Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joshua 7:25
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.
25. Why hast thou troubled us?] Compare the question of Ahab to Elijah, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (1Ki 18:17). “For thou disturblidist us, the Lord schall disturble the in this dai,” Wyclif.
And all Israel stoned him ] The use of the singular here and in the following verse is deserving of notice. It suggests that it does not necessarily follow that the sons and daughters of Achan were burned with him. In this case “the plural number used would refer only to the oxen, asses, and sheep, and all that Achan possessed.” Edersheim. Stoning was the ordinary mode of execution (Exo 17:4), especially for idolatry and blasphemy (1Ki 21:10).
and burned them with fire ] This was a terrible aggravation of the ordinary punishment of death, Lev 20:14.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jos 7:25-26
And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us?
the Lord shall trouble thee this day.
The troubles of sin
I. That sin is a very troublesome thing.
1. The load of guilt by which it oppresses us.
2. The shifts, subterfuges, and tricks resorted to for the purpose of concealing our sins, or transferring the blame to others, are convincing proofs that sin troubles us.
3. Sin troubles us by its corrupt and restless influence on the tempers and dispositions.
4. But it is chiefly into futurity that we are to look for the troubles of sin (Pro 11:21; Eze 18:4; Rom 6:23).
II. However artfully concealed, sin must be exposed.
1. The most secret sins are often revealed in this world.
2. Those sins that escape detection here, will be manifested in the last day (Ecc 12:14).
III. When the sinner is exposed, he is left without any reasonable excuse. Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? What could he say? Could he plead ignorance of the law? No; it was published in the camp of Israel. The weakness of human nature? No; he had strength to do his duty. The prevalence of temptation? No; others had similar temptations, and yet conquered. And what shall we have to say when God shall summon us to His bar?
IV. That punishment treads upon the heels of sin. The Lord shall trouble thee this day.
1. God has power to trouble sinners. The whole creation is a capacious reservoir of means, which He can employ at His pleasure.
2. God will trouble sinners. He will either bring them to repentance, when they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn, or He will vex them in His wrath, and dash them in pieces as a potters vessel.
Infer–
1. What a powerful preventive this should be to deter us from committing sin.
2. See the madness of sinners, who, for the sake of a few sordid despicable pleasures, which always leave a sting behind, will desperately plunge themselves into an abyss of troubles which know no bound nor termination.
3. Since sin is so troublesome, let us all seek a deliverance from its dominion and influence.
4. Learn what ideas you should entertain of those who seek to entice you to sin. They are agents of the devil, and you should shun them as you would shun perdition. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire.
Achans punishment
The punishment of Achan himself offers no difficulty. He knew the decree, and chose to stake his life against a few valuable articles which excited his rapacity. The maintenance of discipline in an army is at all times of first importance. In the Peninsula War two men were shot for stealing apples, pilfering having been proclaimed a capital crime. The Duke of Wellington was a humane man, but he knew the need of obedience to law and the value of a striking example. The Israelites were a nation and army in one. Regard for the general welfare, above all private aggrandisement, had to be encouraged. The sense of a common interest would soon be undermined, if a pilfering spirit set in and a greedy selfishness received any countenance. Moreover, at all costs, reverence for their Deity had to be upheld. His majesty must be vindicated. Disastrous results could only follow upon a diminution of the religious sentiment among the people. But the association of Achans family in his terrible penalty, as a calm judicial proceeding, sends a thrill of horror through our hearts. But then, we are the heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of time. We enjoy the inheritance of millenniums of Divine education. We could not expect Joshua to act in advance of the spirit of his time. The ancient world was deficient in its conception of what a man was. It was long before it came to regard him as an individual, a being complete in himself. So long as one man continued to be considered as part of another, or in any sense the property of another, so long fathers might pledge the lives of their children, and whole families expiate the crimes of a single member without shocking the public sense of justice, But is it not said that the destruction of Achans family was by the express command of Jehovah? Is not this the explanation? The command, shaping itself within the mind of Joshua in the form of an overmastering conviction, would be that justice should be executed. Joshua could only understand justice in the sense in which his contemporaries understood it. His moral sense would give the character and colour to the justice to be dealt out. His inmost conviction, which was, in truth, the inspired message of his God, forced upon him the necessity for a signal vindication of the majesty of loyalty and uprightness, and he acted up to the light which he possessed. (T. W. M. Lund, M. A.)
The troubling of Achan
Two questions present themselves. Why should all Israel have been put to shame and defeat for the sin of one man? And why should God have required the whole congregation in this dramatic way to take part in the execution of the offender? To our minds at first thought it would seem likely to brutalise the hearts of the people, that all should be required to take part in that bloody vengeance. For the sake of example, God might wish the whole congregation to be present at the taking of the lot. He could have pointed out the criminal to Joshua in some simple and direct way, but He chose to give all Israel a most salutary warning. That the unerring finger of Jehovah should thus single out the guilty man was a striking object-lesson concerning the truth that no sin is so secret as to be hidden from the all-searching God. But this does not explain why all the people should have been made to suffer shame and defeat because of Achans sin, for the great investigation might have been made just as thoroughly before the defeat at Ai. We might say, perhaps, that Israel needed the lesson of this defeat to teach them their dependence upon God for the smallest as well as the greatest victory. We fancy we can detect a little vein of boastfulness in the words of the scouts (verse 3). And if we ask concerning the thirty and six men who perished while Israel was receiving this lesson in humility, we may reply that such matters must be left, and can without disquietude be left in the hands of God. We cannot know about individual lives. God certainly in all cases deals wisely and mercifully. Yet we have not progressed very far in our solution of this difficulty, that God permitted all Israel to suffer for the sin of one man. And it is a difficulty worth trying to solve, because it is of the same sort as that which meets us every day of our lives, and makes heedless men question the justice and fairness of Almighty God. Who is there that has not suffered hurt, or trouble, or unhappiness, from the misdoings of his neighbours? The embezzler gets the money of hundreds of poor and unsuspecting people invested in his dazzling schemes, and then goes off with his booty, leaving desolation and misery behind. How many people suffer from the malignity or hatred of their fellows, because they have innocently offended them. Aye, how many suffer, often most cruelly, from the heedlessness and thoughtlessness of others, who never meant to do harm, but talked foolishly and excessively about things they did not understand. We think of the mischief we have endured at the hands of others, knowing that we deserved nothing of it; and we say, Why does God allow the innocent thus to suffer for other mens sins? Perhaps, indeed, it is to remind us that we are not so guiltless as we fancy. We dwell upon the harm done us by others, and we seldom think of the many ways in which we do others harm, it may be quite thoughtlessly, but still very mischievously. Our hasty and ill-considered words, our unlovely examples, how much mischief these may do our fellow-men, while we are quite oblivious of it. A young man is dishonest, and makes off with large sums of his employers money; we condemn him heartily, and yet it may be in the sight of God that the very atmosphere in which he was brought up in our midst was so filled with the praise of wealth and the excellence of shrewdness and business ability, the power of capital, and the good things which money can bring into ones life, that our words and views have been the teachers which fostered in the transgressors heart the very sin we now so unsparingly condemn. May it not be that the very wrongs we so often have to suffer undeserved]y at the hands of others are the merciful agencies of God, to let us endure a little of the penalty our own careless words and evil examples deserve, which constantly, all unsuspected by ourselves, are doing mischief to our neighbours? We have no right, then, even to complain of injustice in the fact that we have to suffer for other mens sins, unless we can be sure that our sins do not cause as great injury to the souls, if not to the bodies, of many of our fellow-men. There is a deeper sense yet in which we may take this lesson of all Israel suffering for Achans transgression. God thus taught His people the solidarity of their national life as His people. In other words, that men have responsibility for their neighbours. No one in Israel might say, This is none of my affair, for God showed them that the sin of one man affected the whole community; therefore the whole community had a certain responsibility towards individual transgression. Civilised nations all admit this responsibility of humanity, at least to a certain degree. Men hear of flood or famine or pestilence in some far-off part of the world, devastating populous districts in India, or China, or some distant island of the Pacific. Immediately the sentiment of humanity opens their purses, and relief goes forth generously to the sufferers. Why should we concern ourselves to help those savages, who would as likely as not murder us if we went among them as travellers? Because they are men; they share in our common humanity, and we may not forget our brotherhood of race. Why should European nations send war-ships to the Red Sea and the East African coast to stop the Arabian slave trade? What right have they to interfere? You reply that the slave-trade is brutal and inhuman, and the sentiment of humanity compels those who have the power to interfere, to save the poor blacks from their fiendish persecutors. Carry the same thought a little further, and you get the higher Christian conception of mans duty to all his fellow-men. What is the greatest evil in the world? You reply sin, because sin is the root of all other evils. Well, then, we Christians owe it to humanity to do all that lies in our power to take sin away from the world. That is the great principle of Christian missions. No matter if the missions do not seem to be very successful, we shall not have missed this lesson of the sufferings we have to endure for other mens sins if we have bravely done what was in our power to make known to our fellow-men the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ. Our other question was, Why did God require the whole congregation to take part in the stoning of Achan? There are evils of ignorance, there are also evils of wanton defiance of the known law of right. So long as men sin in ignorance and superstition we may be moved only by compassion to help them. The missionary spirit must always be that of Christlike pity for them that are ignorant and out of the way. England sends her heroic missionaries into the heart of Africa and of China while at the same time she patrols the Red Sea with warships to stop at the cannons mouth the slave trade, and sends an army up the Irrawaddy to conquer the monster King Theebaw of Burmah, and so to put a stop to his terrible cruelties. Is there inconsistency in this? No. It was quite as much the duty of Israel to stone Achan as it was to teach their children with loving assiduity the enormity of disobeying Jehovah. We owe it to God to do what lies in our power to put down flagrant iniquity. We are much too careless about this in our Christian lives. We may not punish individuals, for God commits that authority to the State; but we are bound to confront and denounce all iniquitous principle, to stand up and fight against God-defying sin. No matter if we do not succeed in slaying Achan. No matter if men tell us to mind our own business, and not to interfere with them. It is a great thing to have thrown a stone for the Lord, even if it has seemed in no wise to hurt the enemy. (Arthur Ritchie.)
