In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.
In the days of Ahab, a builder from Bethel raised Jericho's walls again — and buried two sons doing it. The verse reads like a footnote to a dark reign. Yet it records a word spoken five hundred years earlier, landing where God said it would.
A word held over five centuries
Joshua's curse on anyone who rebuilt Jericho had stood untouched for generations. One writer traces how long it held, and what kind of man broke it.
W. W. FeredayWhen that vile city was destroyed in the days of Joshua, God pronounced a curse against any man who would restore it. "At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates" (Joshua 6:26). For some five hundred years people respected this terrible curse, and Jericho remained a heap of ruins. Now someone arises to whom the fear of God is nothing. Jericho shall be rebuilt; why should so pleasant a spot have no one living in it? But what about the word of the Lord? What about the judgment pronounced? At all this the unbeliever sneered; he believed none of it. But God carried out His sentence all the same. Both his firstborn and his youngest son died because of his contempt for God.
Another writer notes that no one had dared it even during Israel's worst detours: "Five hundred years passed between Joshua and Ahab; but during all that time, when the people of Israel often turned aside into paths of disobedience, no one was bold enough to defy the divine curse."
What Jericho stood for
One writer reads Jericho's setting and its name as a picture of something larger.
Frederick W. GrantJericho is a striking picture of the world under the curse. God had devoted it to complete destruction, as we know He has devoted the world. However lovely its surroundings, it sat beside the "river of death," the Jordan, very near the Salt Sea, the sea of judgment, into which the Jordan flows. The word Jericho means "Sweet Savour," in striking contrast to what it was to God. The whole land truly stank before God, and this city of Jericho carried His special curse.
The name and the building
Hiel's name carries its own irony, and the word translated "built" points to more than houses.
C. KnappJericho belonged to Judah. Instead of staying at Bethel, inside his own king's territory, Hiel presumed to fortify the city for his master Ahab — for this is what "build" means here. It seems he wanted to control the ford of the Jordan. For this trespass and disregard of God's word, the threatened judgment fell on his first- and last-born sons. His name Hiel means "God lives." This presumptuous man learned to his sorrow that the Lord was the living God. His word will stand, and no one can break it and go free.
Why it stands in Ahab's reign
The verse closes a chapter of moral ruin. Its placement is the point.
J. N. DarbyIn the middle of all this moral ruin, the word of God reaches those who break it. Joshua's prophetic judgment on whoever should rebuild Jericho comes true in the family of Hiel the Bethelite. God's ways and government appear in full force, however great His patience with a rebellious people. And the energy of the king's wickedness, met by God's long-suffering, calls out a testimony as remarkable as the evil that made it necessary.
The same defiance today
Hiel's real offence was not building but disbelief. One writer sees the same attitude today.
W. W. FeredayHiel's open defiance of God shows a form of evil that has become painfully common in our day. People openly challenge the judgments of God. We cannot help recalling Satan's first move against our race. The generous Creator placed Adam and his wife in a garden of plenty and delight, with just one thing forbidden. There was a tree in the middle of the garden they must not eat from, or the judgment of death would follow (Gen. 2:17). The serpent came to Eve, as we all know, challenging God's word about this. He said plainly, "You will not surely die" (Gen. 3:4). But the word of God stood all the same, and so it must always be.
Not the curse, but healing
The story of this city does not stop with Hiel. One writer follows its whole record in Scripture — curse, then judgment, then healing.
J. G. BellettIf it is not too bold a thought, I would suggest that Scripture's history of Jericho shows us a sample of the whole earth. God pronounced the curse on that city at the beginning (Joshua 6). That curse fell on it (1 Kings 16). But at the end it becomes a healed place, fit for the home and joy of God and man again. Is this not the parable of the earth?
Summary
- Word. God's sentence on Jericho waited five hundred years and lost no force. Delay is not cancellation.
- Defiance. Hiel treated a stated judgment as empty talk — the same lie the serpent sold Eve.
- Cost. The price fell where the warning said it would: the eldest son at the foundation, the youngest at the gates.
- Irony. His name means "God lives" — and that is what he proved. No one breaks the living God's word and goes free.
- Hope. Jericho's story ends not with the curse but with healing — a picture, some suggest, of the whole earth restored.