JERICHO

A. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The history of Jericho is quite interesting.  Some scholars feel that Jericho is one of the oldest fortified cities to ever be discovered.   This city, long identified with Tel es-Sultan, 6 miles north of the Dead Sea, lies about 750 feet below sea level.  The plentiful supply of water from nearby Ain-es-Sultan (“Spring of Sultan”) has provided this city for centuries.  During Biblical times, this city towered some 65 feet above the surrounding plain and occupied an area of 10 acres.

According to some archaeologist, people have been occupying this city long before its mentioning in the Old Testament.   Apparently, new settlers to this region did not build permanent dwelling places and probably lived here as nomadic shepherds.   The earliest signs of a fortified occupation occurs in the later part of the Early Bronze period.  

Other than the Biblical historical narrative of Joshua 6, we do not have any other significant historical reference to this city of Palms.   However, we do know that at the time of the New Testament, the location of Jericho shifted southward a considerable distance.  This was the location of King Herod the Great’s winter palace.  It was here where Jesus encountered Zacchaeus and healed the blind man on his way to Jerusalem.

B. BIBLICAL REFERENCES

1.   Deut. 32:49   Moses is said to stand on Mt. Nebo (in Jordan) as he  overlooked the Promised Land and Jericho.

2.  Josh. 2:1-23   Joshua sends 2 men to spy on Jericho.  Rahab provides shelter.

3.  Josh. 4-6  With 40,000 men in Gilgal (nearby in the Jordan Valley), Joshua makes his move on Jericho.  After walking around the city for 7 days, the priests blow their shofars (trumpets) and the walls tumble down.

4.  Josh. 7:2   Jericho is used as the starting point for the invasion upon Ai in the Judean Hill Country.  Any of 3 natural routes could have been used to advance to Ai.

5.  II Sam. 10:5    David makes peace with Ammon.  But the Ammonites think David’s men are spies.  Therefore, these enemies cut David’s men beards off.  The Israelites must stay at Jericho until their beards grow back.

6.  I Kgs. 16:34  The city was rebuilt by Hiel the Bethelite.

7.  II Kgs. 2:4-5   The sons of the prophets were to be found in Jericho.  Elijah went there shortly before he was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.

8.  II Kgs. 2:18f   Elisha purified the waters of the town’s spring.

9.  II Kgs. 25:5     During the Babylonian invasion of 587/6 B.C., King Zedekiah of Judah flees from King Nebuchadnezzer to the plains of Jericho.

10.  Neh. 3:2, 7:36 After the return from the Babylonian Captivity, Jericho was  re-settled and its people took part in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.           

11.  Mt. 20:20-34   At Jericho, the mother of James and John ask Jesus to make her sons sit on His right and left hand side in heaven.  After this in their departure for Jerusalem, Jesus heals 2 blind men “by the wayside.”  Mark 10:46 tells us the one was named Bartimaeus.

12. Luke 10:30   In the parable of the Good Samaritan, this story takes place along the route between Jericho and Jerusalem.

13. Luke 19:1f  Jesus encounters Zacchaeus in a fig tree.

C. ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS OF INTEREST 

The first major excavation of the site of Jericho was carried out by a German team between 1907 and 1909.  They found piles of mud brick at the base of the mound the city was built on.  It was not until a British archaeologist named Kathleen Kenyon reexcavated the site with modern methods in the 1950’s that it was understood what these piles of bricks were.  She determined that they were from the city wall which had collapsed when the city was destroyed. 

The story in the Bible records that when the walls collapsed, Joshua and his men stormed the city and set it on fire.  Archaeologists found evidence for a massive destruction by fire just as the Bible relates.  Kenyon even records in her excavation report, “The destruction was complete.  Walls and floors were blackened or reddened by fire and every room was filled with fallen bricks, timbers, and household utensils; in most rooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt.”

However, she dated these ruins to a time (16th century B.C.) not corresponding to Joshua’s Conquest of the Promise Land.

Presently, many archaeologists who do not maintain an accurate and dependable historicity of Scripture still date these remains to periods other than the time of Joshua.  However, more conservative scholars such as Dr. Bryant Wood are taking a new look at the city’s archaeological evidence and are affirming the Biblical date for the Conquest.

1.   NEOLITHIC/CHALCOLITHIC: Some scholars argue that a cultic place exists from this pre-history period.  The evidence is argumentative.

2.   EARLY BRONZE II: This strata of occupation had no less than 17 super- imposed phases of city walls.  Also, burial tombs were discovered, in one of them about 100 skulls were counted.         

3.  MIDDLE BRONZE II:  Better preserved are the MB houses of this period.  They were small and sometimes irregularly shaped.  Also, the fortification walls of this period were quite typical, consisting of a massive retaining wall built of stone and a glacis faced with a layer of hard lime plaster that covered the slope of the mound.  The glacis rose 50 feet above the level of the surrounding plain.  This city flourish in the 17th and 16th centuries.

4.  LATE BRONZE:  Whereas Kenyon would date the fortification wall and the houses to an earlier period, Dr. Wood suggests that the destruction of these walls should be about 1,400 B.C. (just as John Garstang, a previous British archaeologist suggested in the 1930’s).  There is evidence that Jericho’s walls were shatter with a fiery attack around the time of the Conquest (properly dated to around 1,400 B.C.).  There is also evidence that perhaps 2 walls (a revetment wall, with large boulders, as well as a parapet wall, with small bricks) once stood to protect this city from enemies.  Canaanite pottery has also been unearthed.

5.   ROMAN I:  After the mound of OT Jericho was abandoned, King Herod built His winter palace at Tulul Abu-el-Alaiq, south of the OT city.  Here, a palace can be seen as well as mikvot (Jewish ritual baths).