They raised over him a great heap of stones.–
Nemesis
Again we stand beside a heap of stones. Again it will be profitable to put and to answer the question, What mean ye by these stones? This is the third occasion on which such a question might arise. The first heap of stones was raised on the brink of Jordan; the second lay some miles distant; the third is still further in the land. The first heap was a token of Jehovahs might; for taken from the river-bed by twelve stalwart warriors, they told to all succeeding generations that by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm Israel was brought into Canaan. The second heap, stretched far and wide, the ruins of a famous city, was the token of Jehovahs judgment. This third heap in the valley of Achor, the cairn erected over the dead body of Achan, was the token of Jehovahs discipline. The twelve stones speak of Jehovahs relation to the sin of those who trust Him and accept His leadership. He buries all their iniquities, He brings them into His promised inheritance, and gives them a permanent place therein. The ruined city speaks of Jehovahs relation to the sin of these who stubbornly resist Him. He smites them with a rod of iron. This rugged pile speaks of Jehovahs relation to the sin of those who profess to obey Him, but who in their deeds deny Him. If He judges the world, much more must He judge His own house. The twelve stones on Jordans bank were a monument of Israels hope. He who had led them over, and brought them in, would assuredly bless them with all earthly blessings in His fair heritage. The ruins of Jericho were a monument of Israels faith. For nothing but faith could have been so patient, so docile, so mighty, so victorious By faith the walls of Jericho fell down. The heap in the valley of Achor was a monument of Israels love. They heaped up this cairn of condemnation to show their detestation of the crime of which Achan was guilty. Thus this act revealed their love to God in the strongest light. By this third heap we stand, and as we do so, let us ponder the discovery of Achans crime, its confession, and its punishment. Joshua gave himself no rest till he got to the root of this matter. Though appalled by such severe tokens of the Divine displeasure, he did not murmur against God, but persistently made inquiry of God. He did not complain of God, he complained to God; and his faithful persistency was rewarded (verses 10-12). Get thee up. My mind has not changed. My arm is not shortened. My word is not broken. Get thee up, for the discovery and punishment of this sin. The discovery of Achans sin was, therefore, the result of Divine directions. It was God who set everything in motion for the detection of the hidden criminal. The discovery was undertaken most solemnly, as a deeply spiritual and religious act (verse 13). Three times in the course of their history had the children of Israel been thus called solemnly to sanctify themselves. On the first occasion, it was at the foot of Sinai, in prospect of the giving of the law. On the second occasion it was at Jordan, in prospect of entering into the land. On the third occasion, it was here, in prospect of the discovery and punishment of the transgressor. To receive Gods will, to enter into Gods inheritance, to purge away transgression, such things demand the most thorough consecration. It is plain from the Divine record that Israel went about this solemn work in the right way. There was no burst of ungovernable excitement and blind popular fury. With judicial calmness and religious reverence, the terrible drama was begun, continued, and ended. It was also prosecuted deliberately. There was no unseemly haste or confusion. A proclamation was made in the evening previous as to the manner of procedure on the following day; and then the carrying out of the process of casting lots must have been slow and deliberate. What a night must that have been for Joshua l How thankfully must he have laid himself to rest in the blessed consciousness that as surely as the darkness of night would fly before the dawning day, so all his difficulties would vanish, and all the disgrace of Israel would be blotted out. And what a night must that have been for Achan! He would feel as did another whose mental torture a great poet has described–
Macbeth hath murdered sleep, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
Balm of hurt minds.
Oh! what a long, black, miserable night was that. The voice cried, Sleep no more, and on the morrow, as with bloodshot eyes he took his place in the ranks of his tribe, what must have been his terror! And then to mark the circle of condetonation closing upon him, growing less and less at each casting of the lot, he rooted meanwhile to the dark spot, its centre, till at last, pointed out by the finger of God, he stood alone, the incarnation of disaster and disgrace, the hateful object for every eye in Israel, the awful focus of their fiery indignation, burning into his soul one thought, one agony, We have found thee, O our enemy. The method of discovery was most impressive for the people, revealing so marvellously the finger of God. Whatever the precise process of the lot may have been, and that is hard to discover, there was no difficulty, hesitation, timidity, uncertainty, or partiality in its carrying out. The method of discovering the crime was also the most merciful that could have been adopted for the offender. It gave him time to think; a blessed space for repentance; an opportunity, if there was any spark of spiritual life within, to cast off the incubus of iniquity. Every step would serve to convince him how utterly foolish it was to promise himself secrecy in sin, and how certainly at the last God would discriminate between the innocent and the guilty, however for a little while they were involved in the same condemnation. Thus Achan stands exposed in the sight of all Israel. Joshua, filled with unutterable compassion for the trembling sinner, though absolutely certain of his guilt, has no harsh word to utter, but only seeks to win him to a right frame of mind. Nothing could be more touching than this venerable leaders words. He deals with him as a grey-haired father with a wayward son, urging him to the only course that in the circumstances could yield one spark of consolation (verse 19). Achan breaks down under this unexpected kindness. He had looked for nothing but harsh reproof and unmitigated severity; therefore in broken accents he replies, Indeed I have sinned, &c. This confession is worthy of notice, and has some features which relieve the darkness of the scene. To begin with, it was voluntary. There was here no extortion of a confession from unwilling lips. Joshua spoke in love, calling him my son. It is evident that he has no personal ill-will, no hard spirit of revenge. He appealed to the glory of God. Thus Joshua brought forth this free confession of Achans guilt. His confession was as full as it was free. The miserable man kept nothing back. He made a clean breast of it. His full confession shows that penitents cannot be too particular. His confession was also personal. He felt that it was first of all, and above all, a matter between himself and God, and therefore, though others, in all likelihood, were sharers in his guilt (for he could not well have