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Joshua Chapter
Seven
Joshua 7
Chapter Contents
The Israelites smitten at Ai. (1-5) Joshua's humiliation
and prayer. (6-9) God instructs Joshua what to do. (10-5) Achan is detected, He
is destroyed. (16-26)
Commentary on Joshua 7:1-5
(Read Joshua 7:1-5)
Achan took some of the spoil of Jericho. The love of the
world is that root of bitterness, which of all others is most hardly rooted up.
We should take heed of sin ourselves, lest by it many be defiled or disquieted,
Hebrews 12:15; and take heed of having
fellowship with sinners, lest we share their guilt. It concerns us to watch
over one another to prevent sin, because others' sins may be to our damage. The
easy conquest of Jericho excited contempt of the enemy, and a disposition to expect
the Lord to do all for them without their using proper means. Thus men abuse
the doctrines of Divine grace, and the promises of God, into excuses for their
own sloth and self-indulgence. We are to work out our own salvation, though it
is God that works in us. It was a dear victory to the Canaanites, whereby
Israel was awakened and reformed, and reconciled to their God, and the people
of Canaan hardened to their own ruin.
Commentary on Joshua 7:6-9
(Read Joshua 7:6-9)
Joshua's concern for the honour of God, more than even
for the fate of Israel, was the language of the Spirit of adoption. He pleaded
with God. He laments their defeat, as he feared it would reflect on God's
wisdom and power, his goodness and faithfulness. We cannot at any time urge a
better plea than this, Lord, what wilt thou do for thy great name? Let God be
glorified in all, and then welcome his whole will.
Commentary on Joshua 7:10-15
(Read Joshua 7:10-15)
God awakens Joshua to inquiry, by telling him that when
this accursed thing was put away, all would be well. Times of danger and
trouble should be times of reformation. We should look at home, into our own
hearts, into our own houses, and make diligent search to find out if there be
not some accursed thing there, which God sees and abhors; some secret lust,
some unlawful gain, some undue withholding from God or from others. We cannot
prosper, until the accursed thing be destroyed out of our hearts, and put out
of our habitations and our families, and forsaken in our lives. When the sin of
sinners finds them out, God is to be acknowledged. With a certain and unerring
judgment, the righteous God does and will distinguish between the innocent and
the guilty; so that though the righteous are of the same tribe, and family, and
household with the wicked, yet they never shall be treated as the wicked.
Commentary on Joshua 7:16-26
(Read Joshua 7:16-26)
See the folly of those that promise themselves secrecy in
sin. The righteous God has many ways of bringing to light the hidden works of
darkness. See also, how much it is our concern, when God is contending with us,
to find out the cause that troubles us. We must pray with holy Job, Lord, show
me wherefore thou contendest with me. Achan's sin began in the eye. He saw
these fine things, as Eve saw the forbidden fruit. See what comes of suffering
the heart to walk after the eyes, and what need we have to make this covenant
with our eyes, that if they wander they shall be sure to weep for it. It
proceeded out of the heart. They that would be kept from sinful actions, must
mortify and check in themselves sinful desires, particularly the desire of
worldly wealth. Had Achan looked upon these things with an eye of faith, he
would have seen they were accursed things, and would have dreaded them; but
looking on them with an eye of sense only, he saw them as goodly things, and
coveted them. When he had committed the sin, he tried to hide it. As soon as he
had got this plunder, it became his burden, and he dared not to use his
ill-gotten treasure. So differently do objects of temptation appear at a
distance, to what they do when they have been gotten. See the deceitfulness of
sin; that which is pleasing in the commission, is bitter in the reflection. See
how they will be deceived that rob God. Sin is a very troublesome thing, not
only to a sinner himself, but to all about him. The righteous God will
certainly recompense tribulation to them that trouble his people. Achan
perished not alone in his sin. They lose their own, who grasp at more than
their own. His sons and daughters were put to death with him. It is probable
that they helped to hide the things; they must have known of them. What fatal
consequences follow, even in this world, to the sinner himself, and to all
belonging him! One sinner destroys much good. What, then, will be the wrath to come?
