Jericho

his moon; his month; his sweet smell

Jericho

(place of fragrance), a city of high antiquity, situated in a plain traversed by the Jordan, and exactly over against where that river was crossed by the Israelites under Joshua. (Joshua 3:16) It was five miles west of the Jordan and seven miles northwest of the Dead Sea. It had a king. Its walls were so considerable that houses were built upon them. ch. (Joshua 2:15) The spoil that was found in it betokened its affluence. Jericho is first mentioned as the city to which the two spies were sent by Joshua from Shittim. (Joshua 2:1-21) It was bestowed by him upon the tribe of Benjamin, ch. (Joshua 18:21) and from this time a long interval elapses before Jericho appears again upon the scene. Its second foundation under Hiel the Bethelite is recorded in (1 Kings 16:34) Once rebuilt, Jericho rose again slowly into consequence. In its immediate vicinity the sons of the prophets sought retirement from the world; Elisha "healed the spring of the waters;" and over against it, beyond Jordan, Elijah "went up by a whirlwind into heaven." (2 Kings 2:1-22) In its plains Zedekiah fell into the hands of the Chaldeans. (2 Kings 25:5; Jeremiah 39:5) In the return under Zerubbabel the "children of Jericho," 345 in number, are comprised. (Ezra 2:34; Nehemiah 7:36) Under Herod the Great it again became an important place. He fortified it and built a number of new palaces, which he named after his friends. If he did not make Jericho his habitual residence, he at last retired thither to die, and it was in the amphitheater of Jericho that the news of his death was announced to the assembled soldiers and people by Salome. Soon afterward the palace was burnt and the town plundered by one Simon, slave to Herod; but Archelaus rebuilt the former sumptuously, and founded a new town on the plain, that bore his own name; and, most important of all, diverted water from a village called Neaera to irrigate the plain which he had planted with palms. Thus Jericho was once more "a city of palms" when our Lord visited it. Here he restored sight to the blind. (Matthew 20:30; Mark 10:46; Luke 18:35) Here the descendant of Rahab did not disdain the hospitality of Zaccaeus the publican. Finally, between Jerusalem and Jericho was laid the scene of his story of the good Samaritan. The city was destroyed by Vespasian. The site of ancient (the first) Jericho is placed by Dr. Robinson in the immediate neighborhood of the fountain of Elisha; and that of the second (the city of the New Testament and of Josephus) at the opening of the Wady Kelt (Cherith), half an hour from the fountain. (The village identified with jericho lies a mile and a half from the ancient site, and is called Riha . It contains probably 200 inhabitants, indolent and licentious and about 40 houses. Dr. Olin says it is the "meanest and foulest village of Palestine;" yet the soil of the plain is of unsurpassed fertility. --ED.)

Jericho

A city of Benjamin, Joshua 16:7 18:21, about eighteen miles east north east of Jerusalem, and seven miles from the Jordan. It was the first city in Canaan taken by Joshua, who being miraculously aided by the downfall of its walls, totally destroyed it, sparing only Rahab and her household, and pronounced a curse upon the person who should ever rebuild it, which was more than five hundred years afterwards fulfilled on Hiel, Joshua 6:26 1 Kings 16:34. Meanwhile a new Jericho had been built on some neighboring site, Jud 3:3 2Sa 10:5. Jericho was also called the "city of palm-trees," De 34:3 Jud 1:16, and became afterwards flourishing and second in importance only to Jerusalem. It contained a school of the prophets, and as the residence of Elisha, 2 Kings 2:4,18. Here also Christ healed two blind men, Matthew 20:29-34, and forgave Zaccheus, Luke 19:2-8.

The site of Jericho has usually been fixed at Rihah, a mean and foul Arab hamlet of some two hundred inhabitants. Recent travellers, however, show that the probably location of Jericho was two mile west of Rihah, at the mouth of Wady Kelt, and where the road from Jerusalem comes into the plain. The city destroyed by Joshua may have been nearer to the fountain of Elisha, supposed to be the present Ain es-Sultan, two miles northwest of Rihah. On the west and north of Jericho rise high limestone hills, one of which, the dreary Quarantana, 1,200 or 1,500 feet high, derives its name from the modern tradition that it was the scene of our Lord's forty days' fast and temptation. Between the hills and the Jordan lies "the plain of Jericho," Joshua 4:13, over against "the plains of Moab" east of the river. It was anciently well watered and amazingly fruitful. It might easily be made so again, but now lies neglected, and the palmtrees, balsam, and honey, for which it was once famous, have disappeared.

The road from Jericho to Jerusalem ascends through narrow and rocky passes amid ravines and precipices. It is an exceedingly difficult and dangerous route, and is still infested by robbers, as in the time of the good Samaritan, Luke 10:30-34.

JERICHO

jer'-i-ko (the word occurs in two forms. In the Pentateuch, in 2 Kings 25:5 and in Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles it is written yerecho; yericho, elsewhere): In 1 Kings 16:34 the final Hebrew letter is he (h), instead of waw (w). The termination waw (w) thought to preserve the peculiarities of the old Canaanite. dialect. In the Septuagint we have the indeclinable form, Iericho (Swete has the form Iereicho as well), both with and without the feminine article; in the New Testament Iereicho, once with the feminine article The Arabic is er-Riha. According to Deuteronomy 32:49 it stood opposite Nebo, while in 34:3 it is called a city grove of palm trees. It was surrounded with a wall (Joshua 2:15), and provided with a gate which was closed at night (Joshua 2:5), and was ruled over by a king. When captured, vessels of brass and iron, large quantities of silver and gold, and "a goodly Babylonish garment" were found in it (Joshua 7:21). It was on the western side of the Jordan, not far from the camp of Israel at Shittim, before crossing the river (Joshua 2:1). The city was on the "plains" (Joshua 4:13), but so close to "the mountain" on the West (probably the cliffs of Quarantania, the traditional scene of Christ's temptation) that it was within easy reach of the spies, protected by Rahab. It was in the lot of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21), the border of which ascended to the "slope (English versions of the Bible "side") of Jeremiah on the North" (Joshua 18:12). Authorities are generally agreed in locating the ancient city at Tel es-Sultan, a mile and a half Northwest of modern Jericho. Here there is a mound 1,200 ft. long and 50 ft. in height supporting 4 smaller mounds, the highest of which is 90 ft. above the base of the main mound.

The geological situation (see JORDAN VALLEY) sheds great light upon the capture of the city by Joshua (Joshua 6). If the city was built as we suppose it to have been, upon the unconsolidated sedimentary deposits which accumulated to a great depth in the Jordan valley during the enlargement of the Dead Sea, which took place in Pleistocene (or glacial) times, the sudden falling of the walls becomes easily credible to anyone who believes in the personality of God and in His power either to foreknow the future or to direct at His will the secondary causes with which man has to deal in Nature. The narrative does not state that the blowing of the rams' horns of themselves effected the falling of the walls. It was simply said that at a specified juncture on the 7th day the walls would fall, and that they actually fell at that juncture. The miracle may, therefore, be regarded as either that of prophecy, in which the Creator by foretelling the course of things to Joshua, secured the junction of Divine and human activities which constitutes a true miracle, or we may regard the movements which brought down the walls to be the result of direct Divine action, such as is exerted by man when be produces an explosion of dynamite at a particular time and place. The phenomena are just such as occurred in the earthquake of San Francisco in 1906, where, according to the report of the scientific commission appointed by the state, "the most violent destruction of buildings was on the made ground. This ground seems to have behaved during the earthquake very much in the same way as jelly in a bowl, or as a semi-liquid in a tank." Santa Rosa, situated on the valley floor, "underlain to a considerable depth by loose or slightly coherent geological formations,.... 20 miles from the rift, was the most severely shaken town in the state and suffered the greatest disaster relatively to its population and extent" (Report, 13 and 15). Thus an earthquake, such as is easily provided for along the margin of this great Jordan crevasse, would produce exactly the phenomena here described, and its occurrence at the time and place foretold to Joshua constitutes it a miracle of the first magnitude.

Notwithstanding the curse pronounced in Joshua 6:26 the King James Version, prophesying that whosoever should rebuild the city "he shall lay the foundations thereof in his firstborn," it was rebuilt (1 Kings 16:34) by Hiel the Bethelite in the days of Ahab. The curse was literally fulfilled. Still David's messengers are said to have "tarried at Jericho" in his day (2 Samuel 10:5 1 Chronicles 19:5). In Elisha's time (2 Kings 2:5) there was a school of prophets there, while several other references to the city occur in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha (2 Chronicles 28:15, where it is called "the city of palmtrees"; 2 Kings 25:5 Jeremiah 39:5 Ezra 2:34 Nehemiah 3:2; Nehemiah 7:36; 1 Maccabees 9:50). Josephus describes it and the fertile plain surrounding it, in glowing terms. In the time of Christ, it was an important place yielding a large revenue to the royal family. But the city which Herod rebuilt was on a higher elevation, at the base of the western mountain, probably at Beit Jubr, where there are the ruins of a small fort. Jericho was the place of rendezvous for Galilean pilgrims desiring to avoid Samaria, both in going to and in departing from Jerusalem, and it has been visited at all times by thousands of pilgrims, who go down from Jerusalem to bathe in the Jordan. The road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho is still infested by robbers who hide in the rocky caverns adjoining it, and appear without warning from the tributary gorges of the wadies which dissect the mountain wall. At the present time Jericho and the region about is occupied only by a few hundred miserable inhabitants, deteriorated by the torrid climate which prevails at the low level about the head of the Dead Sea. But the present barrenness of the region is largely due to the destruction of the aqueducts which formerly distributed over the plain the waters brought down through the wadies which descend from the mountains of Judea. The ruins of many of these are silent witnesses of the cause of its decay. Twelve aqueducts at various levels formerly branched from the Wady Kelt, irrigating the plain both North and South. Remains of Roman masonry are found in these. In the Middle Ages they were so repaired that an abundance and variety of crops were raised, including wheat, barley, millet, figs, grapes and sugar cane.