hid these things in his tent without the cognisance of his family), still he made no mention of them, he condemned none but himself, for he felt himself the greatest sinner. Also Achans confession was sincere. He did not attempt in the faintest degree to excuse himself. He pleaded no palliation of his offence. Surely, therefore, in this confession we have a gleam of light thrown across the gloom of this narrative. Just as in a picture of this dark valley and its black pile of stones, we have seen one white bird hovering amid the gloom, so this confession is the white bird of hope hovering over Achans grave, and relieving somewhat the blackness of its darkness, His punishment trod swiftly on the heels of his confession. This punishment was at once a solemn expression of the evil of sin, a vindication of Gods truth and justice, a prelude to future victory, and a monument to all succeeding ages, declaring, be sure your sin will find you out. We are also told that all Achans substance was destroyed, that which he possessed, as well as that which he stole. What a poor prize had Achan then in the things he so much admired. No good ever comes of ill-gotten gains. In regard to this punishment of Achan, the fate of his family deserves to be noticed. What happened to them? Two explanations have been offered. The first is that they shared Achans sin and therefore shared his punishment. Another explanation is that Achans family were spared. This rests on the fact that there is a change from the plural in verse 24 to the singular in verse 25. Joshua took Achan and all his possessions and all his family to the scene of execution, but the punishment fell only on Achan, for Joshua said (verse 25): Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord will trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them (his cattle and goods) with fire after they had stoned them with stones. Whichever is the true explanation we may rest assured that the demands of justice were not ignored. Thus we leave Achan, and surely as we stand by this heap of stones and consider his sad end, these words come to mind–the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Looking again at this event, we are struck with the parallelism between the early history of Israel as recorded in the Book of Joshua and the early history of the Church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The taking of Jericho corresponds in its mighty triumph to the Day of Pentecost and the casting down of the walls of rebellion and prejudice through the proclamation of the gospel. Then the sin of Achan is strikingly paralleled by that of Ananias and Sapphira. The cause of transgression was the same in both, and the punishments present a striking resemblance. It was a salutary lesson taught both to Israel and to the Church. It showed that the God who dwelt among men was a consuming fire, that His judgment must follow shortly and surely on the heels of sin, and that holiness is the only source and secret of success in the work of the Lord. (A. B. Mackay.)
The valley of Achor.–
The valley of Achor
I. We should grieve more for sin than for its results. As soon as we have committed sin, we look furtively round to see whether we have been watched, and then we take measures to tie up the consequences which would naturally accrue. Failing this, we are deeply humiliated. We dread the consequences of sin more than sin; discovery more than misdoing; what others may say and do more than the look of pain and sorrow on the face that looks out on us from the encircling throng of glorified spirits. But with God it is not so. It is our sin, one of the most grievous features in which is our failure to recognise its intrinsic evil, that presses Him down, as a cart groans beneath its load. The true way to a proper realisation of sin is to cultivate the friendship of the holy God. The more we know Him, the more utterly we shall enter into His thought about the subtle evil of our heart. We shall find sin lurking where we least anticipated, in our motives, in our religious acts, in our hasty judgment of others, in our want of tender, sensitive, pitying love, in our censorious condemnation of those who may be restrained by the action of a more sensitive conscience than our own from claiming all that we claim to possess. We shall learn that every look, tone, gesture, word, thought, which is not consistent with perfect love indicates that the virus of sin has not yet been expelled from our nature, and we shall come to mourn not so much for the result of sin as for the sin itself.
II. We should submit ourselves to the judgment of God. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? It was as if He said, Thou grievest for the effect, grieve rather for the cause. I am well able to preserve My people from the assaults of their foes, though all Canaan beset them, and I am equally able to maintain the honour of My name. These are not the main matters for concern, but that a worm is already gnawing at the root of the gourd, and a plague is already eating out the vitals of the people whom I have redeemed. With My right arm I will screen you from attack, whilst you give yourselves to the investigation and destruction of the accursed thing. Whenever there is perpetual failure in our life, we may be sure that there is some secret evil lurking in heart and life, just as diphtheria breaking out repeatedly in a household is an almost certain indication that there is an escape of sewer gas from the drains.
1. In searching out the causes of failure we must be willing to know the worst, and this is almost the hardest condition. Ostrich-like, we all hide our heads in the sand from unwelcome tidings. It is the voice of an iron resolution, or of mature Christian experience, that can say without faltering, Let me know the worst. But as we bare ourselves to the good Physician let us remember that He is our husband, that His eyes film with love and pity, that He desires to indicate the source of our sorrow only to remove it, so that for Him and for us there may be the vigour of perfect soul-health and consequent bliss.
2. When God deals with sin He traces back its genealogy. Notice the particularity with which twice over the sacred historian gives the list of Achans progenitors. It is always, Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah (verses 1, 16-18). Sin is sporadic. To deal with it thoroughly we need to go back to its parentage. A long period will often intervene between the first germ of sin, in a permitted thought or glance of evil, and its flower or fruit in act. We generally deal with the wrong that flames out before the sight of our fellows; we should go behind to the spark as it lay smouldering for hours before, and to the carelessness which left it there. We only awake when the rock disintegrates and begins to fall on our cottage roof; God would lead us back to the moment when a tiny seed, borne on the breeze, floating through the air, found a lodgment in some crevice of our heart, and, although the soil was scanty, succeeded in keeping its foothold, till it had struck down its tiny anchor into a crack, and gathered strength enough to split the rock which had given it welcome. And by this insight into small beginnings our God would forearm us against great catastrophes.
