Chapter 7
Achan loots some valuable items from Jericho, though all were told that the gold, silver and bronze of Jericho would go into the Temple treasury. Achan's lineage is given, so that the whole family would be ashamed I suppose. He was ultimately from the tribe of Judah, but he got greedy and kept things that had been forbidden.
Before this was discovered, Joshua plans to take the little city of Ai next in the campaign. He sends spies up to look it over. They are confident that this little place can be take with 2 or 3000 men. The whole army is totally not needed. So that's what Joshua sends.
But this backfires. This little force is routed by the men of Ai, so that they run away. 36 are killed. Seems very few, but the implication is that Jericho was taken with no losses at all. Now this little city defeats Israel and some are killed. This was devastating to morale, and the rest of Israel is now scared to death. Had already forgotten about Jericho I guess.
Joshua cries out to God. He is thinking in military terms, not in God terms. His prayer before God expresses his worry that when word of this defeat gets out, the Canaanites will be encouraged, and mobilize against them, surround them, and wipe out the people of God entirely. Joshua has apparently discounted his meeting with the Commander of the Army of the Lord. He has forgotten the Jordan drying up. He has completely misinterpreted the meaning of the defeat at Ai, and put it entirely in earthly terms.
Good FB post. Don't we sometimes interpret difficult times in terms of our own understanding, rather than trying to pull out of our circumstances the lesson that God wants us to understand? We should always try to understand circumstances - good or bad - in terms of God's working, rather than our own understanding.
Here is God's immediate answer:
10 The LORD said to Joshua, "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? 11 Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. [Jos 7:10-11 ESV]
God tells him to get up. ESV puts an exclamation point after it, though I have a hard time thinking God was "exclaiming". God says this defeat is not about strategy, or tactics, or any other human cause or reason. This is about sin. This has happened because of someone's sin affecting the whole people. The Covenant we're working under here was a covenant with the whole nation of Israel. As one they would be blessed, as one they will be punished. So the people who died in the first battle at Ai were not the ones who had sinned. They were paying for the sin of another. This is an important principle to remember as we go on, and we see the things that happen to this nation. Remember, God is dealing with a national covenant with Israel. At this time in their history, the individual covenant, with individual men - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob - are contained within the national covenant, they are not separate. I think today, the Sinai covenant is just gone, yet Israel survives because of the previous covenants. From 70 AD to 1948, God was preserving Abraham's descendants so that they can ultimately received the promises - in the Millennial Reign. God did not need a nation to preserve them, so there was no nation. There is no guarantee that the nation formed in 1948 is the Millennial nation. The current nation of Israel, very secular and not so very much God-fearing, may well be wiped off the earth also, and another rise to take it's place when God decides the time is ripe.
2023 - The above is a good proof text for the Old Covenant being a national covenant. The sin of just one man has brought a curse on the whole nation.
A procedure is invoked to help Joshua identify the sinner. He is to be burned, with all he has. The procedure would take some time. First the tribe with the sinner would be made known, then the clan, then the household, then man by man, family by family they would come. Imagine waiting in that line, knowing you were the one. It will be like that at final judgement. Each knowing his guilt, and knowing that fire is the punishment...
Also, note that in this case, the cure for judgement on the whole nation is the rooting out and elimination of the sin of one man.
Wouldn't this be a contrast to the FB post above! God's wrath toward the nation is not appeased by national repentance, but by the cleansing out of the one(s) who has willfully sinned against God.
Achan is found out. He confesses to Joshua what he has done, in all the details. He is no longer making any attempt to hide his sin. This confession does not remove the consequences of his sin. Saying we're sorry does not undo what has been done. He, his family including sons and daughters, all who knew of the sin and did nothing, are stoned and burned in Achor. So many stones are thrown that they make a great heap of stone. When Joshua was written, that heap was still there, presumably with the bones of Achan and his family buried beneath it. To this day it is the valley of Achor. Achor means "trouble".
(Not sure where I got the part about "those who knew of the sin and did nothing". That part is not at all apparent in the ESV. There is an MSB note about this though. Probably where I got the idea. MSB note says his family was regarded as co-conspirators with him. They helped cover his guilt and they withheld information from others. We saw several places where those who knew of sin and didn't report it were also punished. This same principle - where family members aware of the sin are also punished, is seen in Korah's rebellion (Nu. 16), and we know from a later verse that not all Korah's family was wiped out, but only those who supported him, Haman's fall (Est 9:13, 14) and after Daniel's escape (Dan 6:24).
Never take the low road, even when it is in support of your family. A possible, but difficult to word, FB Post.
That was then...