ance of the nation intrusted.
Never, in the history of the Chosen People, could
there have been such a blank as that when they
became conscious that "Moses the servant of the
Lord was dead." He who had been their leader,
their lawgiver, their oracle, as far back as their
memory could reach, was taken from them at the
very moment when they seemed most to need him.
It was to fill up this blank that Joshua was called.
The narrative labors to impress upon us the sense
that the continuity of the nation and of its high
purpose was not broken by the change of person
and situation. "As I was with Moses, so will I be
with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."
There was, indeed, as yet, no hereditary or fixed suc-
cession. But the germ of that succession is better
represented by the very contrast between Moses and
Joshua, than in any other passage in the Sacred
History.
"The voice that from the glory came,
To tell how Moses died unseen,
And waken Joshua's spear of flame
To victory on the mountains green,
Its trumpet tones are sounding still,
When kings or parents pass away;
They greet us with a cheering thrill
Of power or comfort in decay."
The difference, indeed, was marked as strongly as
possible. Joshua was the soldier, — the first
soldier, consecrated by the Sacred history.
He was not a teacher, not a Prophet. He one may
say, hated the extension of Prophecy with a feeling
which recalls a well-known saying of the great war-
rior of our own age. He could not restrain his
indignation when he heard that there were two un-
authorized prophesiers within the camp. "My Lord
Moses, forbid them." He was a simple, straightfor-
ward, undaunted soldier. His first appearance is in
battle. "Choose out men, go out, fight with Amalek."
He is always known by his spear, or javelin, slung
between his shoulders or stretched out in his hand.
The one quality which is required of him, and de-
scribed in him, is that he was "very courageous."
"He was strong and of good courage." "He was
not afraid or dismayed." He turned neither to the
right hand nor to the left; but at the head of the
hosts of Israel he went right forward from Jordan to
Jericho, from Jericho to Ai, from Ai to Gibeon, to
Beth-horon, to Merom. He wavered not for a mo-
ment; he was here, he was there, he was everywhere,
as the emergency called for him. He had no words
of wisdom, except those which shrewd common sense
and public spirit dictated. To him the Divine Revela-
tion was made not in the burning bush nor in the
still small voice, but as "the Captain of the Lord's
host, with a drawn sword in his hand;" and that
drawn and glittering sword was the vision which
went before him through the land, till all the kings
of Canaan were subdued beneath his feet.
It is not often, either in sacred or common history
that we are justified in pausing on anything
so outward and (usually) so accidental as a name.
But, if ever there be an exception, it is in the case
of Joshua. In him it first appears with an appropri-
ateness which the narrative describes as intentional.
His original name Hoshea, "salvation," is transformed
into Jehoshua, or Joshua, " "God's salvation;" and this,
according to the modifications which Hebrew names
underwent in their passage through the Greek lan-
guage, took, in the later ages of the Jewish Church,
sometimes the form of Jason, but more frequently that
which has now become indelibly impressed upon his-
tory as the greatest of all names — JESUS.
Slight as may be this connection between the first
and the last to whom this name was given with any
religious significance, it demands our consideration for
the sake of two points which are often overlooked,
and which may in this relation catch the attention
of those who might else overlook them altogether.
One is the prominence into which it brings the true
meaning of the sacred Name, as a deliverance, not
from "imputed" or "future" or "unknown" dangers,
but from enemies as real as the Canaanitish host.
The first Joshua was to save his people from their
actual foes. The Second was to "save His people
from their sins." Again, the career of Joshua gives a
note of preparation for the singularly martial, soldier-
like aspect — also often forgotten — under which his
Namesake is at times set forth. The courage, the
cheerfulness, the sense of victory and of success, which
runs both through the actual history of the Gospels,
and through the idealization of it in "the Conqueror"
or the writings of S. John, finds its best illustration
from the older church in the character and career of
Joshua.
The first stage of Joshua's Conquest was the occu-
pation of the vast trench, so to speak, which
parted them from the mass of the Promised
Land. Between it and them lay the deep valley of
the Jordan with its mysterious river. "To pass over
the Jordan and go in and possess the land," was a
crisis in their fate, such as they had not experienced
since the crossing of the Red Sea.
The scene of the passage of the Jordan is presented
to us in the Sacred narrative in a form so distinct,
and at the same time so different from that which is
usually set forth in pictures and allegories, that it shall
here be given at length, so far as it can be made out
from the several notices handed down to us, namely,
the two separate accounts in the Book of Joshua,
further varied by the differences between Received
Text and the Septuagint, the narrative of Josephus,
and the 114th Psalm.