Let us flee from it to Christ Jesus as the sinner's Friend. There are
circumstances in the confession of Achan, marking the progress of sin, from its
first entrance into the heart to its being done, which may serve as the history
of almost every offence against the law of God, and the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Joshua》
Joshua 7
Verse 1
[1] But
the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan,
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.
The children of Israel — That is, one of them, by a very usual figure, as Matthew 26:8, where that is ascribed to the
disciples, which belonged to Judas only, John 12:4.
Accursed thing —
That is, 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 256 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? 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 his fault, which it is probable could not be
unknown to others; or by not sorrowing for it, and endeavoring to purge
themselves from it: partly to make sin the more hateful; as being the cause of
such dreadful judgments: and partly to oblige all the members of every society
to be more circumspect in ordering their own actions, and more diligent to
prevent the miscarriages of their brethren, which is a great benefit to them,
and to the whole society.
Verse 2
[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.
To Ai —
They were not to go into the city of Ai, but into the country belonging to it,
to understand the state of the place; and the people.
Verse 3
[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.
Go up —
Which was done by the wise contrivance of Divine providence, that their sin
might be punished, and they awaked and reformed with as little mischief and reproach,
as might be: for if the defeat of these caused so great a consternation in
Joshua, it is easy to guess what dread it would have caused in the people if a
host had been defeated.
Verse 4
[4] So
there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled
before the men of Ai.
They fled —
Not having courage to strike a stroke, which was a plain evidence that God had
forsaken then; and an useful instruction, to shew them what they were when God
left them: and that it was God, not their own valour, that gave the Canaanites
into their hands.
Verse 5
[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.
About thirty and six men — A dear victory to them, whereby Israel was awakened and reformed, and
they hardened to their own ruin.
The going down — By
which it seems it was a down-hill way to Jericho, which was nearer Jordan.
As water —
Soft and weak, and full of fluctuation and trembling.
Verse 6
[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.
Rent his clothes — In
testimony of great sorrow, for the loss felt, the consequent mischief feared,
and the sin which he suspected.
His face — In
deep humiliation and fervent supplication.
Until the even-tide —
Continuing the whole day in fasting and prayer.
Put dust upon their heads — As was usual in case of grief and astonishment.
Verse 7
[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!
Over Jordan —
This and the following clause, tho' well intended, yet favour of human
infirmity, and fall short of that reverence and modesty, and submission, which
he owed to God; and are mentioned as instances that the holy men of God were
subject to like passions and infirmities with other men.
Verse 8
[8] O
Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!
What shall I say — In
answer to the reproaches of our insulting enemies.
When Israel —
God's people, which he hath singled out of all nations for his own.
Verse 9
[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?
Thy great name —
Which will upon this occasion be blasphemed and charged with inconstancy, and
with inability to resist them, or to do thy people that good which thou didst
intend them. The name of God is a great name, above every name. And whatever
happens, we ought to pray, that this may not be polluted. This should be our
concern more than any thing else: on this we should fix our eye: and we cannot
urge a better plea than this, Lord, what wilt thou do for thy great name? Let
God in all be glorified, and then welcome his whole will!
Verse 10
[10] And
the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy
face?
Upon thy face —
This business is not to be done by inactive supplication, but by vigorous
endeavours for reformation.
Verse 11
[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.
Israel —
Some or one of them.
Transgressed my covenant — That is, broken the conditions of my covenant which they have promised
to perform, whereof this was one, not to meddle with the accursed thing.
Stolen —
That is, taken my portion which I had reserved, Joshua 6:19.
Dissembled —
Covered the fact with deep dissimulation. Possibly Achan might be suspected,
and being accused, had denied it.
Among their own stuff — Converted it to their own use, and added obstinacy to the crime.
Verse 12
[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.
Were accursed —
They have put themselves out of my protection, and therefore are liable to the
same destruction which belongs to this accursed people.
Verse 13
[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.
Sanctify yourselves —
Purify yourselves from that defilement which you have all in some sort
contracted by this accursed fact, and prepare yourselves to appear before the
Lord, expecting the sentence of God for the discovery and punishment of the
sin, and that the guilty person might hereby be awakened, and brought to a free
confession of his fault. And it is a marvellous thing that Achan did not on
this occasion acknowledge his crime; but this is to be imputed to the
heart-hardening power of sin, which makes men, grow worse and worse; to his
pride, being loath to take to himself the shame of such a mischievous and
infamous action; and to his vain conceit, whereby he might think others were
guilty as well as he, and some of them might be taken, and he escape.