See further PALESTINE EXPLORATION.

George Frederick Wright

Place of fragrance, a fenced city in the midst of a vast grove of palm trees, in the plain of Jordan, over against the place where that river was crossed by the Israelites (Joshua 3:16). Its site was near the `Ain es-Sultan, Elisha's Fountain (2 Kings 2:19-22), about 5 miles west of Jordan. It was the most important city in the Jordan valley (Numbers 22:1; 34:15), and the strongest fortress in all the land of Canaan. It was the key to Western Palestine.

This city was taken in a very remarkable manner by the Israelites (Joshua 6). God gave it into their hands. The city was "accursed" (Hebrews herem, "devoted" to Jehovah), and accordingly (Joshua 6:17; Comp. Leviticus 27:28, 29; Deuteronomy 13:16) all the inhabitants and all the spoil of the city were to be destroyed, "only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron" were reserved and "put into the treasury of the house of Jehovah" (Joshua 6:24; Comp. Numbers 31:22, 23, 50-54). Only Rahab "and her father's household, and all that she had," were preserved from destruction, according to the promise of the spies (Joshua 2:14). In one of the Amarna tablets Adoni-zedec (q.v.) writes to the king of Egypt informing him that the `Abiri (Hebrews) had prevailed, and had taken the fortress of Jericho, and were plundering "all the king's lands." It would seem that the Egyptian troops had before this been withdrawn from Palestine.

This city was given to the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21), and it was inhabited in the time of the Judges (Judges 3:13; 2 Samuel 10:5). It is not again mentioned till the time of David (2 Samuel 10:5). "Children of Jericho" were among the captives who returned under Zerubbabel Ezra 2:34; Nehemiah 7:36q.v.) the Bethelite attempted to make it once more a fortified city (1 Kings 16:34). Between the beginning and the end of his undertaking all his children were cut off.

In New Testament times Jericho stood some distance to the south-east of the ancient one, and near the opening of the valley of Achor. It was a rich and flourishing town, having a considerable trade, and celebrated for the palm trees which adorned the plain around. It was visited by our Lord on his last journey to Jerusalem. Here he gave sight to two blind men (Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52), and brought salvation to the house of Zacchaeus the publican (Luke 19:2-10).

The poor hamlet of er-Riha, the representative of modern Jericho, is situated some two miles farther to the east. It is in a ruinous condition, having been destroyed by the Turks in 1840. "The soil of the plain," about the middle of which the ancient city stood, "is unsurpassed in fertility; there is abundance of water for irrigation, and many of the old aqueducts are almost perfect; yet nearly the whole plain is waste and desolate...The climate of Jericho is exceedingly hot and unhealthy. This is accounted for by the depression of the plain, which is about 1,200 feet below the level of the sea."

There were three different Jerichos, on three different sites, the Jericho of Joshua, the Jericho of Herod, and the Jericho of the Crusades. Er-Riha, the modern Jericho, dates from the time of the Crusades. Dr. Bliss has found in a hollow scooped out for some purpose or other near the foot of the biggest mound above the Sultan's Spring specimens of Amorite or pre-Israelitish pottery precisely identical with what he had discovered on the site of ancient Lachish. He also traced in this place for a short distance a mud brick wall in situ, which he supposes to be the very wall that fell before the trumpets of Joshua. The wall is not far from the foot of the great precipice of Quarantania and its numerous caverns, and the spies of Joshua could easily have fled from the city and been speedily hidden in these fastnesses.

2419. Chiel -- probably "brother of God," a rebuilder of Jericho
... << 2418, 2419. Chiel. 2420 >>. probably "brother of God," a rebuilder of Jericho.
Transliteration: Chiel Phonetic Spelling: (khee-ale') Short Definition: Hiel. ...
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131. Adummim -- a place between Jer. and Jericho
... a place between Jer. and Jericho. Transliteration: Adummim Phonetic Spelling:
(ad-oom-meem') Short Definition: Adummim. ... and Jericho NASB Word Usage Adummim (2). ...
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7343. Rachab -- a harlot in Jericho
... << 7342, 7343. Rachab. 7344 >>. a harlot in Jericho. Transliteration: Rachab
Phonetic Spelling: (raw-khawb') Short Definition: Rahab. ...
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3405. Yericho -- a city in the Jordan Valley captured by Joshua
... a city in the Jordan Valley captured by Joshua. Transliteration: Yericho or Yerecho
or Yerichoh Phonetic Spelling: (yer-ee-kho') Short Definition: Jericho. ...
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