3. It is a good thing at times to muster the clans of heart and life. We must make the principal tribes of our being pass before God. The public, and private, our behaviour in the business, the family, the church, until one of them is taken. Then to take that department and go through its various aspects and engagements, analysing it in days, or duties; resolving it into its various elements, and scrutinising each. This duty of self-examination should be pursued by those who have least relish for it, as probably they really need it; whilst they who are naturally of an introspective or morbid disposition should not engage themselves in it to any large extent. And whoever undertakes it should do so in reliance on the Holy Spirit, and give ten glances to the blessed Lord for every one that is taken at the corruptions of the natural heart. It is looking off unto Jesus which is the real secret of soul-growth.
III. We should hold no parley with discovered sin. God never reveals an evil which He does not require us to remove. And if heart and flesh fail, if our hand refuses to obey our faltering will, if the paralysis of evil has so far enfeebled us that we cannot lift the stone, or wield the knife, or strike the flint stones for the fire, then He will do for us what must be done, but which we cannot do. Some are cast in a mould so strong that they can dare to raise the hatchet, and cut off the arm just madly bitten, and before poison has passed from it into the system; others must await the surgeons knife. But the one lesson for all the inner life is to be willing for God to do His work in us, through us, or for us. So the valley of Achor becomes the door of hope. From that sterile, mountain-guarded valley, Israel marched to victory; or, to use the highly-coloured imagery of Hosea, it was as though the massive slabs opened in the cliffs, and the people passed into cornfields, vineyards, and olive-yards, singing amid their rich luxuriance as they sang in their youth in the day when they came up out of Egypt. Ah! metaphor as true as fair! For all our inner life there is no valley of Achor where the work of execution is faithfully performed in which there is not a door of hope, entrance into the garden of the Lord, and a song so sweet, so joyous, so triumphant, as though the buoyancy of youth were wed with the experience and mellowness of age. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 25. Why hast thou troubled us?] Here is a reference to the meaning of Achan’s or Achar’s name, meh ACHAR-tanu; and as achar is used here, and not achan, and the valley is called the valley of Achor, and not the valley of Achan, hence some have supposed that Achar was his proper name, as it is read 1Ch 2:7, and in some MSS., and ancient versions. See Clarke on Jos 7:17.
And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned then with stones.] With great deference to the judgment of others, I ask, Can it be fairly proved from the text that the sons and daughters of Achan were stoned to death and burnt as well as their father? The text certainly leaves it doubtful, but seems rather to intimate that Achan alone was stoned, and that his substance was burnt with fire. The reading of the present HEBREW text is, They stoned HIM with stones, and burnt THEM with fire, after they had stoned THEM with stones. The singular number being used in the first clause of the verse, and the plural in the last, leaves the matter doubtful. The VULGATE is very clear: Lapidavitque EUM omnis Israel; et cuncta quae illius erant, igne consumpta sunt, “All Israel stoned him; and all that he had was consumed with fire.” The SEPTUAGINT add this and the first clause of the next verse together: , : And all Israel stoned HIM with stones, and raised over HIM a great heap of stones. The Syriac says simply, They stoned HIM with stones, and burned what pertained to HIM with fire. The TARGUM is the same as the Hebrew. The ANGLO-SAXON seems to refer the whole to Achan and his GOODS: [Anglo-Saxon] And HIM they stoned there, and burnt his goods. The ARABIC version alone says, They stoned HIM and his CHILDREN, and his goods, [Arabic]. Instead of burnt THEM, otham, two of De Rossi’s MSS. read otho, HIM; which reading, if genuine, would make the different members of the verse agree better. It is possible that Achan, his oxen, asses, sheep, tent, and all his household goods, were destroyed, but his sons and daughters left uninjured. But it may be asked, Why are they brought out into the valley with the rest? Why, that they might see and fear, and be for ever deterred by their father’s punishment from imitating his example.
I have gone thus far into this important transaction, in which the justice and mercy of God are so much concerned, that I might be able to assign to each its due. That Achan’s life was forfeited to justice by his transgression, no one doubts: he sinned against a known and positive law. His children could not suffer with him, because of the law, De 24:16, unless they had been accomplices in his guilt: of this there is no evidence; and the text in question, which speaks of Achan’s punishment, is extremely dubious, as far as it relates to this point. One circumstance that strengthens the supposition that the children were not included, is the command of the Lord, Jos 7:15: “HE that is taken with the accursed thing, shall be burnt with fire; he, and all that he hath.” Now, all that he hath may certainly refer to his goods, and not to his children; and his punishment, and the destruction of his property would answer every purpose of public justice, both as a punishment and preventive of the crime; and both mercy and justice require that the innocent shall not suffer with the guilty, unless in very extraordinary cases, where God may permit the righteous or the innocent to be involved in those public calamities by which the ungodly are swept away from the face of the earth: but in the case before us, no necessity of this kind urged it, and therefore I conclude that Achan alone suffered, and that his repentance and confession were genuine and sincere; and that, while JUSTICE required his life, MERCY was extended to the salvation of his soul.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Stoned him with stones, and burned him with fire; which is easily understood, both out of the following words, and from Gods command to do so, Jos 7:15, which doubtless was here executed.
Quest. How could both these deaths be inflicted upon them?
