The Walls of Yericho for Kids: Seven Days, Seven Shofros & Rachav

Six days of walking in silence, seven shofros, and a wall that came down without a single battering ram. Here is the story of Yericho from Sefer Yehoshua, told the way a frum home and cheder tell it, with age-by-age explanations and questions for the Shabbos table.

Published October 19, 2026 by Torah Tale.

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The walls of Yericho is the story in Sefer Yehoshua chapter 6 where Klal Yisrael captured their first city in Eretz Yisrael without laying a hand on its wall. Hashem told them to walk around the city once a day for six days with the Aron, with seven kohanim blowing seven shofros, and seven times on the seventh day. Then they shouted, and the wall fell. Children love it because it is a story about a huge wall and a small, strange instruction, and because the thing that brings the wall down is listening.

What happens in the story of the walls of Yericho?

Before any of this, Yehoshua had sent two men quietly to see the land, and they came to the house of Rachav in Yericho. She hid them, told them that the people of the city had heard what Hashem did at Yam Suf and were melting with fear, and asked that her family be spared. The spies told her to tie a scarlet cord in her window and to gather her father, her mother and her brothers into the house.

Then came the crossing of the Yarden, the bris milah at Gilgal, the Korban Pesach, and the mann that stopped once the Yidden began eating from the produce of the land. If you have not told your children that part yet, it is worth doing first, because Yericho is the next chapter of the same story. We wrote it up separately in Crossing the Yarden for Kids.

The pasuk says that Yericho was sogeres u'misugeres, shut and shut tight, because of Bnei Yisrael. Nobody went out and nobody came in. And Hashem said to Yehoshua: see, I have given Yericho into your hand.

The instruction was this. All the fighting men would circle the city one time, and this they would do for six days. Seven kohanim would carry seven shofros of rams' horns in front of the Aron, blowing as they walked. On the seventh day they would circle the city seven times, with the kohanim blowing, and when the long blast sounded, all the people would shout a great shout.

Yehoshua added something that children always notice: do not shout, do not let your voice be heard, do not let a word come out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Six days of walking in silence. On the seventh day they rose at dawn, circled seven times, the shofros blew, Yehoshua said hariu, the people shouted, and the pasuk says the wall fell in its place and the people went up into the city, each man straight ahead.

Rachav and her whole father's household were brought out and kept safe, exactly as the spies had promised her. The silver, the gold and the vessels of copper and iron were set aside for the treasury of Hashem, and Yehoshua declared an oath that nobody should rebuild that city.

What is the lesson of the walls of Yericho for children?

The simplest way to say it: the Yidden did not knock the wall down. They walked, they kept quiet, they did it again the next day, and Hashem brought the wall down. That is emunah and bitachon in a form a six-year-old can actually picture.

There is a second middah here, and it is the one that fits a child's daily life better. For six days nothing visible happened. They walked, they went back to camp, and the wall was exactly as high as it had been that morning. Doing the right thing when you cannot yet see a result is most of what we ask of children: daven again, try the alef-beis again, be patient with a younger sibling again.

And there is Rachav. She did a kindness to two strangers at real risk, she asked for kindness in return, and the Yidden kept their word to her precisely. Children should hear that a promise made to one person was kept in the middle of the biggest event of the year.

How do I explain Yericho to a 4-year-old and to an 8-year-old?

For a 4 to 5 year old, keep it to walking, shofros and the wall. "There was a city with a giant wall. Hashem said: don't fight, just walk around it quietly. They walked one time, one time, one time, six days. On the last day they walked seven times, the kohanim blew the shofros, everybody shouted, and the wall fell down. Hashem made it fall." Walk around the table with them while you say it.

For a 6 to 8 year old, add the silence and the counting. Ask why Hashem would tell soldiers to be quiet for six days. Let them wonder what the people inside Yericho thought when an army showed up and did nothing but walk. Add Rachav and the scarlet cord, and that her family was saved because of the chesed she did.

For a 9 to 12 year old, open the pesukim with them. Look at the order of the march: the armed men, the seven kohanim with the shofros, the Aron, and the rear guard behind. Point out that the first city of Eretz Yisrael was taken with the Aron in the middle and the kohanim in front, not with a battering ram, and that its treasures went to the treasury of Hashem rather than to the soldiers. That is a whole hashkafah about what the conquest of the land was meant to be. Chazal also teach that the seventh day of the circuits fell on Shabbos.

Questions for the Shabbos table

These work from about age five and up, and they keep working as the children get older. No writing, no preparation, just talking.

• Why do you think Hashem told them to walk around the wall instead of climbing it?
• What was the hardest part of those six days: the walking, or the staying quiet?
• What might the people inside Yericho have been thinking on day three?
• Rachav helped two strangers she did not know. When is it hard for us to help someone?
• The Yidden kept their promise to Rachav exactly. Can you think of a promise you kept even though it was not easy?
• What is something you are doing now where you cannot see the result yet?

For a weekday afternoon or erev Shabbos, build a wall out of blocks or cardboard, walk around it six times, and on the seventh round let everyone count the seven circuits out loud together. The matching Torah Tale coloring book, 8.5"x11" in black-and-white line art, belongs to the same weekday slot, not to Shabbos or Yom Tov, since coloring is melacha.

Softcover 8″×8″

Hardcover 8″×8″

Board book 6″×6″

Coloring book 8.5″×11″

What is a personalized Torah Tale book of Walls of Yericho like?

Walls of Yericho is part of the Nevi'im collection, in Sefer Yehoshua. In a Torah Tale book, your child is in the story: their name and their likeness, built from one uploaded photo and illustrated in high-resolution 3D animated-film style, appear on every page. They are walking behind the Aron with the kohanim. They are counting the seventh circuit. Up to eight siblings, ages 0 to 18, can appear in the same book together.

Every book includes a discussion page with ten questions about the story, mixing comprehension with middos: what happened, and what it asks of the child. That is the page that turns a bedtime book into a conversation at the Shabbos table, which is exactly where a story like Yericho belongs.

Formats follow the age. The 6"x6" board book with rounded safety corners is for ages 0 to 4 and closes with a family page. The 8"x8" softcover photo book is for ages 4 to 8 and the 8"x8" hardcover photo book is for ages 5 to 18; both end with a page where the child draws their own picture. Books are available in English, Hebrew and Yiddish, and a book can be ordered in more than one language.

How do I get this story made for my child?

Creating a book takes about five minutes. You open a free account and answer a few short questions: each child's name, boy or girl, age and one photo, any siblings, the story, your community (asked once), the language and the printed format. From there our team reviews the book before it goes to print, written with careful rabbinical guidance and strict tznius. There is a step-by-step walkthrough in How to Create a Personalized Torah Storybook.

You can order a single book, or a collection subscription: 4 books a month in one delivery billed monthly, or yearly - the whole collection, paid once, $30 off when you pay for the year. US standard shipping is $4.99 and free on one-time orders over $60, arriving in 5 to 8 business days. We ship worldwide, with rates shown at checkout.

If Yericho lands well in your house, the shofros and the walking are a natural bridge back to Krias Yam Suf, where the Yidden also stood still and watched Hashem fight for them.

To put your child inside the seventh circuit around Yericho, create the book and pick Walls of Yericho from the Nevi'im collection.

Create a personalized Torah storybook