Dictionary Article

Ancient city on the west side of the Jordan River. The name Jericho may be connected to the ancient name of the Canaanite moon god. The Hebrew words for moon, month, new moon, and Jericho are very similar. Others associate it with the word for spirit or smell, assuming that the pleasant fragrances of the fruits and spices that grew in this oasis occasioned the name of the place. The OT occasionally calls it “the city of palm trees” (e.g., Dt 34:3; 2 Chr 28:15).

Jericho was located on the west side of the Jordan River about five miles (8 kilometers) from the southernmost fords and about ten miles (16 kilometers) northwest of the Dead Sea. Being in the broad part of the plain of the Jordan, it lies nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) below sea level and about 3,500 feet (1,067 meters) below Jerusalem, which was a mere 17 miles (27 kilometers) away. This simple topographical fact explains the incidental words in Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan, “down from Jerusalem to Jericho” (Lk 10:30).

Jericho was a large and thriving city for centuries, even millennia, before the Bible first mentions it in connection with the exodus from Egypt. In fact, Jericho is one of the oldest cities in the world, with remains dating to and before the Neolithic Age 10,000 years ago.

For three reasons primitive people would have chosen this site, first as a settlement and eventually as a key city: (1) It has a copious spring, now called Elisha’s Fountain (cf. 2 Kgs 2:18-22). (2) It has a warm climate in the winter, although “hot” describes it in the summer. (3) It is strategically located at a Jordan ford and at the base of several routes leading westward to the foothills.

The comings and goings of various populations can be reconstructed only sketchily from noninscriptional archaeological data. The civilizations grew more complex over the years, going from a simple food-gathering economy at first to the relatively complex urban society, complete with king, soldiers, and guest houses, that Joshua encountered. The first certain identification of its inhabitants occurs in Numbers 13:29: “The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan” (rsv).

The Jericho of the OT is best known as the first city taken by the invading Israelites through the miracle of the falling walls. Having spent some time on the east bank of the Jordan in the plains of Moab (Nm 22:1; 26:3, 63), the Israelites targeted it as the first military objective in the Conquest. Joshua sent spies to reconnoiter the land and the city. Rahab the harlot took them in and later engineered their escape. For her cooperation, she and her family were spared when Israel destroyed the city (Jos 2, 6). The fall of the city itself occurred after the Israelites had marched around it in silence, except for the continual blowing of trumpets, once a day for six days and then seven times on the seventh day. Then, as the priests blew the trumpets, the people shouted and the walls collapsed.

Joshua laid a curse on anyone who might rebuild Jericho (Jos 6:26). The curse was fulfilled about 500 years later when Hiel rebuilt the city at the cost of two of his sons (1 Kgs 16:34).

Jericho was in the territory of Benjamin but right on the border with the territory of Ephraim to the north (Jos 16:1, 7; 18:12, 21) and appears in scattered incidents throughout the rest of the OT. In 2 Samuel 10:5 (see also 1 Chr 19:5) David had his humiliated ambassadors wait there until their beards grew back. It served as a kind of headquarters for Elisha and apparently was where a “company of the prophets” lived (2 Kgs 2:5; cf. 1 Sm 10:5). During the time of Ahaz, a return of prisoners took place there (2 Chr 28:15). When Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, the reigning king, Zedekiah, fled to near Jericho but was caught by the Babylonians, who later put out his eyes at Riblah in Syria (2 Kgs 25:5; Jer 39:5; 52:8). The last OT references to Jericho are in the census lists of Ezra (Ezr 2:34) and Nehemiah (Neh 7:36). Men from Jericho also helped rebuild the Jerusalem wall (3:2).

First, it must be understood that the Jericho of NT times was built by Herod more than a mile to the south of the OT site, at the mouth of the Wadi Qilt. It is possible to sort out the healing of the blind men episodes in the synoptic Gospels by understanding that Jesus was passing from the site of ancient Jericho (Mt 20:29; Mk 10:46) and approaching Herodian Jericho (Lk 18:35). The modern city of Jericho includes both these sites. As Jesus passed through Jericho (19:1) he met and ate with Zacchaeus, the wealthy chief tax collector of the new Roman Jericho. The city also figures in the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:30-37).

While ancient Jericho was of small consequence after its destruction under Joshua, the Jericho of Herod was a city of beauty and importance. But even this city fell into decay with the decline of Roman influence in the Middle East. Most of what we know of the city until modern times comes from the writings of pilgrims to the Holy Land. They usually report seeing certain things of biblical significance, such as the tree that Zacchaeus climbed, but they also report that Jericho was a squalid, wretched Muslim village. And such it has been until relatively recent times, when it grew in size and importance as a major West Bank city.

Archaeology at Jericho

Jericho was excavated first by Charles Warren in 1868, then by Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger in 1907–11, and then by John Garstang in 1930–36. Garstang thought he had found the wall that fell before the Israelites, but the more thorough, scientific, and widely accepted results of the investigations by Kathleen Kenyon in 1952–56 showed that the topmost level of ruins was already too early to tell anything of the city of Joshua’s day. To her goes the credit for uncovering and interpreting the many layers of civilizations that date back to 8000 BC at Jericho.

Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary