Jericho and the Power of the Mind

The Jericho Story

I reckon God had it easy in biblical times. Situations were either black or white. No grey areas. Only one race of people was "chosen" and God was on their side. Nowadays, when two nations go to war, they both claim God is on their side. This puts God in a serious dilemma since they can't both win. What a responsibility!

Most of us have been fed the sanitised version of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, and the rollicking song about the walls "tumbling down". It has been accepted as "business as usual" for the children of Israel, and no one bats an eye about the bloodshed and death that goes with such crusades. A bit like the Middle East today. No change there!

However, I'm not writing this post to moralize but to highlight the psychological aspect of Joshua's success in this campaign, and his hardly-mentioned defeat in the following one.


Mental Preparation

Have you ever witnessed or experienced firewalking or smashed a one inch thick piece of wood with your bare hand. Even comparatively "weak" members of the audience have achieved success here, but I guarantee that if they tried to repeat it at home they would fail. Why? Because the mental preparation would not be in place. At these events the audiences are hyped up to incredible levels. They shout and repeat words of encouragement to the one on the stage. What they are doing in fact is combining their energy and giving it to that special person, to whom victory is the only outcome. The military also use the same technique on their raw recruits. Without it, they would not be able to do the job.

So it was with Joshua and his men before they conquered Jericho. They were hyped up. Their mental preparation was perfect. They could not fail.

The Transgression

"But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing..." (Joshua 7:1 King James Version)

It so happened that Joshua's men tried to "take" the city of Ai. It was smaller than Jericho and wouldn't need the same task force or preparation. The result of this campaign was defeat. The men of Israel were chased back to their camp and Joshua "rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face..."

The reason given for the defeat was that someone had taken something he wasn't supposed to from Jericho - "the accursed thing", and was made to confess the crime. Have you noticed in politics, there's always a scapegoat when things go wrong.

I reckon this failure was nothing more than bad mental preparation. The battle hype wasn't there. The men of Israel were probably living on past glory, something we would call over-confidence, but with no substance to it. That was the transgression.

When they eventually got it right, they were victorious over the people of Ai. It's all to do with the power of the mind.

More bloodshed!

(Sigh)