Verse 14
[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.
The Lord taketh —
Which shall be declared guilty by the lot, which is disposed by the Lord, Proverbs 16:33, and which was to be cast in the
Lord's presence before the ark. Of such use of lots, see 1 Samuel 14:41,42; Jonah 1:7; Acts 1:26.
Verse 15
[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 folly in Israel.
Shall be burnt with fire — As persons and things accursed were to be.
All that he hath —
His children and goods, as is noted, verse 24, according to the law, Deuteronomy 13:16.
Wrought folly — So
sin is often called in scripture, in opposition to the idle opinion of sinners,
who commonly esteem it to be their wisdom.
In Israel —
That is, among the church and people of God who had such excellent laws to
direct them, and such an all-sufficient and gracious God to provide for them,
without any such unworthy practices. It was sacrilege, it was invading God's
rights, and converting to a private use that which was devoted to his glory,
which was to be thus severely punished, for a warning to all people in all
ages, to take heed how they rob God.
Verse 17
[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:
The family —
Either, 1. the tribe or people, as the word family sometimes signifies, or, 2.
the families, as verse 14, the singular number for the plural, the chief
of each of their five families, Numbers 26:20,21.
Man by man —
Not every individual person, as is evident from Joshua 7:18, but every head of the several
houses, or lesser families of that greater family of the Zarhites, of which see
1 Chronicles 2:6.
Verse 19
[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.
My son — So
he calls him, to shew, that this severe inquisition and sentence did not
proceed from any hatred to his person, which he loved as a father doth his son,
and as a prince ought to do each of his subjects.
The Lord God of Israel — As thou hast highly dishonoured him, now take the blame to thyself, and
ascribe unto God the glory of his omniscience in knowing thy sin, of his
justice in punishing it in thee, and others for thy sake; of his omnipotency,
which was obstructed by thee; and of his kindness and faithfulness to his
people, which was eclipsed by thy wickedness; all which will now be evident by
thy sin confessed and punished.
Verse 20
[20] And
Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of
Israel, and thus and thus have I done:
Indeed I have sinned — He seems to make a sincere and ingenuous confession, and loads his sin
with all just aggravations.
Against the Lord —
Against his express command, and glorious attributes.
God of Israel —
The true God, who hath chosen me and all Israel to be the people of his
peculiar love and care.
Verse 21
[21] When
I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of
silver, and a wedge 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.
When I saw — He
accurately describes the progress of his sin, which began at his eye, which he
permitted to gaze upon them, which inflamed his desire, and made him covet
them; and that desire made him take them; and having taken, resolve to keep
them; and to that end hide them in his tent.
Babylonish garment —
Which were composed with great art with divers colours, and of great price, as
appears both from scripture, and Heathen authors.
Two hundred shekels — To
wit, in weight, not in coin; for as yet they received and payed money by
weight.
The silver under it —
That is, under the Babylonish garment; covered with it, or wrapt up in it.
Verse 22
[22] So
Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in
his tent, and the silver under it.
Sent messengers —
That the truth of his confession might be unquestionable, which some,
peradventure might think was forced from him.
And they ran —
Partly longing to free themselves and all the people from the curse under which
they lay; and partly that none of Achan's relations might get thither before
them, and take away the things.
It was hid —
That is, the parcel of things mentioned, verse 21 and 24.
Verse 23
[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.
Before the Lord —
Where Joshua and the elders continued yet in their assembly waiting for the
issue.
Verse 24
[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.
His sons, and his daughters — Their death was a debt they owed to their own sins, which debt God may
require when he pleaseth; and he could not take it in more honourable circumstances
than these, that the death of a very few in the beginning of a new empire, and
of their settlement in the land, might be useful to prevent the deaths of many
thousands who took warning by this dreadful example, whom, if the fear of God
did not, yet the love of their own, and of their dear children's lives would
restrain from such pernicious practices. And it is very probable they were
conscious of the fact, as the Jewish doctors affirm. If it be pretended that
some of them were infants; the text doth not say so, but only calls them sons
and daughters. And considering that Achan was an old man, as is most probable,
because he was the fifth person from Judah, it seems most likely, that the
children were grown up, and so capable of knowing, and concealing, or
discovering this fact.
