Living the Message

The Koopman family gave us their reading on the story of Jericho today. Watch it here!

Pastor Amy told us many elements in the Jericho story found in Joshua 6 that I had never heard before. Recall that the city of Jericho was a large wealthy city surrounded by walls in the Promised Land which the Israelites had enterred. The Israelites marched around the city 6 days in a row while blowing the shofar and on the 7th day, they marched around 7 times, shouted and the walls came down. The Israelites destroyed every living thing in the city except for Rahab and her family because she had helped them. Rahab had a real faith with deeds and that saved her.

Today's Question of the Week: What surprised you about the Jericho story?

I had never heard about the Legend of Keret. The things which God told the Israelites to do were parallel to and maybe a mockery of the rituals of the Canaanites at that time. In addition, archeological discoveries also point to the truth of this story - for instance the 15 foot stone wall, the 3 foot layer of ash above the rubble of the walls, and the full jars of grain. I also found it interesting to think about how the "trumpets" they blasted were in reality shofars which were both military and spiritual symbols. The priest blew the shofars as a call to confession, and by blowing them around Jericho, perhaps they were calling the city to confess.