Joshua 6:3

Amplified Bible

"Now you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do this [once each day] for six days.

Parallel Translations

English Standard Version
You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.

Update Bible Version
And you shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus you shall do six days.

English Revised Version
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

New Century Version
March around the city with your army once a day for six days.

New English Translation
Have all the warriors march around the city one time; do this for six days.

Webster's Bible Translation
And ye shall compass the city, all [ye] men of war, [and] go round the city once: thus shalt thou do six days.

World English Bible
You shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shall you do six days.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Alle ye fiyteris, cumpasse the citee onys bi the day; so ye schulen do in sixe daies.

Young's Literal Translation
and ye have compassed the city -- all the men of battle -- going round the city once; thus thou dost six days;

Berean Standard Bible
March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

American Standard Version
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

Bible in Basic English
Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And ye shall compasse all the citie, all ye that be men of warre, and go rounde about it once: & so shal you do sixe dayes.

Complete Jewish Bible
You are to encircle the city with all your soldiers and march around it once. Do this for six days.

Darby Translation
And ye shall go round the city, all the men of war, encompassing the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

Easy-to-Read Version
March around the city with your army once every day for six days.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

King James Version (1611)
And ye shall compasse the city, all yee men of warre, and goe round about the city once: thus shalt thou doe sixe dayes.

New Life Bible
Walk around the city. Have all the men of war go around the city once. Do this for six days.

New Revised Standard
You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days,

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
So then ye shall compass the city all ye men of war, going round the city, once, - thus, shall thou do six days.

Geneva Bible (1587)
All ye therefore that be men of warre, shall compasse the citie, in going round about the citie once: thus shall you doe sixe dayes:

George Lamsa Translation
And you shall encircle the city, all the men of war, and you shall go round about the city once a day. Thus shall you do for six days.

Good News Translation
You and your soldiers are to march around the city once a day for six days.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Go round about the city all ye fighting men once a day: so shall ye do for six days.

Revised Standard Version
You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And do thou set the men of war round about it.

Christian Standard Bible®
March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

Hebrew Names Version
You shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shall you do six days.

King James Version
And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

Lexham English Bible
You will march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once; you will do so for six days.

Literal Translation
And you shall go around the city, all the men of battle, going around the city once; so you shall do six days.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Let all the men of warre go once rounde aboute ye cite, and do so sixe dayes.

New American Standard Bible
"And you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.

New King James Version
You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days.

New Living Translation
You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.

Legacy Standard Bible
And you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.

Contextual Overview

¹Now Jericho [a fortified city with high walls] was tightly closed because [of the people's fear] of the sons of Israel; no one went out or came in. ²The LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the mighty warriors. ³"Now you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do this [once each day] for six days.⁴"Also, seven priests shall carry seven trumpets [made] of rams' horns ahead of the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. ⁵"When they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall cry out with a great shout (battle cry); and the wall of the city will fall down in its place, and the people shall go up, each man [going] straight ahead [climbing over the rubble]."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

ye shall: Joshua 6:7, Joshua 6:14, Numbers 14:9, 1 Corinthians 1:21-25, 2 Corinthians 4:7

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 25:19 - thou shalt Joshua 6:8 - before the Lord John 2:7 - Fill Hebrews 11:30 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 6:1
Now it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,

Genesis 6:13
God said to Noah, "I intend to make an end of all that lives, for through men the land is filled with violence; and behold, I am about to destroy them together with the land.

Genesis 6:14
"Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make in it rooms (stalls, pens, coops, nests, cages, compartments) and coat it inside and out with pitch (bitumen).

Genesis 6:15
"This is the way you are to make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits (450' x 75' x 45').

Genesis 6:16
"You shall make a window [for light and ventilation] for the ark, and finish it to at least a cubit (eighteen inches) from the top—and set the [entry] door of the ark in its side; and you shall make it with lower, second and third decks.

Genesis 6:18
"But I will establish My covenant (solemn promise, formal agreement) with you; and you shall come into the ark—you and your [three] sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you.

Genesis 6:20
"Of fowls and birds according to their kind, of animals according to their kind, of every crawling thing of the ground according to its kind—two of every kind shall come to you to keep them alive.

