Joshua 7:1

JOSHUA CHAPTER 7 Achan takes of the accursed and devoted thing: God is angry with Israel, Joshua 7:1. Joshua sends three thousand men against Ai; they flee, and thirty-six are slain, Joshua 7:2. Joshua complains to God; who discovers the cause, and enjoins a lot, Joshua 7:6. Achan is found guilty: Joshua's advice, and his confession, Joshua 7:16. He and his are stoned and burnt: the place named The valley of Achor, Joshua 7:22. The children of Israel, i.e. one of them, by a very usual synecdoche or enallage, as Genesis 8:4, Genesis 19:29 Matthew 26:8, where that is ascribed to the disciples, which belonged to Judas only, 1 Thessalonians 12:4. In the accursed thing, i.e. in taking some of the forbidden and accursed goods. Zabdi; called also Zimri, 1 Chronicles 2:6. Zerah, or, Zarah, who was Judah's immediate son, Genesis 38:30, who went with Judah into Egypt; and so for the filling up the two hundred and fifty-six years that are supposed to come between that and this time, we must allow Achan to be now an old man, and his three ancestors to have begotten each his son at about sixty years of age, which at that time was not incredible nor unusual. Against the children of Israel. Why did God punish the whole society for this one man's sin? Answ. All of them were punished for their own sins, whereof each had a sufficient proportion; but God took this occasion to inflict the punishment upon the society, partly, because divers of them might be guilty of this sin, either by coveting what he actually did, or by concealing of his fault, which it is probable could not be unknown to others, or by not sorrowing for it, and endeavouring to purge themselves from it; partly, to make sin the more hateful, as being the cause of such dreadful and public judgments; and partly, to oblige all the members of every society to be both more circumspect in the ordering of their own actions, and more diligent to watch over one another, and to prevent the miscarriages of their brethren, which is a great benefit and blessing to them, and to the whole society, and worthy to be purchased by a sharp affliction upon the society.