1And the sons of Israel will transgress a transgression in the devoted thing: and Achan, son of Carmi son of Zabdi, son of Zerah to the tribe; of Judah, will take from the devoted thing: and the anger of Jehovah will kindle against the sons of Israel 2And Joshua will send men from Jericho to Ai, which is by the house of Ain, from the east, to the house of God, and he will say to them, saying, Go up and spy the land. And the men will go up and will spy Ai 3And they will turn back to Joshua, and will say to him, All the people shall not go up; about two thousand men or about three thousand men shall go up and smite Ai: thou shalt not weary there all the people for they few. 4And they will go up there from the people about three thousand men: and they will flee from the face of the men of Ai. 5And the men of Ai will smite of them about thirty and six men; and they will pursue them before the gate, even to Shebarim; and they will smite them in going down, and the heart of the people will melt and will be as water. 6And Joshua will rend his garments and will fall upon his face to the earth before the ark of Jehovah even till evening, he and the old men of Israel; and they will lift up dust upon their heads. 7And Joshua will say, Ah ! Lord Jehovah, wherefore, passing over, didst thou cause this people to pass over Jordan, to give us into the hand of the Amorite, to destroy us? and would we were contented and dwelt on the other side of Jordan 8With leave, O Lord, what to say, after that Israel turned back the neck before his enemies. 9And the Canaanite and all inhabiting the land shall hear, and they encompassed about us, and they cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do to thy great name? 10And Jehovah will say to Joshua, Rise up; for thyself wherefore this didst thou fall upon thy face? 11Israel sinned and also passed by my covenant which I commanded them: and also they took from the devoted thing, and also stole, and also lied, and also put in their vessels. 12And the sons of Israel shall not be able to rise up before their enemies; they will turn the neck before their enemies for they were for a devoted thing: I will not add to be with you if ye ill not destroy the devoted thing from the midst of you. 13Arise, consecrate the people, and say, Be ye consecrated for the morrow: for thus said Jehovah the God of Israel, A devoted thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou shalt not be able to rise up before thine enemy till your removing the devoted thing from the midst of you. 14And come near in the morning according to your tribes: and it was the tribe which Jehovah shall take of us shall come near according to the families; and the family which Jehovah shall take shall come near according to houses; and the house which Jehovah shall take shall come near according to the men. 15And it was he being taken with the devoted thing shall be burnt in fire, he and all which is to him: for he passed by the covenant of Jehovah, and because he did folly in Israel. 16And Joshua will rise early in the morning, and he will bring Israel near according to his tribes; and he will take the tribe of Judah. 17And he will bring near the family of Judah; and he will take the family of the Zarhites: and he will bring near the family of the Zarhites according to the men; and Zabdi will be taken. 18And he will bring near his house according to the men, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, to the tribe of Judah, will be taken. 19And Joshua will say to Achan, My son, set now, honor to Jehovah the God of Israel, and give to him confession; and announce now to me what thou didst; thou shalt not hide from me. 20And Achan will answer Joshua and will say, Truly, I sinned against Jehovah the God of Israel, and according to this, and according to this I did. 21And I shall see in the plunder a wide cloak of Shinar, a good one, and two hundred shekels of silver and one tongue of gold of fifty shekels from its weight, and I shall desire them, and shall take them, and behold them hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. 22And Joshua will send messengers, and they will run to the tent, and behold, the hiding in his tent, and the silver under it 23And they will take them from the midst of the tent and will bring them to Joshua, and to all the sons of Israel, and they will pour them out before Jehovah. 24And Joshua will take Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver and the wide cloak, and the tongue of gold, and his sons and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep and his tent, and all which is to him, and all Israel with him, and they will bring them up to the valley of Achor. 25And Joshua will say, Why didst thou trouble us? Jehovah will trouble thee in this day, and all Israel will stone him with stone, and they will burn them in fire, and they will stone them with stones. 26And they will raise up upon him a great heap of stones even till this day. And Jehovah will turn back from the wrath of his anger: for this, the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, even to this day.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 ACHAN'S TRESPASS. (
Josh 7:1)
the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing--There was one transgressor against the cherem, or ban, on Jericho, and his transgression brought the guilt and disgrace of sin upon the whole nation.
Achan--called afterwards "Achar" ("trouble") (
1Chr 2:7).
Zabdi--or Zimri (
1Chr 2:6).
Zerah--or Zarah, son of Judah and Tamar (
Gen 38:30). His genealogy is given probably to show that from a parentage so infamous the descendants would not be carefully trained in the fear of God.
2 THE ISRAELITES SMITTEN AT AI. (Jos. 7:2-26)
Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai--After the sacking of Jericho, the next step was to penetrate into the hills above. Accordingly, spies went up the mountain pass to view the country. The precise site of Ai, or Hai, is indicated with sufficient clearness (
Gen 12:8;
Gen 13:3) and has been recently discovered in an isolated tell, called by the natives Tell-el-Hajar, "the mount of stones," at two miles', or thirty-five minutes' distance, east southeast from Beth-el [VAN DE VELDE].