His oxen, and his asses, and his sheep — Which, though not capable of sin, nor of punishment, properly so called,
yet as they were made for man's use, so they are rightly destroyed for man's
good; and being daily killed for our bodily food, it cannot seem strange to
kill them for the instruction of our minds, that hereby we might learn the
contagious nature of sin, which involves innocent creatures in its plagues; and
how much sorer punishments are reserved for man, who having a law given to him,
and that excellent gift of reason and will to restrain him from the
transgressions of it, his guilt must needs be unspeakably greater, and
therefore his sufferings more severe and terrible. Farther, by this enumeration
it appears, that he had no colour of necessity to induce him to this fact.
Verse 25
[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.
With stones —
And burned him with fire; which is easily understood both out of the following
words, and from God's command to do so. They were stoned (which was the
punishment of such offenders, Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:35,) and not burned to death; but God
would have their dead carcases burned to shew his utmost detestation of such
persons as break forth into sins of such a public scandal and mischief.
Verse 26
[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, unto this day.
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 Joshua 8:29; 2 Samuel 18:17.
The valley of Achor —
Or, the valley of trouble, from the double trouble expressed, Joshua 7:25.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Joshua》
07 Chapter 7
Verses 2-5
They fled before the men of Ai.
The true measure of strength
In every estimate of work to be done by men, or by money, the moral
element ought to be taken into account as an important factor. Napoleon’s
thought was that “God is on the side of the heaviest battalions.” But Napoleon
did not consider the relative weight of battalions by God’s method of weighing
them. One man’s strength may be as “the strength of ten, because his heart is
pure”; and where two thousand righteous men would be more than sufficient for a
work of God, twenty thousand wrong-hearted men may fail. The true measure of
the strength of any local Church is in the number and power of its godly men
and women, not in the show of its men and women of wealth and intellect and
social standing. One good teacher in a Sunday-school has more real power there
than a score of unworthy ones. And it is with money as with men. The need of
the Church in both the home and the foreign field to-day is not so much mere
money, but better gifts. Ten dollars with a blessing will count for more in
God’s work than ten thousand dollars without a blessing. It is not true that
one man’s money is as good as another’s, nor that money gained by one means is
as good as money gained by another. (H. C. Trumbull.)
Joshua’s lesson after the defeat at Ai
Jericho, according to the Divine promise, had fallen before
Israel. It was evident that this remarkable event had happened through the
direct interposition of the power of God. It is scarcely to be wondered at that
such a triumph bred self-confidence. And, flushed with their recent and
easily-gained success, the victors were in haste to add to their laurels by the
conquest of Ai. Sere was an unlooked-for catastrophe. The Lord’s chosen people
discomfited and dispersed in their second battle, a ground of insulting and
contemptuous rejoicing given to the idolatrous Canaanites. And thus the Divine
purpose stood, apparently, in danger of disgraceful frustration. Such thoughts
were evidently jostling each other, like a medley crowd, in the mind of Joshua.
And, confused beyond the possibility of calm reflection by their influence, he
casts himself in despair before the ark of the Lord. With what wonderful
illuminating power must the answer have come to him, “Get thee up; wherefore
liest thou upon thy face”! What a call to common-sense action on the lines of
faith is here! A little reflection might have shown to Joshua that the fault,
whatever it was, could not lie at Jehovah’s door. In place of useless
whimpering over the past, vigorous examination was needed to remove the lurking
evil. Sanctification, as before Jericho, was urgently required. And as for the
honour of the name of the Lord, it was never in danger. This first defeat would
give caution to the warriors of Israel, while, under the improved conditions
about to be set up, it would act as an unfailing lure to the victors of Ai. Now
this leaf out of the life of a good servant of God is well fitted to teach us
many useful lessons.
