"Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho"

African-American Spiritual

Do you know why all those English place names end in -borough or -bury mean? Same reason why the German place names end in -burg, and Swedish place names end in -borg, and so on. It means, “This place is a town!” And what’s a town? It’s a place with walls around it. The walls are to keep fierce creatures out, mainly the ones that go on two legs. Sometimes they’re robbers from your own country, and sometimes they’re robbers from another country, called “soldiers,” but the idea is the same. You put up the walls for protection. That’s not something that Europeans thought up. Wherever you have a lot of food that people have worked very hard to raise, you’ll have people who will want to grab it without having touched a plow or a sickle. The Egyptians didn’t need a lot of walls, because the desert and the great Nile River served the purpose. But the Sumerians and the Babylonians did need them, and that’s why the Gilgamesh epic begins and ends with a view of the walls of the city Uruk, which we’re to gaze upon in wonder. It’s as if the city was the greatest of man’s triumphs, and unless you’re perched on a mountaintop or are otherwise difficult of access, you can’t have a city without walls, and the compact high-protein grain you can store for many years, to make your bread.

Now, one thing that strikes me right at the beginning of Genesis is the dim view that the sacred author takes of cities. Who’s the first builder of city that we hear of? Cain, the fratricide. Saint Augustine made a big point of that, especially when it came to his critique of the greatest walled city in the world when he lived, the place called Rome, also, as legend had it, built by a fratricide. Livy gives one version of that legend. Romulus was building a wall of pretty broad dimensions, because he had big plans, but his twin brother Remus made fun of him, and leapt over the little thing. Romulus slew him on the spot, saying that that’s what would happen to anybody who ever tried to broach the walls of his city — so there. The old story is an old story. Joe’s got something, John wants it, Joe builds a wall, or Joe takes something from John, John wants it back, Joe builds a wall, John knocks it down, and so it goes. It’s true that the children of Israel eventually built the holy city of Jerusalem, but they were also instructed by what happens when the Babylonians get their dander and their army up. And Jeremiah, who warned the hapless Zedekiah time and again, lived to see the city put to the torch and the beloved Temple in ruins. Where is true glory to be found? Not in the city built by human hands.

And yet, there’s also in Scripture the excitement of breaking down the walls of the enemy. Jesus says that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against his church, and since gates sit where they are, it must mean that the gates of Hell will prove to be flimsy in the end, no more than paper and sticks. For as far as walls are concerned, Hell’s main objective is to keep goodness, truth, and beauty out. And that’s the sense I get in the magnificent and rousing spiritual, our Hymn of the Week, “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” Imagine the African slaves, facing what looked like the insurmountable wall of legalized slavery on one side and bigotry on the other, torn from their homelands, with no hope but in the God to whom their masters themselves introduced them. Yet with that hope, what could not be done? “Except the Lord build the house,” says the Psalmist, “they labor in vain that build it.”

So from the Christian faith itself, they learned the lesson that God is there to firm the arm of the courageous and faithful man who seems to fight against impossible odds. And this hymn springs from that lesson. What stirring music, in itself echoing the circling of Jericho by Joshua and his men, the blowing of the trumpets, and the crash of the walls as they and the musical notes “come a-tumbling down”! And what passion it should evoke in any one of us, wherever we are, when we are apt to give in to injustice, because the strife is fierce and the warfare long. The walls are not going to prevail.

We decided today to give you this spiritual in two forms, one a traditional setting as it might still (one hopes) be sung in a church, and the second a newer setting that is now quite popular with choirs around the world. — Debra

Refrain.
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
And the walls came tumbling down.

1. You may talk about the kings of Gideon,
You may talk about the man of Saul,
But there’s none like old Joshua,
At the battle of Jericho. Refrain

2. Right up to the walls of Jericho,
He marched with spear in hand.
Go, blow that ram’s horn, Joshua cried,
’Cause the battle is in my hand. Refrain

3. Then the lamb ram sheep horns began to blow,
And the trumpets began to sound,
And Joshua commanded the children to shout,
And the walls came tumblin’ down. Refrain

---

Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymns, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber. Learn more about our subscription tiers by clicking the button below.