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Read the Bible

New Living Translation

Joshua 6:3

You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Communion;   Thompson Chain Reference - Bible Stories for Children;   Children;   Commands;   Divine;   Faith;   Hindrances;   Home;   Miracles;   Pleasant Sunday Afternoons;   Religion;   Stories for Children;   Tested;   Tests, Spiritual;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Holy Land;   Priests;   Sieges;   Theocracy, the, or Immediate Government by God;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Ark;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Joshua;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Joshua, the Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Israel;   Jericho;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Ark;   Journeyings of israel from egypt to canaan;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Jericho;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Conquest of Canaan;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Joshua, Book of;   Palestine (Recent Exploration, I.e. as of 1915);   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Joshua, Book of;   War;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.
Hebrew Names Version
You shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shall you do six days.
King James Version
And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
Lexham English Bible
You will march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once; you will do so for six days.
English Standard Version
You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.
New Century Version
March around the city with your army once a day for six days.
New English Translation
Have all the warriors march around the city one time; do this for six days.
Amplified Bible
"Now you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do this [once each day] for six days.
New American Standard Bible
"And you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.
Geneva Bible (1587)
All ye therefore that be men of warre, shall compasse the citie, in going round about the citie once: thus shall you doe sixe dayes:
Legacy Standard Bible
And you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.
Complete Jewish Bible
You are to encircle the city with all your soldiers and march around it once. Do this for six days.
Darby Translation
And ye shall go round the city, all the men of war, encompassing the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
Easy-to-Read Version
March around the city with your army once every day for six days.
George Lamsa Translation
And you shall encircle the city, all the men of war, and you shall go round about the city once a day. Thus shall you do for six days.
Good News Translation
You and your soldiers are to march around the city once a day for six days.
Literal Translation
And you shall go around the city, all the men of battle, going around the city once; so you shall do six days.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Let all the men of warre go once rounde aboute ye cite, and do so sixe dayes.
American Standard Version
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
Bible in Basic English
Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And ye shall compasse all the citie, all ye that be men of warre, and go rounde about it once: & so shal you do sixe dayes.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
King James Version (1611)
And ye shall compasse the city, all yee men of warre, and goe round about the city once: thus shalt thou doe sixe dayes.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And do thou set the men of war round about it.
English Revised Version
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
Berean Standard Bible
March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Alle ye fiyteris, cumpasse the citee onys bi the day; so ye schulen do in sixe daies.
Young's Literal Translation
and ye have compassed the city -- all the men of battle -- going round the city once; thus thou dost six days;
Update Bible Version
And you shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus you shall do six days.
Webster's Bible Translation
And ye shall compass the city, all [ye] men of war, [and] go round the city once: thus shalt thou do six days.
World English Bible
You shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shall you do six days.
New King James Version
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.
New Life Bible
Walk around the city. Have all the men of war go around the city once. Do this for six days.
New Revised Standard
You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days,
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
So then ye shall compass the city all ye men of war, going round the city, once, - thus, shall thou do six days.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Go round about the city all ye fighting men once a day: so shall ye do for six days.
Revised Standard Version
You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.

Contextual Overview

1 Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go out or in. 2 But the Lord said to Joshua, "I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its strong warriors. 3 You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days. 4 Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram's horn. On the seventh day you are to march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing the horns. 5 When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams' horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

ye shall: Joshua 6:7, Joshua 6:14, Numbers 14:9, 1 Corinthians 1:21-25, 2 Corinthians 4:7

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 25:19 - thou shalt Joshua 6:8 - before the Lord John 2:7 - Fill Hebrews 11:30 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 6:1
Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them.
Genesis 6:13
So God said to Noah, "I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!
Genesis 6:14
"Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior.
Genesis 6:15
Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Genesis 6:16
Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.
Genesis 6:18
But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
Genesis 6:20
Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive.
Numbers 11:17
I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone.
Nehemiah 9:30
In your love, you were patient with them for many years. You sent your Spirit, who warned them through the prophets. But still they wouldn't listen! So once again you allowed the peoples of the land to conquer them.
Psalms 78:39
For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And ye shall compass the city, all [ye] men of war,.... Joshua their chief commander under the Lord, and all that were able to make war, even all above twenty years of age; these were to compass the city, not in the form of a siege, but by a procession around it:

[and] go round about the city once; or one time, for the first once in a day, and no more:

thus shall thou do six days; one after another; that is, go round it, once every day, for such a time. This order was given, according to the Jews w, the twenty second of Nisan, after the feast of unleavened bread was over.

w Seder Olam Rabba, c. 11. p. 31.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The command of the Lord as to the mode in which the fall of Jericho should be brought about is given in these verses in a condensed form. Further details (see Joshua 6:8-10, Joshua 6:16-17, etc.), were, no doubt, among the commands given to Joshua by the Angel.

Joshua 6:4

Trumpets of ram’s horns - Render rather here and in Joshua 6:5-6, Joshua 6:8, etc., “trumpets of jubilee” (compareLeviticus 25:10; Leviticus 25:10 note). The instrument is more correctly rendered “cornet” (see Leviticus 25:9, note). Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes, as, e. g., by the undermining of the walls, or by an earthquake, or by a sudden assault. But the narrative of this chapter does not afford the slightest warrant for any such explanations; indeed it is totally inconsistent with them. It must be taken as it stands; and so taken it intends, beyond all doubt, to narrate a miracle, or rather a series of miracles.

In the belief that a record is not necessarily unhistorical because it is miraculous, never perhaps was a miracle more needed than that which gave Jericho to Joshua. Its lofty walls and well-fenced gates made it simply impregnable to the Israelites - a nomad people, reared in the desert, destitute alike of the engines of war for assaulting a fortified town, and of skill and experience in the use of them if they had had them. Nothing line a direct interference of the Almighty could in a week’s time give a city like Jericho, thoroughly on its guard and prepared (compare Joshua 2:9 ff and Joshua 6:1), to besiegers situated as were Joshua and the Israelites.

The fall of Jericho cogently taught the inhabitants of Canaan that the successes of Israel were not mere human triumphs of man against man, and that the God of Israel was not as “the gods of the countries.” This lesson some of them at least learned to their salvation, e. g., Rahab and the Gibeonites. Further, ensuing close upon the miraculous passage of Jordan, it was impressed on the people, prone ever to be led by the senses, that the same God who had delivered their fathers out of Egypt and led them through the Red Sea, was with Joshua no less effectually than He had been with Moses.

And the details of the orders given by God to Joshua Joshua 6:3-5 illustrate this last point further. The trumpets employed were not the silver trumpets used for signalling the marshalling of the host and for other warlike purposes (compare Numbers 10:2), but the curved horns employed for ushering in the Jubilee and the Sabbatical Year (Septuagint, σάλπιγγες ἱεραί salpinges hierai: compare the Leviticus 23:24 note). The trumpets were borne by priests, and were seven in number; the processions round Jericho were to be made on seven days, and seven times on the seventh day, thus laying a stress on the sacred number seven, which was an emhlem more especially of the work of God. The ark of God also, the seat of His special presence, was carried round the city. All these particulars were calculated to set forth symbolically, and in a mode sure to arrest the attention of the people, the fact that their triumph was wholly due to the might of the Lord, and to that covenant which made their cause His.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Joshua 6:3. Ye shall compass the city — In what order the people marched round the city does not exactly appear from the text. Some think they observed the same order as in their ordinary marches in the desert; (Numbers 10:14, and see the plans, Numbers 2:2); others think that the soldiers marched first, then the priests who blew the trumpets, then those who carried the ark, and lastly the people.


 
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