Beth-aven--("house of vanity")--a name afterwards given derisively (
Hos 4:15;
Hos 5:8;
Hos 10:5), on account of its idolatries, to Beth-el, "house of God," but here referred to another place, about six miles east of Beth-el and three north of Ai.
3 Let not all the people go up, . . . for they are but few--As the population of Ai amounted to twelve thousand (
Josh 8:25), it was a considerable town; though in the hasty and distant reconnoitre made by the spies, it probably appeared small in comparison to Jericho; and this may have been the reason for their proposing so small a detachment to capture it.
4 they fled before the men of Ai--An unexpected resistance, and the loss of thirty-six of their number diffused a panic, which ended in an ignominious rout.
5 chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim--that is, unto the "breakings" or "fissures" at the opening of the passes.
and smote them in the going down--that is, the declivity or slope of the deep, rugged, adjoining wady.
wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water--It is evident that the troops engaged were a tumultuary, undisciplined band, no better skilled in military affairs than the Bedouin Arabs, who become disheartened and flee on the loss of ten or fifteen men. But the consternation of the Israelites arose from another cause--the evident displeasure of God, who withheld that aid on which they had confidently reckoned.
6 Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth . . . before the ark . . . he and the elders--It is evident, from those tokens of humiliation and sorrow, that a solemn fast was observed on this occasion. The language of Joshua's prayer is thought by many to savor of human infirmity and to be wanting in that reverence and submission he owed to God. But, although apparently breathing a spirit of bold remonstrance and complaint, it was in reality the effusion of a deeply humbled and afflicted mind, expressing his belief that God could not, after having so miraculously brought His people over Jordan into the promised land, intend to destroy them, to expose them to the insults of their triumphant enemies, and bring reproach upon His own name for inconstancy or unkindness to His people, or inability to resist their enemies. Unable to understand the cause of the present calamity, he owned the hand of God.
10 the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up--The answer of the divine oracle was to this effect: the crisis is owing not to unfaithfulness in Me, but sin in the people. The conditions of the covenant have been violated by the reservation of spoil from the doomed city; wickedness, emphatically called folly, has been committed in Israel (
Ps 14:1), and dissimulation, with other aggravations of the crime, continues to be practised. The people are liable to destruction equally with the accursed nations of Canaan (
Deut 7:26). Means must, without delay, be taken to discover and punish the perpetrator of this trespass that Israel may be released from the ban, and things be restored to their former state of prosperity.
16 So Joshua rose up early, and brought Israel by their tribes--that is, before the tabernacle. The lot being appealed to (
Pro 16:33), he proceeded in the inquiry from heads of tribes to heads of families, and from heads of households in succession to one family, and to particular persons in that family, until the criminal was found to be Achan, who, on Joshua's admonition, confessed the fact of having secreted for his own use, in the floor of his tent, spoil both in garments and money [
Josh 7:19-
Josh 7:21]. How dreadful must have been his feelings when he saw the slow but certain process of discovery! (
Num 32:23).
19 Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give . . . glory to God--a form of adjuration to tell the truth.
21 a goodly Babylonish garment--literally, "a mantle of Shinar." The plain of Shinar was in early times celebrated for its gorgeous robes, which were of brilliant and various colors, generally arranged in figured patterns, probably resembling those of modern Turkish carpets, and the colors were either interwoven in the loom or embroidered with the needle.
two hundred shekels of silver--equivalent to Ł22 10s. sterling, according to the old Mosaic shekel, or the half of that sum, reckoning by the common shekel.
a wedge of gold--literally, an ingot or bar in the shape of a tongue.
22 Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent--from impatient eagerness not only to test the truth of the story, but to clear Israel from the imputation of guilt. Having discovered the stolen articles, they laid them out before the Lord, "as a token of their belonging to Him" on account of the ban.
24 Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan--He with his children and all his property, cattle as well as movables, were brought into one of the long broad ravines that open into the Ghor, and after being stoned to death (
Num 15:30-
Num 15:35), his corpse, with all belonging to him, was consumed to ashes by fire. "All Israel" was present, not only as spectators, but active agents, as many as possible, in inflicting the punishment--thus testifying their abhorrence of the sacrilege, and their intense solicitude to regain the divine favor. As the divine law expressly forbade the children to be put to death for their father's sins (
Deut 24:16), the conveyance of Achan's "sons and daughters" to the place of execution might be only as spectators, that they might take warning by the parental fate; or, if they shared his punishment (
Josh 22:20), they had probably been accomplices in his crime, and, indeed, he could scarcely have dug a hole within his tent without his family being aware of it.
26 they raised over him a great heap of stones--It is customary to raise cairns over the graves of criminals or infamous persons in the East still.
the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor--("trouble"),
unto this day--So painful an episode would give notoriety to the spot, and it is more than once noted by the sacred writers of a later age (
Isa 65:10;
Hos 2:15).