Bible Commentaries

First lot

Tribe of Judah.

Second lot

Clan of Zerah.

Third lot

House of Zabdi.⁶

Fourth lot

Man Achan.

Joshua 7:19-21. My Song of Solomon, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and give him (the) praise [or, make confession to him]; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me, Joshua 7:19. The demand of Joshua upon Achan was certainly meant by him honestly and frankly, not craftily, as some of the Rabbins assume. Achan should confess his sin in order to receive inward forgiveness, although he has outwardly fallen under the irrevocable sentence of God. The form of the demand is the same as in John 9:24. Reverence for the Omniscient God should move to the confession of the truth. The circumstances, indeed, are here essentially different from those in John 9. Honest and frank Joshua stands before Achan, crafty and treacherous the Pharisees seek, under an appeal for honor to God, to extort from the man born blind a confession injurious to our Lord.

Joshua 7:20. Achan humbly confesses his sin as a sin against Jehovah, God of Israel.

Joshua 7:21. Babylonish garment, prop. mantle of Shinar=Babylon ( Genesis 11:2; Genesis 11:8-9; Genesis 10:10). What it was made of we know not, since particular statements are wanting. Starke suspects it was of gold and silken threads, and that it was wrought in many colors mixed, Jonah 3:6; 2 Kings 2:13. “Concerning the elaborate and beautiful products of the Babylonian looms, see Heeren, Asiat. Nations, i2, p 422 ff. [Bohn’s Eng. ed.]. Movers’ Phœnicians, ii3, p258 ff.” (Knobel). [See further particulars in Dict. of the Bibl, art. “Babylonish Garment.”]

Two hundred shekels of silver = 200 × 060 = 120. For details concerning the calculation, vid. in Winer, Realw. s. v. “Sekel,” or in Herzog’s Realencyk. vol. iv. p764. [Gesen. s. v. שֶׁקֶל, Dict. of the Bibl. art. “Money,” “Shekel,” and “Weights and Measures.”]

A wedge (prop. tongue) of gold. Vulg. regula aurea, a golden bar. Rather, “a tongue-shaped article made of gold” (Knobel). The weight is given at fifty shekels, equal in value to cir. thirty dollars.

I coveted them, Genesis 3:6; James 4:13-15. האהלי, the article as Leviticus 27:33.

Under it. The mantle lay probably on the top, and the tongue of gold next below, and the silver lowest.

Joshua 7:22-23. Discovery of the stolen Goods in Achan’s Tent. The messengers laid it down, after they had found it, before Jehovah.הִצֹיק from יָצַק, to pour out, is equivalent to הִצִּיג, to set, to place, 2 Samuel 15:24.

Before Jehovah = before the ark of Jehovah, where He was enthroned, Joshua 6:8.

Joshua 7:24-26. Achan, son of Zerah; in a wide sense son of Zerah; strictly he was his great grandson. He is now, together with the articles appropriated by him, as well as his whole property, and also all his sons and daughters, given up to destruction. How does this sentence passed on Achan, under which his innocent sons and daughters also fell, agree with the decision of the law, Deuteronomy 24:16, according to which the fathers should not die for the children, nor the children for the fathers, but every one for his own sin? This difficulty has been met in various ways: (1) Some Rabbins, Schulz, Hess, and others suppose that Achan’s family were brought into the valley of Achor merely as spectators, to take a terrifying example, contrary to what is written, Joshua 7:25. (2) C. a Lapide, Cler, Mich, Rosenmüller, think they had had a share in their father’s crime. For this an analogous case might be cited in Acts 5:1 ff, but while there it is made conspicuous that Sapphira was privy to the sin of Ananias; here every intimation of that kind is wanting. Hence (3) Calvin, Masius, Seb. Schmidt, leave the matter undecided, appealing to the unfathomableness of God’s counsels; while others again, like Knobel, and Starke also, at least by intimations, remark that we have here to do with a judgment executed by the immediate direction of God, and therefore a divine judgment, similar to the case, Numbers 16:32, whereas the ordinance in Deuteronomy 24:16, holds good only for the usual every-day administration of justice. Before God, the searcher of hearts, the sons and daughters of Achan were guilty of participation in their father’s sin, because in them the same “corrupted nature and disposition,” which Keil rightly notices, was present, which in the father produced the evil deed [?]. God visits the sins of the fathers on the children, Exodus 20:5; Numbers 14:33. Accurately considered, the decision pertaining to private rights, in Deuteronomy 24:16, has no application to this higher public right of God.

