The Word of God Brings Down Strongholds
“’By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.’ (Hebrews 11:30) The main characters seem to be the men of war, along with all the congregation of Israel, under the leadership of seven priests- firstborn sons of Israel, bearing seven trumpets of ram's horns, circling seven times. But the sevens point to perfection and the fact that is a work of Yahweh. The wall of Jericho fell on a Sabbath, according to the Jews, which would preclude any ordinary work for man.
"It was indeed an exception to the usual way of keeping the Sabbath, but an exception that maintained and exalted the honour of God. And, in a sense, it might be called resting, inasmuch as no aggressive operations of any kind were carried on; it was simply a waiting on God, waiting till He should arise out of His place, and cause it..." (W. G. Blaikie)
"In Abraham’s day we are told that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full (Gen. 15:16). God therefore had waited in long-suffering mercy, but now all the nations of Canaan had sunk into such depths of depravity and the land had become so utterly defiled that it could only be cleansed by judgment." (H. A. Ironside) Theirs was a temporal death sentence and their land was to be divided by the tribes of Israel.
"Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in." (Joshua 6:1) They were afraid! "Their hope lay in the walls of Jericho." (Peter Pett) But Yahweh said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. 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. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.'” (Joshua 6:2-5)
"As the land of Canaan belonged to the Israelites by a grant from God, the possessor of heaven and earth, it was proper that the first city which resisted them should be taken in such a manner as to demonstrate the truth of their title. And therefore God did not order them to attack Jericho with engines of war.” (James Macknight)- but by the Word of God.
“Everywhere are we taught that God is able to carry on His work by the feeblest and most unlikely instruments, and that it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. When the Midianites were to be defeated, Gideon was sent with a handful of men bearing lamps and pitchers. When Goliah the Philistine was to be destroyed, a stripling went against him with a sling and a stone. When the heathen world was to be subdued to the obedience of Christ, the Lord sent forth a few fishermen of Galilee, and still it is His pleasure by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (Sutcliffe)
"It is not by weapons which this world supplies, that these walls can be destroyed. It is by the Word of God, and by the Word declared in faith.” (Saphir) "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12)
Rahab the Harlot Saved From Temporal and Eternal Destruction
“Rahab had no spiritual advantages-no Sabbaths, no Scriptures, no teachers- and yet in the base purlieus of a Jericho, in the heart of that poor harlot, like a fair pearl that lies within a rough shell among the weeds and rocks at the sea bottom, there is found precious faith, faith that finds utterance in a good confession.” (G. W. Butler)
“When Joshua crossed the Jordan, he sent two men as spies to her house, and she saved them by concealment from the enemies that would have destroyed their lives. For this act of hospitality and kindness, they assured her of safety when the city should be destroyed, and directed her to give an indication of her place of abode to the invading Israelites, that her house might be spared; Joshua 2:18:19. In the destruction of the city, she was accordingly preserved; Joshua 6." (Albert Barnes)
Rahab walked the walk of faith. And thus the spies gave her a way to distinguish her house— bind the scarlet cord in the window by which she had let them down to safety, “and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father's household to your own home. So it shall be that whoever goes outside the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless.” (Josh 2:17-19)
The city was doomed to destruction according the the instruction / Word of the LORD in Joshua 6:18–19. — After the LORD brought the wall of the city down by a singular act, then indeed, the men of war killed the inhabitants and “burned the city and all that was in it with fire. Only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of Yahweh.” — > And Rahab lived— “she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent."
"The reward of her faith. ‘By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not….’ (Hebrews 11:31a)— “rather, that were disobedient (see Hebrews 3:18; Hebrews 4:6; Hebrews 4:11)." (C. J. Ellicott) "But not only was Rahab, and the whole of her family, preserved from the burning of Jericho which immediately followed, but as Joshua 6:25 tells us, she ‘dwelt in Israel.’ Thus, from being the slave of Satan she was adopted into the family of God; from being a citizen of heathen Jericho she was given a place in the congregation of the LORD.” (A. W. Pink) And she had the particular honor of being an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5).— “when she had received the spies with peace. (Hebrews 11:31b)— After these words the Slavonic adds: Και ἑτερᾳ ὁδῳ εκβαλουσα, and sent them out another way.” (Adam Clarke) Thus it was not her good confession of faith, found in Joshua 2:9-11, that resulted in her reward but rather her deeds.
James 2: 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
“Her faith is the first mentioned after the author of Hebrews skipped the entire period of the wilderness wanderings, finding for that entire forty years no special example of Israel's faith to be cited. That this Gentile harlot was included with the immortals of faith may be viewed as an earnest of God's loving concern for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews, and of his ultimate purpose of redeeming all human beings…. How strange that Jericho's harlot should be such a singular example of faith, and that the entire preceding generation of the wandering Israelites, except Caleb and Joshua, should have provided nothing to compare with it. Christ found the same incredible paradox in that ‘the publicans and harlots’ were nearer to God's kingdom than the religious leaders (Matthew 21:31).” (Burton Coffman)
And What More Can I Say?
