Jericho

Jericho, the "city of palm trees" (Deuteronomy 34:3), lies in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea — one of the lowest and oldest cities on earth. It was the first Canaanite city Israel faced after crossing the Jordan.

The walls that fell

At God’s command, Israel marched around Jericho for seven days; on the seventh, the people shouted, the walls fell flat, and the city was taken — but Rahab, who had hidden the spies, was spared (Joshua 6:20–25).

The prophets and the spring

Jericho later housed a company of prophets. There Elijah was taken up nearby, and Elisha healed the city’s bitter spring with salt (2 Kings 2:19–22).

Jesus at Jericho

Centuries later Jesus passed through Jericho, where he healed blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46–52) and called the tax collector Zacchaeus down from a sycamore tree (Luke 19:1–10). The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho is also the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30).

Tell es-Sultan, the mound of ancient Jericho, has yielded some of the earliest known human settlement — including a Neolithic stone tower dating back roughly 10,000 years. Excavations by Kathleen Kenyon and others have documented repeated cycles of building and destruction. New Testament Jericho lay a short distance away, where Herod the Great built a winter palace complex.