Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
Verse 15-20. On the seventh day the marching round the town commenced very
early, at the dawning of the day, that they might go round seven times. kamishªpaaT
(OT:4941), in the manner prescribed and carried out on the previous days, which had
become a right through precept and practice. On the seventh circuit, when the priests
had blown the trumpet, Joshua commanded the fighting men to raise a war-cry,
announcing to them at the same time that the town, with all that was in it, was to be a
ban to the Lord, with the exception of Rahab and the persons in her house, and
warning them not to take of that which was laid under the ban, that they might not
bring a ban upon the camp of Israel. The construction in v. 16, "it came to pass at the
seventh time the priests had blown the trumpets, then Joshua said,..." is more spirited
than if the conjunction ka'asher (OT:834) had been used before taaqª`uw (OT:8628),
or bitªqowa` had been used.
Because the Lord had given Jericho into the hands of the Israelites, they were to
consecrate it to Him as a ban ( cherem ), i.e., as a holy thing belonging to Jehovah,
which was not to be touched by man, as being the first-fruits of the land of Canaan.
(On cherem , see the remarks at Lev 27:28-29.) Rahab alone was excepted from this
ban, along with all that belonged to her, because she had hidden the spies. The
inhabitants of an idolatrous town laid under the ban were to be put to death, together
with their cattle, and all the property in the town to be burned, as Moses himself had
enjoined on the basis of the law in Lev 27:29. The only exceptions were metals, gold,
silver, and the vessels of brass and iron; these were to be brought into the treasury of
the Lord, i.e., the treasury of the tabernacle, as being holy to the Lord (v. 19; vid.,
Num 31:54). Whoever took to himself anything that had been laid under the ban,
exposed himself to the ban, not only because he had brought an abomination into his
house, as Moses observes in Deut 7:25, in relation to the gold and silver of idols, but
because he had wickedly invaded the rights of the Lord, by appropriating that which
had been laid under the ban, and had wantonly violated the ban itself.
The words, "beware of the ban, that ye do not ban and take of the ban" (v. 18), point
to this. As Lud. de Dieu observes, "the two things were altogether incompatible, to
devote everything to God, and yet to apply a portion to their own private use; either
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