I. A lesson as to
the right treatment of a divine mystery. It is easy to conceive of Joshua as
emulating the example of a rationalist, had the prototype of that much-belauded
school existed in his time. In that case he would have called the leaders of
his army together, and subjected them to severe cross-examination. He would
have proposed a long list of questions as to the condition of the arms of the
people, the manner of their leadership and its blunders, the time and apparent
causes of the panic. And having exhausted his critical powers in the vain
endeavour to discover some adequate cause for the catastrophe, he would have
proceeded to distribute blame all round. At the same time, sapiently shaking
his head over the problem, he would decide to “rest and be thankful” without
further efforts at the conquest of the country. Or he would set himself to
prove conclusively that after all the success at Jericho was due to accident,
or purely natural causes, and that the whole scheme of Canaan conquest was
based on a mistake. In this he might, not improbably, easily find scientific
heads to help him. There would be sages who would invoke the aid of the
discoveries of their time to show that the Jordan was divided, and the walls of
Jericho fell from the operation of ordinary physical laws. The phenomena were
special, but not supernaturally so. Or Joshua might have chosen a third course,
and abandoned himself to surly grumbling or useless repining at the hard lot of
a popular leader under a so-called “theocracy.” Joshua’s primitive faith--or,
as some would say, simplicity--was far wiser and more useful. And just as, turn
the compass as yea may, the needle will point to the pole, so, let circumstances
be what they might, Joshua’s trust always drew him towards God’s oracle. The
man of the world might call it childish, fatalistic credulity. At all events
the issue proved it to be the right, the wisest thing to do. In like manner our
true wisdom lies in taking our difficulties to God. Second causes, in the shape
of natural law, human ignorance or frailty, have their sphere in the economy of
the Divine government, but God is supreme over all.
II. It is not
always safe to trust our zeal for the divine honour. Doubtless Joshua thought
with Elijah in later times, “I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts,”
while he was really only fathering Israel’s sin upon Jehovah. And similar
mistakes are not unfrequently made by godly men, and often with the best
intentions. There are some facts which exist, and some which are threatened,
which seem to reflect upon the nature and government of God. And in order, as
it is supposed, to conserve Jehovah’s honour, infinite effort is expended to
cast doubt upon the facts or to qualify the declarations. Could we but touch
the bottom of such “zeal for God” we might be surprised to discover that after
all there is more in it which--unconsciously, it is true--tends to conserve
human weakness and sin rather than the glory of our Divine Ruler. A similar
remark applies to very much in our own estimate of the success of the gospel.
Often we hear, and perhaps oftener are tempted to indulge in our hearts, doubts
as to the power of the glorious gospel. Progress is so slow that men are quick
to discover that the machinery of evangelical ministry has become obsolete, and
its teachings effete. But the lesson ought rather to be earnest inquiry as to
our fitness or otherwise for the success we crave. Is the cause in ourselves,
or our easily improvable methods? Or does the hidden mischief lie in those with
whom we work? There needs but the removal of “the accursed thing” for success
to return to us, and our despondent dirge shall then speedily become a song of
victory.
III. The narrative,
moreover, suggests to us the sight method of regarding afflictions. It is wise
here to have a fixed belief in an overruling Providence, but we must not allow
this to hinder our full cognisance of second causes. And it will be well for us
if in any special trial, while we are ready, with all submission, to bow to the
Divine decree, we carefully ask what there is in us of indiscretion or sin
which has procured, or been accessory to, our sufferings; and then, in earnest
reliance upon Divine grace, let us seek altogether to remove it.
IV. Sanctification
for God’s service often involves the searching out and removal of hidden and
unsuspected sins. There was only one Achan in the camp, and his offence was
known only to himself and God. Nevertheless, no success can rest on the arms of
Israel until he is found out and destroyed. Let us not forget the important
lesson which this is so well fitted to teach. Sin comes to us in such insidious
ways, and uses agents so dear to us, that it succeeds in taking up its abode in
our hearts before we are aware of its presence. Have we an Achan in the camp?
If so, let us seek to extirpate the evil. (J. Dann.)
