Miracles in Jericho

Jericho was certainly where the Bible said it was in Joshua 5 and 6 – the tumbled walls are still there. The question was when did it happen?

Some scholars think the city was destroyed over a century before the Hebrews got there. Now new evidence from studies of ceramics, royal objects, seismic activity in the region, carbon-14 dating, and the ruins themselves show new evidence that the city was destroyed when most scholars believe that the Hebrews arrived – about 1400 BC.

”When we compare the archeological evidence at Jericho with the biblical narrative describing the Israelite destruction of Jericho, we find a quite remarkable agreement,” Dr. Bryant G. Wood, an archeologist at the University of Toronto, wrote in the March-April issue of Biblical Archeology Review.

Some scientists theorized that an earthquake destroyed the wall of Jericho. It is perfectly true that that the area is seismically active. Where the scientists go wrong is believing that if an earthquake leveled Jericho’s walls, it cannot have been a miracle of God. This is a misunderstanding of God and his work in the world. God may work miracles outside of the created order because He is its Creator, and is not subject to its laws. He may also work miracles within the creative order that He created!

Some scholars also thought that geologists discovered sulphur pockets underneath the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah, this would somehow disprove God’s destruction of these awful cities. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God may well have used the sulphur pockets that He created to chose to rain destruction on both cities. This was His will, and by His hand.

Given our modern time when water fracking can cause earthquakes, I do not find it any coincidence that God had the Hebrews march around the city 13 times. And remember this wasn’t a group of 100 or so men just stepping around. This was an huge army who shook the ground when they marched. And I have no trouble believing that at God’s will, the marching caused the earthquake that shook down the walls.

God may have used another earthquake to stop the Jordan River from flowing while the Hebrews crossed it. Or He could have piled up waters in one place simply by willing it. The point is that He did it and none other.