For the first time they descended from the upper
terraces of the valley, they "removed from the acacia
groves and came to Jordan and 'stayed the night'
there before they passed over."
It was probably at the point near the present south-
ern fords, crossed at the time of the Christian era by a
bridge. The river was at its usual state of
flood at the spring of the year, so as to fill the whole
of the bed, up to the margin of the jungle with which
the nearer banks are lined. On the broken edge of
the swollen stream, the band of priests stood with the
Ark on their shoulders. At the distance of nearly a
mile in the rear was the mass of the army. Suddenly
the full bed of the Jordan was dried before them.
"High up the river, "far,far away," "in Adam, the
city which is beside Zaretan," "as far as the parts
of Kirjath-jearim," that is, at a distance of thirty
miles from the place of the Israelite encampment,
"the waters there stood which 'descended' 'from the
heights above,' — stood and rose up, as if gathered
"into a waterskin; as if in a barrier or heap, as if
congealed; and those that 'descended' towards the
sea of 'the desert,' the salt sea, failed and were cut
off." Thus the scene presented is of the "descending
stream" (the words employed seem to have a special
reference to that peculiar and most significant name
of the "Jordan") not parted asunder, as we generally
fancy, but, as the Psalm expresses it, "turned back-
wards;" the whole bed of the river left dry from
north to south, through its long windings; the huge
stines lying bare here and there, embedded in the
soft bottom; or the shingly pebbles drifting along the
course of the channel.
The Ark stood above. The army passed below. The
women and children, according to the Jewish
tradition, were placed in the centre, from the
fear lest they should be swept away by the violence
of the current. The host, at different points probably,
rushed across. The priests remained motionless, their
feet sunk in the deep mud of the channel. In front,
contrary to the usual order, as if to secure that they
should fulfil their vow, went the three Transjordanic
tribes. They were thus the first to set foot on the
shore beyond. Their own memorial of the passage
was the monument already described. But the na-
tional memorial was on a larger scale. Carried aloft
before the priests as they left the river-bed, were
"twelve stones." selected by the twelve chiefs of the
tribes. These were planted on the upper terrace of
the plain of the Jordan, and became the centre of the
first sanctuary of the Holy Land, — the first place pro-
nounced "holy," the "sacred place" of the Jordan
valley, where the tabernacle remained till it was
fixed at Shiloh. Gilgal long retained reminiscences of
its ancient sanctuary. The twelve stones taken up from
the bed of the Jordan continued at least till the
time of the composition of the Book of Joshua, and
seem to have been invested with a reverence, which
came to be regarded at last as idolatrous. The name
was joined with that of the acacia groves on the far-
ther side, in the title as it would seem, given in pop-
ular tradition or in ancient records, to the passage of
the history: "From Shittim to Gilgal."
But its immediate connection was with the first
stage of the Conquest. The touching alle-
gory by which in the "Pilgrim's Progress" the pas-
sage of the Jordan is made the likeness of the pas-
sage of the river of Death to the land of rest beyond,
has but a slight ground in the language of the Bible,
or the course of the history. The passage of the
Jordan was not the end, but the beginning of a long
and troubled conflict. Of this, the first step was the
occupation of Gilgal. It became immediately the
frontier fortress, such as the Greeks under the name
of epiteichisma, and the Romans under the name of
colonia, always planted as their advanced posts in a
hostile country, such as at Kufa the Arab conquerors
founded before the building of Baghdad, and at Fostat
before the building of Cairo. It was also, as Jose-
phus well says, the "place of freedom." There they
cast off the slough of their wandering life. The un-
circumcised state, regarded as a deep reproach
by the higher civilization of the East, was now
to be "rolled away." The ancient rite was performed
once more, and the knives of flint used on the occa-
sion were preserved as sacred relics. The hill where
the ceremony had taken place — one of the many
argillaceous hillls on the terraces of the valley — was
called by a name commemorating the event, as was
Gilgal itself. A Jewish sect is reported still to exist
at Bozra, which profess to have broken off from Is-
rael at this time. They are said to abhor not only
circumcision, but everything which can remind them
of it — all cutting with knives, even at meals. One
other sign of the desert ceased at the same time.
For the first time since leaving Sinai, the Passover
was celebrated, and the cakes were made no longer
of manna, but of the corn of Palestine, bread found
in the houses of the old inhabitants.