Israel defeated at Ai
I. The divine
displeasure at human sin. This was not a new lesson to the Israelites. At
Sinai, at Kadesh, at Peor, it had been taught them; but, under new temptations,
they needed renewed instruction. Sin unrepented and unforsaken provokes God’s
changeless displeasure. Such displeasure is a part of eternal justice. We
magnify the grace of God, but grace is only a fragment of His character; it
co-exists with justice.
II. The many may be
punished for the sins of one. God does not deal with men as individuals only.
There is a corporate unity of the family, the Church, the State, which He
regards; and, as the good deeds of one benefit all, the sins of one bring evil
upon all. In this matter, God’s thought is often not as ours. No modern leader,
after the sack of a city, would be surprised to find an Achan in every tent.
Might not, then, the one have been pardoned for the sake of the self-restraint
of the many? At least, might not the guilty one have suffered all the
consequences of his crime, without involving his innocent fellows? Such
questions we are not competent to decide. Only a far-seeing Wisdom, which can
fully fathom motives and forecast all the results of individual sins, can tell
when to be gracious and forgiving, and when to punish. The war against the
idolatrous races of Palestine was not to degenerate into pillage, a school for
covetousness and selfishness for the victors; and so, at the beginning, such a
lesson was needed as would make each afraid of private transgression, and also
watchful of others.
III. The defeat at
ai illustrates the difference between human sagacity and divine guidance. The Israelites
were so strangely unteachable that they did not clearly distinguish between the
two. The victory at Jericho was clearly not theirs, but God’s. But, in the
flush of victory, this was forgotten. Israel rejoiced in her own success.
Prosperity brought presumption, out of which grew the ill-advised expedition
against Ai. It is easy for the Church to repose confidence in the stability and
strength of her own organisation, and in smoothly-running ecclesiastical
machinery, to find the sure augury of her success. Then some spiritual Ai must
needs recall us to the truth that the victories of the kingdom of heaven are
“not by might nor by power,” but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts.
IV. There is great
danger in underestimating the power of an adversary. The easy success at
Jericho made Israel over-confident. A Southern historian of the rebellion has
recorded his opinion that the first
battle at Bull Run was a serious misfortune to the Southern cause. It led to
mistaken confidence. Great numbers of volunteers left the Southern army and
returned home, believing the war ended. Thoughtful writers at the North agree
that it helped the Northern cause, for it taught us not to despise the enemy,
and set clearly before us the magnitude of the conflict. And this has its
parallel in the conflicts of the spiritual life. After Jericho, Ai. There is no
commoner mistake than the belief that following some great victory will be
peaceful conquest, the rest of Canaan. There is no earthly Canaan.
V. It is folly to
trust in past experiences. The three thousand men who went up against Ai were
full of confidence which grew out of the successes at the Jordan and at
Jericho. They assumed the presence and guidance of God because of His past
deliverances. They knew what had happened; from this they formed a doctrine of
probabilities of what would happen. They learned the truth of the maxim, “It is
a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.” We cannot
measure our present relation to God by the past. The past may give us ground
for hope, but there is no science of spiritual probabilities. “There are
factors in” the spiritual life which can change,, the face of things to any
extent, and which hide from all calculations of the probable. Christian
progress is by “forgetting the things that are behind.” Have we a living faith
to-day? (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
The diseases that stop England’s mercies
In this chapter you have a treatise concerning Achan’s sin,
branching itself into three parts; one concerning the commission of the sin,
the second concerning the discovery of it, and the third concerning the
punishment thereof. Oh, what unexpected ways and means hath God to bring out
men’s sin to light. Three thousand men flee before the men of Ai, and
thirty-six men are slain, and this was made the means of discovery of Achan’s
sin; who would have thought that there should have been such a discovery as
this? The work was hindered by this defeat, and that sets them on work to
search out the cause, and shows--
1. That afflictions should set us on work, to search out our sins,
and the cause of them.
2. That sins shall not always be pocketed up, but shall be
discovered, though never so secret.
