Question
What is the signifigance of the number seven in th estory of the conquest of Yericho?
Thank you
Shalom POllack
Answer
BH
Shalom Shalom,
There is great significance and symbolism in all of the numbers in
Judaism. The Maharal and others explain that the number seven
represents the complete natural cycle of the world which includes the
physical (six days of creation) and the spiritual (Shabbat).
Similarly, there are six days in a week and the 7th is Shabbat, 6
years in a sabbatical cycle, then the 7th year is Shmitta, etc. It’s
written at the end of the Book of Y’hoshua (ch. 24) that the seven
nations of Cana’an all fought against Israel in Y’richo. Our rabbis
explain in the midrash (Bamidbar Rabba 15, 15) that this means to say
that Jericho, which was on the border of the Jordan river, was the
“padlock” of Eretz Yisrael, and conquering her opens the lock to begin
the liberation of the rest of the Holy Land, inhabited then by the 7
nations of Canaan. Midrash Tanchuma (Masei 5) points out that Y’richo
was conquered on Shabbat, the seventh day. If so, it makes sense that
the seven days of circling Y’richo, and 7 times on the 7th day, 7
kohanim, 7 shofars etc. all point to the fact that the beginning of
the liberating of the Holy Land, which encompasses the spiritual
(“Holy”) and physical (“Land”), is typified so well with the unity of
the physical and the spiritual, as symbolized by the number seven.
With Love of Israel,
Rav Ari Shvat
