When Joshua lays a curse on him who would build up the
jvn again, it is to be observed that to build a town is here
uivalent to restoring it as such ; fortifying it with walls and
tes : for it is these which make a place a town in the Hebrew
;a. Already,' in the time of the Judges and of David, there



420 SECOND PERIOD— SECOND SECTION.
was another Jericho on the same site, which might be called a
town in a wide sen*: comp. Judg. iii. 13 ; 2 Sam. x. 5. Not
until Ahab's time was the curse of Joshua literally fulfilled on
Hiel, who, disregarding it, ventured to restore the town, 1
Kings xvi. 34. The arguments by which the fact that Joshua
pronounced a curse on Jericho has been attacked in recent
times, are self-condemnatory. It is said that the curse put
into the mouth of Joshua bears a poetic character, as if this
were not necessarily involved in the nature of the thing ; and
again, " It would have been unworthy a wise man to prevent
his own people rebuilding a town in a place so well situated,
near the fords of the Jordan," — an opinion expressed by Paulus,
and based on a total misapprehension of the power of religion
on the mind, and of the spirit which animated Joshua, and
which may be considered as a recognition of the higher life
prevailing in Israel, as a testimonium ab hoste. Moreover there
are events externally analogous even in heathen antiquity.
Curses were also pronounced on Ilion, Fidenae, Carthage :
comp. Maurer, The Booh of Joshua, 1831, p. 60.