Answ. It seems they were stoned to death, which was the punishment of such offenders, Num 15:35, and not burned to death; and therefore the stoning only of Achan is mentioned here, and not his burning; and God would have their dead carcasses burned to show his utmost detestation of such persons as break forth into sins of such a public scandal and mischief. And for the burning of Achan, commanded Jos 7:15, it seems not likely to be meant of his burning alive, because that burning is common to him, and all that he hath, as is there expressed; but of the burning of his dead carcass, and other lifeless things, as the manner was with accursed things, Deu 13:16.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And Joshua said, why hast thou troubled us?…. Been the occasion of so much trouble to us, by committing this sin:
the Lord shall trouble thee this day; by the destruction of him and all that belonged to him: this is said to show that his punishment was of God, and according to his will: in the Misnah r an emphasis is laid on the phrase “this day”, and it is observed,
“this day thou shalt be troubled, but thou shalt not be troubled in the world to come;”
suggesting that though temporal punishment was inflicted on him, yet his iniquity was forgiven, and he would be saved with an everlasting, salvation; and as it may be hoped from the ingenuous confession that he made, that he had true repentance for it, and forgiveness of it:
and all Israel stoned him with stones; hence some gather, that only Achan himself suffered death, and not his sons and daughters:
and burnt them with fire after they had stoned them with stones; which the Jewish commentators understand of his oxen, asses, and sheep; so Jarchi, Ben Gersom, and Abarbinel: likewise his tent, and household goods, the Babylonish garment, gold and silver, were burnt, and he himself also, for that is the express order, Jos 7:15; the Jews say, as particularly Jarchi observes, that he was stoned because he profaned the sabbath, it being on the sabbath day that Jericho was taken, and stoning was the punishment of the sabbath breaker, and he was burnt on the account of the accursed thing; so Abendana.
r Sanhedrin ut supra. (Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 18. sect. 6.)
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
25. And Joshua said, etc The invective seems excessively harsh; as if it had been his intention to drive the wretched man to frantic madness, when he ought rather to have exhorted him to patience. I have no doubt that he spoke thus for the sake of the people, in order to furnish a useful example to all, and my conclusion, therefore, is, that he did not wish to overwhelm Achan with despair, but only to show in his person how grievous a crime it is to disturb the Church of God. It may be, however, that the haughty Achan complained that his satisfaction, by which he thought that he had sufficiently discharged himself, was not accepted, (75) and that Joshua inveighed thus bitterly against him with the view of correcting or breaking his contumacy. The question seems to imply that he was expostulating, and when he appeals to God as judge, he seems to be silencing an obstinate man. The throwing of stones by the whole people was a general sign of detestation, by which they declared that they had no share in the crime which they thus avenged, and that they held it in abhorrence. The heap of stones was intended partly as a memorial to posterity, and partly to prevent any one from imprudently gathering particles of gold or silver on the spot, if it had remained unoccupied. For although the Lord had previously ordered that the gold of Jericho should be offered to him, he would not allow his sanctuary to be polluted by the proceeds of theft.
(75) French, “ Combien qu’il se peut faire, qu’Achan estant fier se soit plaint de ce qu’on ne se contentoit pas de la reparation, et payement qu’il avoit fait, par lequel il pensoit s’estre bien acquitte, et avoir grand devoir;” “Although it may be that Achan complained of their not being contented with the reparation and payment which he had made, and by which he thought that he had acquitted himself well, and performed a great duty.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
25. Why hast thou troubled us? The verb here used has, in the Hebrew, ( achar,) a sound much like Achan’s name. See note on Jos 7:26.
And all Israel stoned him Here note the propriety of requiring the whole nation by their various representatives to participate in the execution of the law. The great principle embodied is this: The execution of civil law rests largely upon public opinion. When this becomes so corrupt that it will not uphold the law, it becomes a dead letter on the statute book. [
Stoned him burned them had stoned them This interchange of singular and plural pronouns does not show that only Achan was stoned, and not his children, but may indicate that he was the person most prominent in the punishment. To urge from this change of number that only Achan was stoned would oblige us to urge that the rest were burned alive without having first been stoned. Two different Hebrew words are here rendered stoned, and . The former seems to mean in this place to pelt with stones, the latter to cover with stones. So we may more accurately render, All Israel pelted him with stones, and burned them with fire, and covered them with stones. Per-haps here is an intimation, too, that they stoned Achan with a fiercer violence than they did his family and possessions.]
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? YHWH will trouble you this day.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. And they burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.’
Joshua’s declaration was not vindictive. It was a public declaration of the reason for what was being done, a judicial statement of his sentence. Achan was receiving what he had done to others, an eye for an eye. He had brought down great trouble. He must receive great trouble. All Israel participated in the carrying out of the sentence, although not literally. But those who hurled the stones acted on behalf of all.
Achan’s execution is mentioned first as being that of the main culprit, then the method of dealing with the remainder. The last part of the sentence is very summarised and we are not told what applied to what. The robe, the gold and the silver would be burned, after which the gold and silver may have been placed in the treasury. The livestock were slain first, and then burned. The other guilty parties would be stoned and then burned. The burning was necessary because all was ‘devoted’ and had to be purified in fire (compare Num 31:22-23; Deu 13:16).
