Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
Joshua, or that she was the mother of eight prophets, and others of the same kind, are fables without the
slightest historical foundation (see Lightfoot, hor. hebr. et talm. in Matt 1:5).)
Verse 26,27. But in order to complete the ban pronounced upon Jericho in perfect
accordance with the command of God in Deut 13:17, and to make the destruction of
it a memorial to posterity of the justice of God sanctifying itself upon the ungodly,
Joshua completed the ban with an oath: "Cursed be the man before the Lord that
riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho; he shall lay the foundation thereof at the
price of his first-born, and set up its gates at the price of his youngest son" ( bª
denoting the price of a thing). The rhythmical parallelism is unmistakeable in this
curse. The two last clauses express the thought that the builder of the town would pay
for its restoration by the loss of all his sons, from the first-born to the very youngest.
The word "buildeth," however, does not refer to the erection of houses upon the site
of the town that had been burnt to ashes, but to the restoration of the town as a
fortification, the word baanaah (OT:1129) being frequently used to denote the
fortification of a town (e.g., 1 Kings 15:17; 2 Chron 11:6; 14:5-6).
This is evident in general from the fact that a town is not founded by the erection of a
number of houses upon one spot, but by the joining of these houses together into an
enclosed whole by means of a surrounding wall, but more particularly from the last
words of the verse, in which baanaah (OT:1129) is explained as yªyacªdenaah
(OT:3245) (lay the foundation thereof) and dªlaateyhaa (OT:1817) yatsiyb (OT:5324)
(set up the gates of it). Setting up the gates of a town is not setting up doors to the
houses, but erecting town-gates, which can only be done when a town-wall has been
built. But if setting up the gates would be a sign of the completion of the wall,
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