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this series, and we draw particular attention to one outstanding feature of the siege. We
refer to the strange encircling of the city for seven days, culminating, on the last day, in
the collapse of the walls, following the sevenfold encompassment of the city on that day.
The trumpets used on this occasion were not the silver trumpets specified in
Numb. 10: 1, 9, but ram's horn trumpets and "trumpets of Jubilee". The word "Jubilee" is
a translation of the Hebrew word Yobel. Its first occurrence is in Exod. 19: 13 and the
last in Josh. 6: 4-13. The remaining occurrences are all found in Leviticus and
Numbers.
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years;
and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be forty and nine years. Then shalt
thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month
. . . . . ye shall proclaim liberty . . . . . ye shall return every man unto his possessions
. . . . ." (Lev. 25: 8-19).
The sounding of the trumpet upon the seventh day of the encircling of Jericho is
prophetic:
"In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the
mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to his servants the prophets"
(Rev. 10: 7).
"And the seventh angel sounded: and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The
kingdom of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He
shall reign for ever and ever . . . . . the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come . . . . .
there was seen in His temple the Ark of His testament" (Rev. 11: 15-19).
While the collapse of Jericho's walls at the very entry of Israel into the land was
prophetic of the end, that initial triumph of faith is followed by a slow-moving story in
which many lessons are learned by the way. Among them we may instance three that
bear upon our theme.
(1)
Taking the land (Josh. 10: 23).
(2)
Possessing the land (Josh. 13:).
(3)
The reward of the inheritance (Josh. 14:, 15:).
These three stages need to be carefully distinguished. First, there is a great difference
between "taking" the land, and "possessing" it.
"So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and
Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes"
(Josh. 11: 23).
"Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old
and stricken in years, and there remainest yet very much land to be possessed"
(Josh. 13: 1).
The land was "divided" (Josh. 13: 7) before it was "possessed", and we can find
doctrinal parallels in the New Testament. For example, we read in Rom. 6: 6 that
"the old man" was crucified with Christ, yet, just as God said he would drive out the
enemy before Israel "not . . . . . in one year" but "by little and little" (Ex. 23: 27-30), so,