The sentence may seem harsh to us. It would not have done to Achan. There are eventful times in history when response to something like this has to be severe for the sake of the future. Those who have the privilege to live at times when God comes very close and acts very openly and vividly, thereby live in times of greater responsibility. We can compare Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Numbers 16) and Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:1-6).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ver. 25. And all Israel stoned him with stones, &c. There are three things to be considered from these words: I. It is asked, what was the punishment inflicted upon Achan? All the interpreters agree that he was stoned; but they are not equally agreed that he was burned. It is certain, that the law against sacrilege condemned offenders to the fire; (Deu 13:15-16.) it is also certain, that God had condemned to the fire whosoever should take of the accursed thing at the taking of Jericho, ver. 15 so that the rabbis insist that he was burned; and, with respect to the stoning which he previously underwent, some will have it that this happened accidentally, the furious people being unable to desist from overwhelming the guilty man with stones. Others say, that Jericho having been destroyed on the sabbath-day, and Achan having profaned this festival by retaining that which was devoted to God, he was stoned as profane, and burned as sacrilegious. But, upon the whole, the sentence which God had pronounced did not strictly import that the offender should be burned alive. By stoning him, he was punished capitally according to the laws; Lev 9:11; Lev 9:24; Lev 24:14. Num 15:35 and by burning his body afterwards, they obeyed the commands which God had just before given. II. Perhaps it may be more difficult to determine upon a second question which is here started, viz. Whether the sons and daughters of Achan perished with him, as well as his oxen, and asses, and sheep, and tent, and all that he had? Most interpreters are of this opinion, and find no difficulty in justifying the righteousness of the sentence. For, not to mention that God is always Lord over our life, and has a right to remove us when and how it seemeth him good; not to mention that the family of Achan, guilty of sin in other respects, could never be unjustly punished; not to mention this, we may presume, that they partook of the offence of their head; it not being probable that Achan could have buried his theft in the middle of his tent, without his children’s knowing it. It is a maxim of the Jews themselves, that the accomplice in a crime, is as criminal as he who commits it. We readily subscribe to these reflections; and add, that, in these early times it was of importance to keep the people in respect, fear, and submission by instances of severity. But to the fact: The divine sentence expressed in ver. 15 condemned the guilty only, and his goods, to be burned. Here it is expressly said, that the Israelites stoned Achan, without mentioning his family; and if the historian adds, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones, this may be understood of the oxen, the asses, and the sheep which belonged to the unhappy malefactor; and that God chose that his tent and effects should be burned with his body, to inspire a greater horror of his crime. In this view, the family of Achan might undergo no other punishment, than that of being condemned to be present at the execution of their head, before all the people of Israel. However, we leave the subject to the reader’s judgment. But, III. The case will not be the same with respect to the third question which hath been started concerning Achan’s punishment. It is absurd to ask, by what right Joshua dared to condemn Achan to a punishment so heavy and dishonourable, upon the bare confession of the offender, without even the usual testimony of two witnesses against him, as the law required: For, what did Joshua on this occasion, but execute the orders immediately issued from God? Was not the voice of the oracle equivalent to that of two witnesses, especially against a man who avowed his crime, and who himself demonstrated its veracity, by producing the subject-matter of the offence, the very effects which he had stolen?
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jos 7:25 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.
Ver. 25. Why hast thou troubled us? ] There was a young man among the Suitzers that went about to trouble and alter their free state. Him they condemned to death, and appointed his father for executioner, because he bred him no better. a
a Bishop Ridley told Stephen Gardiner that it was the hand of God that he was now in prison, because he had so troubled others in his time. – Act. and Mon.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Why. . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis (App-6).
troubled . . . trouble. Hebrew. Achored . . . Acker.
stoned them: i.e. the people, not the property.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Why hast: Jos 7:11-13, Jos 6:18, Gen 34:30, 1Ki 18:17, 1Ki 18:18, 1Ch 2:7, Hab 2:6-9, Gal 5:12, 2Th 1:6, Heb 12:15
all Israel: Lev 20:2, Lev 24:14, Deu 13:10, Deu 17:5, Deu 21:21, Deu 22:21-24
burned: Jos 7:15, Gen 38:24, Lev 20:14, Lev 21:9
Reciprocal: Gen 20:9 – What hast Lev 27:28 – no devoted Num 15:36 – General Num 25:4 – that the fierce Num 25:11 – turned my Jos 7:26 – Achor 1Ki 21:13 – they carried him 2Ki 5:27 – leprosy 2Ki 10:6 – your master’s sons Pro 11:29 – that Pro 15:27 – He that is Jer 29:32 – punish Dan 6:24 – their children Jon 1:10 – Why Act 5:4 – why Act 8:20 – Thy Gal 6:17 – let
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE TROUBLER OF ISRAEL
Why hast thou troubled us?
Jos 7:25
Ai was a royal city, which was in existence in the time of Abraham. It lay in the uplands to the east of Bethel, amid a wild entanglement of hill and valley; so its capture might well have been reckoned difficult even by experienced besiegers. But the miraculous success at Jericho had inspired such hopes in Israel, that the capture of Ai seemed a certainty. What a critical hour this was for Israel! A crushing defeat now might have been irretrievable. It was at exactly a similar stage of their approach to Palestine from the south that the Israelites had met with the severe repulse at Hormah, which had driven them back into the desert for forty years. No wonder that Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the ark. There are some defeats that are doubly tragic owing to the hour in our experience when they come.
