Background, Importance of

“What is the background of the passage, the context of the verse in question? If you are dealing with Joshua and the battle of Jericho in Joshua 6, it will make a great deal of difference if you understand what blowing the shofarim meant when they blew those ram’s horns and the walls of Jericho fall.

Those ram’s horns were blown at the beginning of the year of Jubilee. When the year of Jubilee was observed, all property reverted back to the original owner. When the priests blew those horns at the wall of Jericho, it was as if God said that this land was reverting back to the original owner—and He was the original owner. God took that land back from the pagan idolaters at Jericho and gave it to His people.”

[Bryant & Brunson, The New Guidebook for Pastors, 37]