Hebrews 11:30
in Hebrews 11By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days.
KJV
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.
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This verse in Hebrews 11
Commentary
11 notes on this verseBy faith the walls of Jericho fell down,.... Of themselves, not from any natural cause: the Jews say (n) they sunk right down into the ground, and were swallowed up; even the whole wall fell round about, as the Septuagint version in Jos 6:20 expresses it: or, it may be, only that which was over against the camp of Israel, as Kimchi observes; since Rahab's house was built upon the wall, and yet fell not.
This site's exposition
the walls of Jericho fell
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. Joshua's siege used no weapon, only marching and a shout at God's command. The fall is credited to the people's trust in His word.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers3 voices
"By faith, the walls of Jericho."For they believed that the future would fall, and certainly faith directed even those things that were above nature. "By faith, Rahab the harlot." For when she had heard the men reporting, she believed and received them, although the others …
"The place to the right is for others who have already pleased God, and have suffered for His name's sake; and you have yet much to accomplish before you can sit with them. But abide as you now do in your simplicity, and you will sit with them, and with all who do their deeds and bear what they have borne." "What have they borne?" said I. "Listen," said she: "scourges, prisons, great tribulations, crosses, wild beasts, for God's name's sake.
"By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days." For assuredly the sound of trumpets is not able to throw down stones, though one blow for ten thousand years; but Faith can do all things. Seest thou that in all cases it is not by natural sequence, nor yet by any law of nature that it was changed, but all is done contrary to expectation? Accordingly in this case also all is done contrary to expectation. For inasmuch as he had said again and again, that we ought to trust to the future hopes, he introduced all this argument with reason, showing that not now only, but even from the beginning all the miracles have been accomplished and achieved by means of it.
The Medieval Church2 voices
"By faith": for when God commanded, Joshua and the people did not doubt this and did not say: what is this? Can trumpet blasts destroy stones and fortresses? But they believed that it would happen, and it did (Josh. 6).
624. – Then when he says, By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, by the going round them seven days, he describes what happened when they entered the promised land. This is mentioned in Joshua (6), where it is stated that at God's command …
4 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
The advantages that we have in the gospel for the exercise of this grace above what those had who lived in the times of the Old Testament,
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
The walls of Jericho fell down - This is particularly explained Jos 6:1, etc. God had promised that the walls of Jericho should fall down, if they compassed them about seven days. They believed, did as they were commanded, and the promise was fulfilled.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
The soundings of trumpets, though one were to sound for ten thousand years, cannot throw down walls, but faith can do all things [CHRYSOSTOM]. seven days--whereas sieges often lasted for years.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down ... - Josephus, Heb 6:12-20. That is, it was not by any natural causes, or by any means that were in themselves adapted to secure such a result. It was not because they fell of themselves; nor because they were assailed by the hosts of the Israelites; nor was it because there was any natural tendency in the blowing of horns to cause them to fall. None of these things were true; and it was only by confidence in God that means so little adapted to such a purpose could have been employed at all; and it was only by continued faith in him that they could have been persevered in day by day, when no impression whatever was made. The strength of the faith evinced on this occasion appears from such circumstances as these: - that there was no natural tendency in the means used to produce the effect; that there was great apparent improbability that the effect would follow; that they might be exposed to much ridicule from those within the city for attempting to demolish their strong walls in this manner, and from the fact that the city was encircled day after day without producing any result. This may teach us the propriety and necessity of faith in similar circumstances. Ministers of the gospel often preach where there seems to be as little prospect of beating down the opposition in the human heart by the message which they deliver, as there was of demolishing the walls of Jericho by the blowing of rams’ horns. they blow the gospel trumpet from week to week and month to month, and there seems to be no tendency in the strong citadel of the heart to yield. Perhaps the only apparent result is to excite ridicule and scorn. Yet let them not despair. Let them blow on. Let them still lift up their voice with faith in God, and in due time the walls of the citadel will totter and fall. […]
The words behind it
9 Greek wordsEvery Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Greek | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Πίστει | pistei | By faith | G4102 → | 242 times |
| τὰ | ta | the | G3588 → | 19766 times |
| τείχη | teiche | walls | G5038 → | |
| Ἰεριχὼ | iericho | of Jericho | G2410 → | |
| ἔπεσαν | epesan | fell | G4098 → | 90 times |
| κυκλωθέντα | kuklothenta | having been encircled | G2944 → | |
| ἐπὶ | epi | for | G1909 → | 883 times |
| ἑπτὰ | hepta | seven | G2033 → | |
| ἡμέρας.¶ | hemeras | days. | G2250 → | 389 times |
ΠίστειBy faith
pisteiG4102 →242 times
τὰthe
taG3588 →19766 times
τείχηwalls
teicheG5038 →
Ἰεριχὼof Jericho
ierichoG2410 →
ἔπεσανfell
epesanG4098 →90 times
κυκλωθένταhaving been encircled
kuklothentaG2944 →
ἐπὶfor
epiG1909 →883 times
ἑπτὰseven
heptaG2033 →
ἡμέρας.¶days.
hemerasG2250 →389 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies65
On this verse
On this chapter
- Enoch, the Man Who Walked with God
- The Seven Brothers and Their Mother
- Abraham
- Adam to Noah
- All Scripture Is God-Breathed
- The Binding of Isaac
Show the next 6 titles
- The Apocrypha
- The General Epistles
- Cain and Abel
- Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism
- The Covenants
- Daniel in the Lions' Den: Daniel 6
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- David and Goliath
- Deborah and Jael
- Enoch Walked With God
- Ephraim and Manasseh, the two tribes of Joseph
- Esau
- Faith
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Show the next 6 titles
- Hard Questions in the Old Testament
- Hebron
- Abraham's Three Visitors
- Entertaining Angels Unaware
- The Shunammite Woman and Elisha
- Isaac
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Show the next 6 titles
- Mourning and Burial in Israel
- Noah
- Noah's Ark as a Type
- Abraham and Sarah: The Twenty-Five Years
- Patience and the Impulse
- Rahab and the Scarlet Cord
Show the next 6 titles
About Hebrews

Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Chrysostom, Homily on Hebrews 27; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Oecumenius, The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews; Shepherd of Hermas, Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3; Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Hebrews and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Hebrews.