I. Note that defeats often follow hard on victories.Only a few days had gone since that so glorious hour when the walls of Jericho had fallen at the trumpet-blast. The memory of that day was still intensely vivid; there would be little else talked about by the camp-fire; and it was then, in the full flush of triumph, that the men of Israel were routed before Ai. Not when they were dejected and dispirited, not when they were bereft of tokens for goodit was not then that this so ignominious and so unexpected repulse occurred; it was when every heart still thrilled with the cheer of an unexampled victory. Now oftentimes temptation meets us so. It comes on the heels of our brightest and best hours, until at last, as we journey through the years, we learn to be very watchful and very prayerful.
II. The blame of our failures may lie at our own doors.When the three thousand fled and the thirty-six were slain, Joshua went straight to God about it, and he did well. But read his prayer, and you will catch a strange note in it. Joshua reproaches God. Why hast Thou brought us here? Why art Thou going to destroy us? Why were we not content to dwell across the Jordanas if the power of God had not been seen at Jericho. Then Joshua learnedand none but a loving Father would have taught him thatthat the blame lay not in heaven, but at his door. It was not God who was responsible for the flight; it was sin in the camp of Joshua that had caused it. The secret of failure lay in the tents of Israel. And how prone we still are when we are worsted, to carry the blame of it far too far away! How ready, in every fault and every failure, to trace the source of it anywhere but in ourselves! In spiritual defeats never accuse another. Never cry out against the name of God. He changes not. It is in the tented muster of my heart, and in the things buried and stamped under the ground there, that the secret of my moral disaster lies.
III. The wide sweep of a single sin.When Achan stole the Babylonian garment and the gold, he never dreamed that others would suffer for it. The crime was his, and if it should ever be discovered, the punishment would fall on his own back. If one had whispered to him in the critical moment that the whole army would suffer for his tampering, how Achan would have ridiculed the thought! Yet that was the very thing that happened, and that very thing is happening still. From Joshua to the meanest camp-follower of Israel, there was not one untouched by Achans folly. It scattered the three thousand before Ai, it slew the six and thirty, it spread dismay through all the host. And how Achans home was brought to ruin by it, is all told in this tragical chapter. And that is ever the sad work of sin. Like the circles of ripples, its consequences spread, and on what far shores they shall break, none knows but God. I may think that my sin is hidden. I may be certain none has observed my vice. But in ways mysterious its influences radiate, and others suffer because I am bad.
IV. Lastly, Be sure your sin will find you out.Over all the lesson that warning is written large. In all history there is no more memorable instance of the way in which sin comes to the surface. Achan thought himself absolutely safe. In the wild carnage no one had observed him. The man was slain to whom the gold belonged, and the wearer of the garment lay stabbed in the streets of Jericho. But the scrutiny of God proved too much for Achan. He learned that all things are naked and open before Him. Though not a single human eye had spied him, he had been under the gaze of the all-seeing God. As Achan sowed, so did he reap. Now for you and me there will be no dramatic moment in which by miracle our sin will be detected. We shall not be summoned into public audience, and unmasked in the striking way that Achan was; but for all that our sin will find us out, as surely as his sin found Achan. We think it is done with. No one knows our secret. It is buried in the tent of our own hearts. But in conscience, in character, in joy, in sorrow, in trial, in the quiet moments of uneventful days, in the great hours of conflict and of dutythen, and at the last judgment in eternity, our sin, like a bloodhound, runs us down. How precious to think that if our sin must find us, it can find us clinging to the feet of Jesus! There there is pardon for a guilty past; there there is power for an untrodden future.
Illustrations
(1) When Benjamin Franklin was a young man, he was being shown out of the house of a friend along a narrow passage. As they went, his friend said to him, Stoop, stoop; but Franklin did not catch his words, and struck his head violently against an overhanging beam. My lad, said his friend, you are young, and the world is before you; learn to stoop as you go through it and you will save yourself many a hard blow. It may be we are all loth to stoop when we are leaving the large room where God has been good to us; but then, if ever, watchfulness is needed.
(2) Joshua, with the grim humour of which the Oriental mind is so fond, playing on the similarity of the word achar, to trouble, and the name Achan, said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. The whole nation had shared in the imputation of guilt and its disastrous consequences, and therefore the whole nation, through its representatives, must now take part in its expiation. Joshua and all Israel took Achan, and stoned him with stones. To mark more deeply Gods detestation of his crime, and its spreading, clinging taint, his children, who may probably have been the accomplices of his crime, his cattle, and all that he had, share in his doom. The corpses are consumed with fire, together with his tent and the accursed things it had once vainly sought to hide. A great heap of stones, after the manner of primitive peoples, was raised over the spot, which took the name of the Valley of Achor, i.e. trouble. And the guilt being thus put away by sacrifice, the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger.
(3) It is said that the Bank of France has an invisible studio in a gallery behind the cashiers, so that, at a signal from one of them, a suspected customer can instantly have his picture taken without his own knowledge. So our sins and evil deeds may be registered against us and we ourselves altogether unconscious of the fact.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Jos 7:25-26. They burned them with fire after they had stoned them God would have their dead carcasses burned, to show his utmost detestation of such persons as break forth into sins of such public scandal and mischief. A great heap of stones As a monument of the sin and judgment here mentioned, that others might be warned by the example; and as a brand of infamy, as Jos 8:29; 2Sa 18:17. The valley of Achor Or, the valley of trouble, from the double trouble expressed Jos 7:25.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
7:25 And Joshua said, {n} 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.
(n) He declares that this is God’s judgment because he had offended, and caused others to be slain.