Joshua 7:24. Valley of Achor. Joshua 15:7; Hosea 2:15; Isaiah 65:10. The origin of the name is given, Joshua 7:25. It lay north of Jericho on the northern border of the tribe of Judah. In Jerome’s time the name was still in use.

Joshua 7:25. And all Israel stoned him. Here רָגַם is used, afterwards at the close of the verse, in an addition which the LXX omit, סָקַל. Both words are used in the Bible of stoning, but רגם has the more general signification, and is found only once, Leviticus 24:14, without אֶבֶך. Achan is condemned to be stoned because he had by his robbery violated the honor of God, as did blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, idolaters, sorcerers, wizards, etc. The addition סקלו אתם באבנים is superfluous, and may perhaps be intended, as Knobel conjectures, to obviate a misunderstanding of אֹתוֹ in the former half of the verse. Not only the LXX. but the Vulg. omits it. Luther has aimed to avoid the difficulty by attaching the words to the following verse, and translating: “And when they had stoned them they raised,” etc. [Nearly so the Eng. vers.]

Joshua 7:26. Over Achan they raised a great heap of stones which served to commemorate his disgrace ( Joshua 8:29; 2 Samuel 18:17); and that even to the writer’s time. The casting of stones on certain graves was customary in other nations also, e.g. among the Arabs (Schulte’s Hist. Joctanidarum, pp118, 144), and the Romans (Propert4, 5, 74ff. Serv. ed. Lion, i. p1), but had not always that dishonorable import. It had not, e.g. among the Bedouins who often heap up stones over one buried (Burkhardt, Beduinen, p81), Knobel.

And Jehovah turned from the fierceness of his anger, Exodus 32:12.

THEOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL

1. God’s anger is not an ebullition of blind passion, but a holy displeasure against the unrighteousness of men. When this unrighteousness is removed God’s anger ceases, as the close of our chapter, Joshua 7:26, shows. All which has been injuriously said concerning the blood-thirsty and wrathful God of the O. T. rests on a failure to apprehend this holy displeasure of God against the unrighteousness of men. That brings upon them indeed judgment and penalty, but never goes so far as to shut up his compassion, although men may think so and with Asaph sigh: Hath God for gotten to be gracious, hath He in anger shut up his tender mercies? ( Psalm 77:10.) Eternal justice which belongs as a constitutive element to the nature of God, without which we cannot conceive of any government at all of the world, is constantly limited by his love. But conversely his love towards men is not a blind love, but rather a truly paternal affection which leaves no fault, no transgression of his commands, unreproved. Both justice and love coexist in God, and are mutually blended in him with an interpenetration of the most intimate, highest, absolute kind. Hence the jurists may say: Fiat justitia pereat mundus! God never has and never can.

2. Properly Achan alone is the transgressor, but since he is a member of the body politic his act compromises all the children of Israel, and hence draws after it injurious consequences upon all, so that the anger of God is kindled against all. In the eyes of God the whole community appears infected by the sin of the one, so that they stand before him, not as a pure and holy congregation, as they should be according to their high vocation, ( Exodus 19:6; Deuteronomy 7:6; 1 Peter 2:9). If we keep firmly to this point of view, we shall cease from complaining of God as being in any way unrighteous, as if He recklessly punished the innocent with the guilty. We shall rather, in this matter, agree with Keil when he says: “As member of a community established by God, the good or evil action of the individual involves the whole congregation in blessing or destruction.” As Paul writes: “if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and if one member be honored all the members rejoice with it” ( 1 Corinthians 12:26). So may we also say, that if one member becomes guilty, all the members share the guilt, and if one of the members does well, all the members share the blessing of this good deed. It is important in these matters to look not only at the individual but also at the community, that we may comprehend at least in some measure the procedure of the divine justice over against the guilt of mankind. We emphasize “in some measure,” because we need yet to lay to heart the advice which Calvin here gives: “Suspensas tenere nostras mentes, donec libri aperiuntur, ubi clare patebunt quœ nunc nostra caligine obtenebrantur Dei judicia.”