It was on Jericho that the attention of Joshua had
been already fixed before the Passage of the
Jordan. Following the plan which seems to have
been universal in the warfare of those times, he sent
two spies, as he and his eleven companions had once
gone before from the south, as the spies were after-
wards sent to explore Ai and Bethel. They, like
the wild Gadites in David's time, swam the flooded
river, and out of their adventure grew the one gentle
incident of this part of history, — the kindness
and honor dealt to Rahab, the first converts to the
Jewish faith.
Jericho was the most, indeed the only, important
town in the Jordan valley. Not only was it conspic-
uous amongst the other Canaanitish towns, for its
walls and gates, and its rich temple, filled with gold,
silver, iron, brass, and even Mesopotamian drapery,
but its situation was such as must always have ren-
dered its occupation necessary to any invader from
that quarter. It was the key of Western Palestine,
as standing at the entrance of the two main passes
into the central mountains. From the issues of the
torrent of the Kelt on the south, to the copious
spring, afterwards called "the fountain of Elisha," on
the north, the ancient city ran along the base of the
mountains, and thus commanded the oasis of the
desert valley, the garden or park of verdure, which
clustering round these waters has, through the various
stages of its long existence, secured its prosperity and
grandeur.
Beautiful as the spot is now in utter neglect, it
must have been far more so when it was first seen
by the Israelite host at Gilgal. Gilgal as about
five miles distant from the river banks; at the east-
ern outskirts, therefore, of the great forest. Jericho
itself stood at its western extremity, immediately where
the springs issued from the hills. From that scene of
their earliest settlement in Palestine, the Israelites
looked out over the intervening woods to what was
to be the first prize of the conquest. The forest it-
self did not then consist, as now, merely of the pict-
uresque thorn, but was a vast grove of majestic
palms, nearly three miles broad, and eight miles long.
It must have recalled to the few survivors of the old
generation the magnificent palm-groves of Egypt, such
as may now be seen stretching along the shores of
the Nile at Memphis. Amidst this forest — as is, to a
certain extent, the case even now — would have been
seen, stretching through its open spaces, fields of ripe
corn; for it was "the time of barley harvest." Above
the topmost trees would be seen the high walls and
towers of the city, which from that grove derived its
proud name, "Jericho the city of psalms," "high, and
fenced up to heaven." Behind the city rose the jag-
ged range of the white limestone mountains of Judæa,
here presenting one of the few varied and beautiful
outlines that can be seen amongst the southern hills
of Palestine. This range is "the mountain" to which
the spies had fled whilst their pursuers vainly sought
them on the way to the Jordan.
The story of the Fall of Jericho, and the Passage
of the Jordan, carries with it the same im-
pression as that of the Exodus; that it was not by
their power, but by a Higher, that the Israelites
were to effect their first entrance into the Promised
Land. Whatsoever might be their own part in what
followed — whatsoever might be their own even in this
— the sagacity of Joshua, the venturesomeness of the
spies, the fidelity of Rahab, the seven days' march,
the well-known and terrible war-cry; yet the river is
crossed, and the city falls, by other means. It may
be that these means were found in the resources of
the natural agencies of earthquake or volcanic con-
vulsion, which mark the whole of the Jordan valley,
from Gennesareth down to the Dead Sea, and which
are perpetually recurring in its course, not only dur-
ing the sacred history, but to their own time. If so,
we have a remarkable illustration and confirmation
of the narrative, the more so, because the secondary
causes of these phenomena must have been to the
sacred historians themselves unknown. But, if we are
denied this external testimony to the events, the
moral, which the relation of them is intended to
teach, and which no doubt it did teach, remains the
same, and is well expressed in the Psalm of later
days:
"We have heard with our ears, O God;
Our fathers have told us that Thou didst in their days , in the times of
old;
How Thou didst drive out the heathen with Thy hand, and plantedst
them;
How Thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
For they got not the land in possession by their own sword,
Neither did their own arm save them;
But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance,
Because Thou hadst a favour unto them."
