The Walls of Jericho Fell Because Israel Stayed Silent

The fall of Jericho is one of the strangest military operations in all of ancient literature — and the strangest part is not the walking or the shouting. It is the silence. For six days, an entire nation marched around a fortified city once per day, with seven priests blowing rams' horns, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, and maintaining absolute silence. No battle cries. No taunts. No psalms. Joshua's specific command was: "Do not shout, do not let your voice be heard, do not let a word come from your mouth until the day I tell you to shout." The rabbis in Midrash Aggadah traditions ask the question any reader should ask: why was the silence harder than the battle?

What Kind of City Was Jericho?

Legends of the Jews (1909–1938) describes Jericho as the most heavily fortified city in Canaan — double walls of dried mud brick with a gap between them that functioned as a military corridor, towers at intervals, gates sealed so tightly that not even the wind could enter. Joshua 6:1 says Jericho was "tightly shut up because of the sons of Israel — none went out and none came in." The city was in a state of total siege lockdown, which is exactly the wrong tactical environment for a besieging force to simply walk around the outside. The Midrash Rabbah (c. 400–500 CE) emphasizes this detail: Jericho looked impregnable. The defenders were watching from the walls. And every day for six days, they watched Israel walk around and do nothing. The psychological dynamic of those six days — for both sides — is what the midrash treats as the true drama of the story.

Why Seven Priests, Seven Rams' Horns, Seven Days, Seven Circuits?

The number seven saturates every aspect of the Jericho narrative, and the rabbis treat this as intentional saturation. Seven is the number of Shabbat, of completion, of the world's creation. Midrash Tanchuma (c. 800–900 CE) reads the seven-times-seven structure of the final day as a cosmic echo of the seven days of creation — Israel was not just conquering a city but completing a cycle of divine time. The Midrash Aggadah tradition adds that the seven rams' horns (shofarot) were specifically made from the rams slaughtered at the binding of Isaac — each shofar blast was thus both a military signal and a memorial to the covenant that had begun the entire story of the Jewish people in Canaan. The sound of those horns carried history in it.

Who Was Rahab and Why Did She Matter?

The only person in Jericho the Torah names is Rahab, the innkeeper who hid the two Israelite spies and secured their promise of safety for her household. Joshua 2 tells her story; the midrash expands it enormously. The Babylonian Talmud (compiled c. 500 CE), tractate Megillah 14b, identifies Rahab as one of the four most beautiful women who ever lived, and — more significantly — as the ancestor of eight prophets and priests, including Jeremiah and Huldah the prophetess. Legends of the Jews records that her scarlet thread, hung in the window as the agreed-upon signal of protection, was visible to the falling walls themselves — the entire southern section of the wall that collapsed left the section containing Rahab's house standing. In a city where every stone fell, the one house with a red thread in the window remained upright.

What Was the Curse Joshua Placed on Jericho?

After the walls fell and the city was destroyed, Joshua pronounced a curse: whoever rebuilt Jericho would lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn son and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son. The Midrash Rabbah records that this curse was fulfilled literally: 1 Kings 16:34 mentions that in the time of King Ahab, a man named Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho — and his firstborn son died when he laid the foundation, and his youngest son died when he set up the gates. The rabbis use this fulfillment, centuries after the original curse, as proof that prophetic words do not expire. Joshua spoke and the earth held those words in waiting, dormant for five hundred years, until someone tested them.

Why Did the Silence Matter Most?

The Midrash Aggadah tradition returns repeatedly to the command of silence. Some traditions suggest the silence was designed to prevent complaining — the same complaining that had gotten the previous generation killed in the wilderness for forty years. Others say the silence was itself a form of prayer, a concentrated national focus that made the shout on the seventh day an explosion of accumulated spiritual energy. One tradition in Midrash Tanchuma draws the contrast explicitly: the generation that died in the wilderness had voices that could not stop complaining. The generation that entered Canaan had voices disciplined enough to be held for seven days. The difference between a generation that fell and a generation that conquered was not the shouting. It was knowing when to be quiet. Discover the full narrative tradition around Israel's entry into Canaan at jewishmythology.com.