[As clearly as the whole Scripture makes the individual an object of the divine mercy and justice, so clearly does it teach us also to regard the totality of a people as an organic unity, in which the individuals are only members of the body, and not capable of being separated, as so many atoms, from the whole. The state as a divine institution is built on the family, to promote the mutual love of the members, and the common love of all to the one invisible head of all.… But if the state is of divine appointment, not a mere civil establishment, not a human institution, conventionally agreed upon by men, the fact following as a necessary consequence from the moral unity of the organism, that the good or evil deed of the one member is reckoned to the whole body, loses the appearance of caprice and unrighteousness which it has while one, without perceiving their fundamental connection, has only a one sided regard to the infliction, of the consequences of the sin. Keil—Tr.]

3. The deep humility of Joshua before the Lord reminds us of Moses, Exodus 32:32, of Ezra ( Joshua 9:3), of his own and Caleb’s course when the people murmured ( Numbers 14:6). How mighty appear these O. T. saints in their grief because of the sins of their people, how independently they stand up against God, in behalf of God’s honor, and yet how humbly! Their sorrow is truly a λύπη κατὰ θεὸν ( 2 Corinthians 7:10), from which proceeds the μετάνοια ἀμεταμέλητος. Hence God raises them up again, and gives them again fresh courage for his work, for He knows that their grief, in its deepest root, is a grief for him, for his name’s glory and honor. Themselves pure and clean, they mourn over the misdeeds of the people, while an Ahab ( 1 Kings 21:27) if he does this has to exercise penitence for his own sin. Si duo faciunt idem, non est idem. Compare still Psalm 85; Psalm 102:14-19; Psalm 130:7-8.

4. It is to be observed that God ( Joshua 7:14 ff.) reserves to himself the discovery of the crime. Jehovah will strike, take (לָקַד, properly, “select,”) the tribe, the clan, the house, the particular man, by the lot, the disposing of which is ascribed ( Proverbs 16:33) to the Lord. Such an employment of the lot as is here presented, could only be brought in at the immediate direction of God, or with special appeal to him ( 1 Samuel 14:41), and belonged to the extraordinary measures which He prescribed for his people. The certainty with which the whole process goes forward, the quiet which accompanies it, makes a very solemn impression. The control of the divine justice is most directly brought to our thought when we read the narrative of the transaction, distinguished as it is by an unadorned simplicity; how much more powerful must have been the original impression which this judgment of God made on the assembled people at its actual occurrence! An analogous example is presented in the N. T, Acts 5:1 ff.

5. That all wickedness is folly (נְבָלָה, that every sinner is a fool (נבל), not indeed so much in an intellectual but above all things in a moral respect, this cutting truth is proclaimed by the O. T. loudly and impressively. A very significant hint for hamartiology; the nature of sin is so difficult to explain because it is merely absolute irrationality, because it is foolishness!

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

How human iniquity provokes divine anger.—The sin of an individual in its destructive effects on an entire people shown in the case of Achan.—Of God’s anger. (1) What are we to understand thereby? (2) How can we guard against it so that it may not be kindled against us?—The unfortunate expedition of Joshua against Ai.—Human sagacity alone helps not if God be not with us.—Despise no enemy; for you may in meeting him be greatly deceived concerning his strength.—How soon, alas, is the heart of man discouraged!—Against despondency of the heart helps God’s grace alone, Hebrews 13:9.

Joshua’s humble prayer before God.—God withstands the proud but giveth grace unto the humble. Joshua’s grief for his people compared with the lamentation of Moses and Ezra.—Joshua as an example of mourning before God.—Parallel between Joshua’s penitence and that of Ahab.—Rending of the garments a significant symbol of the rending of the heart, Joel 2:13.—How God hears prayer.

The discovery and punishment of Achan the transgressor, a case of the divine administration of Justice.—(1) How Achan was hit upon; (2) how he confessed his sin; (3) what punishment he received; or (1) the discovery of the criminal; (2) his confession; (3) his punishment.—Joshua and Achan; (1) How Joshua seeks to bring Achan to a confession of his guilt; (2) how the latter actually confesses it.—We give honor to God when we say the truth.—Achan’s lowly confession of sin.—Every sin a sin against the Lord.—Covetousness, unlawful desire, a source of every sin.—The stoning of Achan.—The judgment in the valley of Achor.—The monument of the crime a warning to Israel.—The stoning of Achan, and that of Stephen—what a contrast?