Numbers 11:17
"Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take away some of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not have to bear it all alone.

Nehemiah 9:30
"Yet You were patient with them for many years, And admonished them and warned them by Your Spirit through Your prophets; Still they would not listen. Therefore You gave them into the hand (power) of the peoples of the lands.

Psalms 78:39
For He [graciously] remembered that they were mere [human] flesh, A wind that goes and does not return.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And ye shall compass the city, all [ye] men of war,.... Joshua their chief commander under the Lord, and all that were able to make war, even all above twenty years of age; these were to compass the city, not in the form of a siege, but by a procession around it:

[and] go round about the city once; or one time, for the first once in a day, and no more:

thus shall thou do six days; one after another; that is, go round it, once every day, for such a time. This order was given, according to the Jews w, the twenty second of Nisan, after the feast of unleavened bread was over.

w Seder Olam Rabba, c. 11. p. 31.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The command of the Lord as to the mode in which the fall of Jericho should be brought about is given in these verses in a condensed form. Further details (see Joshua 6:8-10, Joshua 6:16-17, etc.), were, no doubt, among the commands given to Joshua by the Angel.

Joshua 6:4

Trumpets of ram’s horns - Render rather here and in Joshua 6:5-6, Joshua 6:8, etc., “trumpets of jubilee” (compareLeviticus 25:10; Leviticus 25:10 note). The instrument is more correctly rendered “cornet” (see Leviticus 25:9, note). Various attempts have been made to explain the fall of Jericho by natural causes, as, e. g., by the undermining of the walls, or by an earthquake, or by a sudden assault. But the narrative of this chapter does not afford the slightest warrant for any such explanations; indeed it is totally inconsistent with them. It must be taken as it stands; and so taken it intends, beyond all doubt, to narrate a miracle, or rather a series of miracles.

In the belief that a record is not necessarily unhistorical because it is miraculous, never perhaps was a miracle more needed than that which gave Jericho to Joshua. Its lofty walls and well-fenced gates made it simply impregnable to the Israelites - a nomad people, reared in the desert, destitute alike of the engines of war for assaulting a fortified town, and of skill and experience in the use of them if they had had them. Nothing line a direct interference of the Almighty could in a week’s time give a city like Jericho, thoroughly on its guard and prepared (compare Joshua 2:9 ff and Joshua 6:1), to besiegers situated as were Joshua and the Israelites.

The fall of Jericho cogently taught the inhabitants of Canaan that the successes of Israel were not mere human triumphs of man against man, and that the God of Israel was not as “the gods of the countries.” This lesson some of them at least learned to their salvation, e. g., Rahab and the Gibeonites. Further, ensuing close upon the miraculous passage of Jordan, it was impressed on the people, prone ever to be led by the senses, that the same God who had delivered their fathers out of Egypt and led them through the Red Sea, was with Joshua no less effectually than He had been with Moses.

And the details of the orders given by God to Joshua Joshua 6:3-5 illustrate this last point further. The trumpets employed were not the silver trumpets used for signalling the marshalling of the host and for other warlike purposes (compare Numbers 10:2), but the curved horns employed for ushering in the Jubilee and the Sabbatical Year (Septuagint, σάλπιγγες ἱεραί salpinges hierai: compare the Leviticus 23:24 note). The trumpets were borne by priests, and were seven in number; the processions round Jericho were to be made on seven days, and seven times on the seventh day, thus laying a stress on the sacred number seven, which was an emhlem more especially of the work of God. The ark of God also, the seat of His special presence, was carried round the city. All these particulars were calculated to set forth symbolically, and in a mode sure to arrest the attention of the people, the fact that their triumph was wholly due to the might of the Lord, and to that covenant which made their cause His.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Joshua 6:3. Ye shall compass the city — In what order the people marched round the city does not exactly appear from the text. Some think they observed the same order as in their ordinary marches in the desert; (Numbers 10:14, and see the plans, Numbers 2:2); others think that the soldiers marched first, then the priests who blew the trumpets, then those who carried the ark, and lastly the people.