“‘And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets.”—“One thing which is common to all the individuals mentioned in our text is that the history of each of them was cast in a day of great spiritual declension. The time in which they lived is described at length in the book of Judges. Following the deaths of Moses and Joshua, Israel grievously departed from the LORD: cast off His law, worshipped the idols of the heathen, and ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes’ (Judg 21:25) Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people... We too are living in a day when Christendom is in a sad state, when there is widespread departure from God and His Word, when vital and practical holiness is at a low ebb. But the arm of the Lord is not waxed short, and they who lean hard upon it shall be sustained and enabled to do exploits in His name.” (A. W. Pink) — "who through faith subdued kingdoms”— “The historical allusion is to the exploits of Joshua and David: ‘Joshua subdued the kingdoms in Canaan, and David subdued those which were around that country, such as Moab, Ammon and Syria.” (John Brown) — "worked righteousness" — “did a great variety of works indicative of that faith in God without which it is impossible to do any thing that is good.” (Adam Clarke)— "'obtained promises'— or obtained 'promised blessings' (Bloomfield, Stuart); that is, they obtained as a result of their faith, promises of blessings on [themselves, as well as] their posterity in future times…” (Albert Barnes), even in the world to come. — "'stopped the mouths of lions"— as Samson, Judges 14:6; David, 1 Samuel 17:34 ff; and particularly Daniel; Daniel 6:7, following…. To be able to subdue and render harmless the king of the forest - the animal most dreaded in early times - was regarded as an eminent achievement.” (Albert Barnes)— "quenched the violence of fire”—“as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” (John Wesley) God’s judgment fire is an unquenchable kind, but surely goes out when its work is complete in destruction of the wicked. “If the soul cleaves to God naught can harm it. It is faith, and not water, which quenches the fire: behold the martyrs singing amid the flames!” (A. W. Pink)— "'escaped the edge of the sword'— as David by the force of his faith escaped Saul’s sword, Elijah Ahab’s, Elisha the Syrians’, 2 Kings 6:8-23, and various of God’s hidden ones at this day have escaped by a strange providence, when studiously sought after as sheep to the slaughter.” (John Trapp)— and "out of weakness [they] were made strong.”— “Barak ‘became valiant in fight’; Gideon ‘put to flight the armies of the aliens.’ (Hebrews 11:32-34) Faith animates to the most heroic enterprises, both civil and military.” (Benson)
Hebrews 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
“‘Women received their dead raised to life again’, "literally, by a resurrection…” (Ellicott) "The two oldest manuscripts read. 'They received women of aliens by raising their dead.' 1Kings 17:24 shows that the raising of the widow's son by Elijah led her to the faith, so that he thus took her into fellowship, an alien though she was. Christ, in Luke 4:26, makes especial mention of the fact that Elijah was sent to an alien from Israel, a woman of Sarepta. Thus Paul may quote this as an instance of Elijah's faith, that at God's command he went to a Gentile city of Sidonia…, and there, as the fruit of faith, not only raised her dead son, but received her as a convert into the family of God, as Vulgate reads." (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown) "Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance." etc. Some were rescued from death but others were not. "And yet faith ruled in both.” (Calvin)
“‘And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.’ Yes, they died in Christ but they sleep until the better resurrection. They are commended as good and their faith “as worthy of imitation to all succeeding ages.” (Edwards) But they did not receive the promise in death, “God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”— “They will enjoy the fulfilment of their faith when believers of all eras are gathered together through Christ, and God reigns in love over all (39-40).” (Bridgeway Bible Commentary) "God has so arranged matters, that the complete accomplishment of the promise, both to the Old and New Testament believers, shall take place together; ‘they' shall be made perfect, but not without ‘us'; we and they shall attain perfection together." (John Brown)
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2) “Some teach that the Old Testament saints are spectators of us and that they look upon us now from heaven. Dean Alford also states that they are lookers on and adds 'Whosoever denies such reference, misses, it seems to me, the very point of the sense.' Others have gone so far as to say that they not only look on but help the believer in his conflict on earth. But this view is unscriptural. We know that angels are spectators (1 Corinthians 4:9; 11:10); angels are ministering spirits to minister unto the heirs of salvation, but the disembodied spirits of the righteous are neither spectators nor do they minister to the saints on earth. The preceding chapter contains 'the cloud of witness'; they witness to us by their lives and the victory of their faith and this is the encouragement for us." (Arno Gaebelein)