Starke: He who has done iniquity should own the truth to the honor of God. But woe to those who deny their misdeeds, Psalm 32:1. Si fecisti nega, is not a divine but a devilish rule. Ye advocates, put nothing of such into any man’s head.

Cramer: However shrewdly men begin a thing it does no good except in so far as God gives it success. For if God is not with us all is lost.—The heart of man can nowhere observe a just proportion. In prosperity it is too proud, in adversity too pusillanimous.

Bibl. Tub.: When God goes with us into the field the mightiest foe cannot hurt us, but where God is not we cannot resist the weakest enemy.—God lets us not sink away in our mourning, but when He has sufficiently humbled us and laid us in the dust, and sees in us a true repentance for our sins, He himself also raises us up again and exalts the miserable from the dust, Psalm 113:7; 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Hedinger: If, in the spiritual conflict also we are left to come off worsted, there is often nothing to blame but some, perhaps hidden, sin which yet lurks in us and of which we have not yet repented.

Gerlach, Calvin: That they in this prayer turn straight to God, and recognize that He who has wounded can heal them, springs from their faith; but carried away by excess of grief they transgress all limits. Hence the boldness of their controversy with God; hence the perverse wish: O that we had remained in the wilderness! But it is nothing new that when men with holy zeal seek God, the light of their faith is dimmed by the intensity, the tempest of their emotions…… And yet when they thus strive with God and pour out before Him all which weighs them down, though this their simplicity needs forgiveness, it is still far more agreeable to God than the mock-humility of hypocrites, who take great care that no word of assurance may cross their lips, while they are inwardly filled with pride.—It is a fine trait in this narrative that the criminal, detected by the lot, should be condemned only on his own confession. Joshua does not promise him exemption from punishment, but by his confession God was honored before all the people, since the accuracy of the lot was confirmed. At the same time there lies in these words a hint of a divine judgment hereafter, before which guilt and penalty will be abated when one has given himself up to suffer the earthly penalty ordained by God, confessing that he has deserved it. There is manifested here a truly holy, paternal disposition in Joshua, as a judge who relaxes nothing of the rigor of the divine command, but, so far as is possible in consistency with that, deals mercifully with the transgressor.—By his robbery of the sanctuary Achan had entirely broken the covenant with God, and he and his had become the same as the Canaanites; as they had snatched for themselves what had been devoted to destruction, they must themselves now be destroyed. Similar in this respect was the punishment, which in ancient times was inflicted on the families of those guilty of high treason, and in some degree is still inflicted among us.

[Scott: Every failure in such undertakings as evidently accord to the will of God, and the duty of our place and station, should cause us to humble ourselves before him, to flee to his mercy seat, to pour out our hearts in prayer, and inquire “wherefore he contendeth with us;” and to plead his promises and the glory of his great name, as engaged to support that cause which we are endeavoring to promote whatever becomes of us and our worthless names.—Would we avoid the commission of gross iniquity, we must “make a covenant with our eyes” and all our senses; we must repress the first movements of concupiscence, and pray earnestly not to be led into temptation, we must habituate ourselves to meditate on the future consequences of sinful gratification; and to place ourselves, by an effort of the imagination, in those very circumstances in which we should be were the sin committed, and the infatuation vanished; and to consider what our judgment and feelings in that case would be.—Finally, though atrocious criminals, should be punished with unrelenting firmness, and all should unite in protesting against their crimes; yet their misery should not be insulted, nor their immortal souls forgotten; but calm expostulations, serious instructions, and compassionate exhortations, should be used to bring them to repentance, that they may obtain mercy from God in a future world.

G. R. B: Jehovah is a prayer-hearing God—blessed be His name!—but with what impatience He listens to the cries of those, however proper the matter of their petitions, who have need themselves to act in order that their wishes may be granted! “Up! sanctify thyself,” we may hear Him saying to many an earnest suppliant; “put away thy sins, supply thy own deficiencies, and do thy part to remove the stumbling-blocks from among thy brethren; then expect my help towards what thou desirest further.” Happy for us if we get even this answer to our mistaken prayer!—Tr.]

Footnotes