The ultimate importance of the fall of Jericho is
marked by the consecration of its spoil, and by the
curse on its rebuilder. But its immediate conse-
quences lay in the opening which it afforded for
penetrating into the hills above. It was a critical
moment, for it was exactly at the same stage of
their approach to Palestine from the south,
that the Israelites had met with the severe repulse
at Hormah, which had driven them back into the
desert for forty years. "Joshua" accordingly "sent
men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven,
on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them,
saying, Go up and view the country." The precise
position of Ai is unknown; but this indication points
out its probable site in the wild entanglement of the hill
and valley at the head of the ravines running up
from the valley of the Jordan. The two attempts of
the Israelites that followed upon the report of the
spies, are quite in accordance with the natural feat-
ures of the pass. In the first attempt the inhabi-
tants of Ai, taking advantage of their strong position
on the heights, drove the invaders "from before the
gate," . . . and smote them in "the going down"
of the steep descent. In the second attempt, after the
Israelites had been reassured by the execution of
Achan "in the valley of Achor," probably one of the
valleys opening into the Ghor, the attack was con-
ducted on different principles. An ambush was
placed by night high up in the main ravine be-
tween Ai and Bethel. Joshua himself took up his
position on the north side of "the ravine," apparently
the deep chasm through which it joins the ravine of
Jericho. From this point the army descended into
the valley, Joshua himself, it would seem, remaining
on the heights; and, decoyed by them, the King of
Ai with his forces pursued them as before into the
"desert" valley of the Jordan; whilst the ambush,
at the signal of Joshua's uplifted spear, rushed down
on the city; and then, amidst the mingled attack at
the head of the pass from behind, and the return of
the main body from the desert of the Jordan, the
whole population of AI was destroyed. A heap of
ruins on its site, and a huge cairn over the grave of
the last king remained long afterwards as the sole
memorials of the destroyed city.
The passes were now secured, and the interior of
the country was accessible. Two peaceful memorials
remained of this stage of the conquest. The first
was the adoption of Rahab into the commu-
nity. "She dwelleth among the people to this day."
The stringency of the Mosaic law prohibiting inter-
marriage with the accursed race was relaxed in her
favor. To her was traced back the princely lineage
of David, and of a greater than David. Her trust in
God, and her friendly hospitality whilst yet a hea-
then were treasured up by the better spirit of the
later Jewish and early Christian Church, as a signal
instance of the universality of divine mercy and of
religious faith.
The other was the league with the Gibeonites.
The historical peculiarities of this transaction
explains themselves. The situation and char-
acter of Gibeon at once placed it in an exceptional
position. Planted at the head of the Pass of Beth-
horon, and immediately opposite the opening of the
Pass of Ai, it would have been the next prey on
which the Israelite host would have sprung. On the
other hand, its organization, being apparently aristo-
cratic, or federal, — itself at the head of a small
band of kindred cities, — separated it from the inter-
ests of the royal fortresses of the rest of Palestine.
Their device is full of the quaint humor which marks
its antiquity. It is observable that they represent
themselves as not having yet heard of the aggression
on Western Palestine, only of the by-gone conquest
of the Amorite kings beyond the Jordan.
The remembrance of the league was kept up
through the whole course of the subsequent
history. The massacre of the Gibeonites by
Saul was not excused by the fact that they were an
alien race. David was faithful to the vow which
Joshua had first made. That vow and its observance,
even though darkened by its sanguinary consequences
in the sacrifice of the sons of Saul, stands out in the
career of Joshua and of David as an example, rare
in the history of the Christian Church, of faith kept
with heretics and infidels. When in the fifteenth
century Ladislaus of Hungary had made a solemn
treaty with Amurath II., and when tidings arrived of
unlooked-for succors to the Christian host, no less a
personage than Cardinal Julian Cæsarini, in an elabo-
rate argument, urged the king to break the league.
The chief of the Polish clergy, in a spirit more worthy
both of the Old and New Dispensation, protested
against the treacherous act. But he protested alone,
and King and Cardinal broke their plighted faith,
and hurried on the Christian army to what proved
its destruction. Not so the leaders of Israel under
Joshua, when public opinion clamored for vengeance
on the Gibeonite deceivers. "All the congregation
murmured against the princes. But all the princes
said unto the congregation, We have sworn unto
them by the Lord God of Israel; now, therefore, we
may not touch them. This we will do to them: we
will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us be-
cause of the oath which we sware unto them."
Their lives were spared. They willingly undertook
the tributary service which was levied upon them.
Under "the great high place" on which the Taber-
nacle — at least during part of the subsequent his-
tory — was raised, they remained in after-times a
monument of this early league. With that fidelity
the promise was observed, and with what important
consequences, will be best seen by describing the
great event to which they directly led, — the Battle of
Beth-horon.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture X: The Conquest of Western Palestine — The Fall of Jericho.
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 249-265
Posted May 1, 2018, 12:50 AM UTC · edited
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