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(the following text copied from the Pro Terra Sanctum ibreviary)
From a homily on Joshua by Origen, priest
(Hom. 6, 4: PG 12, 855-856)
The capture of Jericho
Once Jericho was surrounded it had to be stormed. How then was Jericho stormed? No sword was drawn against it, no battering ram was aimed at it, no javelins were hurled. The priests merely sounded their trumpets, and the walls of Jericho collapsed.
In the Scriptures Jericho is often represented as an image of the world. There can be no doubt that the man whom the Gospel describes as going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling into the hands of brigands is an image of Adam being driven out of paradise into the exile of this world. Likewise the blind men in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to give sight, signified the people in this world who were blinded by ignorance, to whom the son of God came.
Jericho will fall, then; this world will perish. Indeed in the sacred books the end of the world was proclaimed long ago. How will the world be brought to an end, and by what means will it be destroyed? The answer of Scripture is: By the sound of trumpets. If you ask what trumpets, then let Paul reveal the secret. Listen to what he says: The trumpet will sound, and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible. The voice of the archangel and the trumpets of God will give the signal, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Then the Lord Jesus will conquer Jericho with trumpets and destroy it, saving only the harlot and her household.
Jesus our Lord will come says Paul, and he will come with the sound of trumpets. He will save only the woman who received his spies, that is, his apostles, in faith and obedience, and hid them on the roof of her house; and he will join this harlot to the house of Israel. But let us not bring up her past sins again or impute them to her. She was a harlot once, but now she is joined to Christ, chaste virgin to one chaste husband. Listen to what the Apostle says of her: He has determined to present you to Christ as a chaste virgin to her one and only husband. Indeed, Paul himself had been born of her: Misled by our folly and disbelief, he said, we too were once slaves to our passions and to pleasures of every kind.
If you wish to learn more fully about how this harlot ceased to be a harlot then listen to Paul once again: And such were you also, but you have been cleansed and made holy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. To assure her escape when Jericho was destroyed, the harlot was given that most effective symbol of salvation, the scarlet cord. For it is by the blood of Christ that the entire Church is saved, in the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belongs glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
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"How then was Jericho stormed?" Origen asks. His answer is good, but he does not go far enough.
Jericho is indeed the image of the world, as he states.. But he misses the point, I think. It's not the silly trumpets that bring down the walls! Yes, they blow the ram's horns as they circle the city once for six days and seven times on the seventh day, and the wall does fall at the end of this 7th circuit when the people shout.... BUT, that's not the truth told in this episode from the book of Joshua. It's not the point of the story, and it's not a full truth.
A better answer is that the walls of Jericho fell because the Israelites obeyed the WORD OF GOD through their leader Joshua. The Lord told Joshua what to do, he conveyed His instructions to the people. The whole Israelite community obeyed Joshua's commands in every particular.
"Jericho will fall, then; this world will perish." Yes, Jericho will fall, but by 'Jericho' we refer to its peoples, not to the physical land. Those inhabitants of Jericho who did not accept God's Word - those who rejected Him and worshipped idols instead - ceased to exist to enjoy God's bounteous gift. They were dispossessed of that fine city. Only those who have accepted the One Holy Almighty One will be preserved on that day.
Rahab may have been a literal harlot; however, others see her as an innkeeper. But what I think cannot be disputed is that she also is a figure for all enslaved by original sin, the crime of not giving the only true God His due. But Rahab receives God's messengers, she shelters and helps Joshua's spies that are sent to her, and she is 'whore' no more but accepts God's Word that she receives from His messengers and aids them in their work. The world is indeed destroyed, but we're not talking about a physical land disappearing but an emptying and conquering of sin (inhabitants) to make way for the new Creation transformed by the glory of God in the Holy Spirit through the Presence of the Risen Christ, Emmanuel. This transformation already has begun, as through baptism each Christian carries the seeds of His Kingdom in this physical universe. We bring all peoples to Christ through our daily lives; it is we who reconcile Rahab and join her as one of the People of God.
In further support of what I say, let us also remember the other meaning for "Rahab"
4 [11] Rahab: a mythological sea monster whose name is used in the Bible mainly as a personification of primeval chaos. Cf ⇒ Job 9:13; ⇒ 26:12; ⇒Psalm 74:13-14; ⇒ Isaiah 51:9.
I have a very wise mother.
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Today (June 14th) is also the Carmelite Feast of Elisha the prophet, successor to Elijah and so his "eldest son" in THE LORD who so received a double inheritance...
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