Joshua 7:1-26
1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan,a the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.
2 And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai.
3 And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but few.
4 So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai.
5 And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
6 And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.
7 And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!
8 O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backsb before their enemies!
9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
10 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liestc thou thus upon thy face?
11 Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.
12 Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.
13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.
14 In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come according to the families thereof; and the family which the LORD shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD shall take shall come man by man.
15 And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath: because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought follyd in Israel.
16 So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken:
17 And he brought the family of Judah; and he took the family of the Zarhites: and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken:
18 And he brought his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
19 And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.
20 And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:
21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedgee of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.
22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it.
23 And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the LORD.
24 And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor.
25 And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.
26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor,f unto this day.
A Defeat Because of Sin
The Lord had instructed Israel to make Jericho a devoted city, that is, set apart for him. He especially instructed them to place the silver, gold and vessels of brass in his treasury (Joshua 6:17-19). Leslie G. Thomas noted that Satan always began his work to ensnare man in sin right at the start of a new relationship with God. He tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain at the beginning of recorded worship, Nadab and Abihu at the start of Moses' law and Ananias and Sapphira in the early days of the church on earth (Genesis 3:1-24; Genesis 4:1-26; Leviticus 10:1-7 and Acts 5:1-11). In each case, the devil used some item that was to be devoted to God's service to tempt man to evil. The first recorded sin in the land of Canaan is no exception. The temptation was to take the devoted thing despite God's strong warnings to the contrary.
Joshua 7:1-26 opens with the sad fact that Achan took of the devoted thing. 1 Chronicles 2:7 calls him Achar which, as the text tells us, means trouble. He troubled the whole nation by taking of the banned items and thereby robbing Israel of its purity much like an infection in one of its members can bring down the whole body. Apparently, Joshua did not know of the sin and sent out spies to observe the next place of conquest, Ai. Upon their return, they reported that the town could be taken with between 2,000 and 3,000 men. So, Joshua sent out 3,000 confidant of victory after the fall of Jericho. They were routed and thirty-six lost their lives in the defeat. Further, the people lost their courage because of the loss to such and insignificant place.
The defeat obviously came about because the Lord had left Israel's side. Joshua began to mourn before the ark of the covenant until evening when he started to talk with God. His first words might be considered murmuring if it were not for the fact that he goes on and asks what answer he should give for the Lord when those people round about them heard that Israel, God's people, had turned their backs in battle. Naturally, he foresaw the nations around them becoming bold, surrounding Israel and destroying them. The nations, as Rahab had said, had come to recognize the power of Jehovah and the greatness of his name. Joshua did not want the memory of that to be wiped off the earth.
God's answer to Joshua's depression over the defeat of Israel was threefold. First, he should get up (7:6). Second, the people would have to acknowledge their sin in taking the banned items and putting it among their own stuff in violation of God's command. Israel would no longer be able to stand before their enemies until they destroyed the accursed thing (compare Deuteronomy 13:12-18). While God sometimes allowed the people to keep some of the spoils of war, he had specifically told them not to take of the things of Jericho and what items were to go into his treasury (Deuteronomy 20:10-14; Joshua 8:1-2). Third, the people would have to be sanctified. To accomplish this, God had them cleanse themselves that night in preparation for coming before the Lord the next morning. They would come by tribes, families, households and then man by man until the one who had violated God's law was exposed. Then, as he had warned in the original commandment, that man would be treated as a part of the accursed thing and would be burned.
Joshua followed the Lord's instructions and at last Achan appeared before him as the man who had specifically violated God's will. Thomas says the word "confess" literally means "to say the same thing." God already knew of the sin of Achan and now Achan told the people the same thing. He described his sin by saying he saw, coveted and took the items involved. Other scriptures warn us of the danger of these very actions (1 John 2:15-17; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 4:28). In this case, Achan had robbed God because he had taken that which was devoted to him.
Since Deuteronomy 24:16 expressly forbids punishing the children for the crimes of their fathers, we have to assume one of two things. Either Achan's children became accomplices to the crime because the goods were hidden in the tent where they lived, or the plural "them" in verse 24 describes Achan and his things. At any rate, the whole nation participated in the punishment of Achan by stoning and then burning him as God directed. In this way, the people put the evil away from them and were again sanctified in God's sight.