3. That God hath strange ways to discover men’s sins. First, where
God is in a way of mercy towards His people, there sin does make a stoppage in
His proceedings; so here God was in a way of mercy towards His people, carrying
of them into the land of Canaan, but in the way they sin, Achan plays the
thief; mark what a stoppage this made in the way of mercy; so you have it in Joshua 24:20, Jeremiah 28:9. Sins committed when God is in a way of
mercy are a slighting of mercy. Again, those mercies that come unto God’s
people come unto them in the way of a promise, and therefore if men do not keep
the condition, God takes Himself free, and will turn Himself out of the way of
His mercy. You have an expression to this purpose (Numbers 14:34). God never gives His
people any mercy, but He gives it them in a way of mercy. He does not think it
enough to give them that which is mercy, but He will give it them in a way of
mercy. But now if God should be in a way of mercy towards His people, and they
sin against Him, and He should go on to give them the mercy, they would be
hardened in their sin, and so it would not come unto them in the way of mercy.
Therefore, if God be in a way of mercy towards His people, and they sin against
Him, He will break off the course of His mercy, and go another way, and there
shall be a stoppage made in these proceedings. Why should this be, that so
small a sin should turn the great God of heaven out of the way of His mercy?
Achan commits but a small sin, and what a mighty stop is made in the way of
mercy! For answer three things--
1. There is nothing between God and us. I may boldly say thus much,
that men sin a great sin in saying their sin is small.
2. Sometimes what falls short in the greatness of the sin is made up
in the number of sins. It may be that the number of your little sins amount to
the greatest sin.
3. God will make good His name to the utmost, and His name is, “A
jealous God.” But what evil and hurt is in this, if final stoppage be not made?
Is it nothing in your ears, and in your hearts, that the Lord should turn out
of a way of mercy? If there be a stoppage made in England’s mercy, though but
present, there is an obstruction in all your comforts: you arc sensible of the
obstructions of your body, will you not be sensible of State obstructions, of
Church obstructions? Again, when a man does not rely and live upon God’s
all-sufficiency, when God hath appeared in that way. Abusing of God’s
instruments which He raiseth up for to do His work by, doth exceedingly provoke
and make a stoppage in the mercy of God. Carrying on the work of reformation,
and the great affairs of the Church, upon the shoulders of human prudence, will
make a stoppage in the way of mercy. As prayer and humiliation do exceedingly
further the work of God in the hands of His people, so the falling and slacking
of the hands in these two works doth make a stop in mercy, and hath done in our
mercy. An unthankful receiving of the mercies that God’ hath given us, and a
slight beholding of the great works He hath done before us lately, is another
sin that hath made a stoppage in our mercy. The last sin that makes a stop in
England’s mercy is a worldly disposition, whereby a man hangs back unto the
great work of God, and the glorious reformation that is news-doing. I shall
show you it is a hard thing to appease God’s anger when it is gone out. It must
be done, and that quickly. I shall show you what you shall do, that you may do
it. Therefore it is an exceeding hard thing and very difficult to appease God’s
anger. If the sea break over the banks, and there are but few to stop it, it is
hard to do; if fire hath taken two or three houses in a street, and but few to
quench it, it is hard to do: the fire of God’s anger is broken out, and there
are but few to quench it: it is a hard thing, therefore. Again, God seems to be
engaged in the way of tits wrath. Oh, it is a hard thing to turn God from His anger!
But it must be done, and done quickly. There are six things that Joshua did
here, when they fled before the men of Ai.
1. He was very sensible of God’s stroke that was given to them, for
he says, Lord, would we had been contented in the wilderness.
2. He was humbled under God’s hand, for it is said, he rent his
clothes, and fell down upon the earth.
3. And he prayed, and cried mightily unto God, as you read in the
chapter.
4. And he put away the evil of their doings.
5. And he punished Achan, the offender.
6. tie made a holy resignation. And there must be a concurrence of
all these six things if we would bring God back into the way of His mercy
towards England. (W. Bridge, M. A.)
Sources of weakness
1. Here is a Church with all
the outward elements of strength, prosperity, and efficiency. The mass of
members are orderly and in good standing. But it has a “name to live while it
is dead.” God frowns upon it. And why? There are notoriously unworthy members
in it--perhaps rich and influential--and they are tolerated year after year.
And there is not spiritual life and conscience enough in the body to cast them
out I And so the whole Church is cursed for their sake!
2. Here is a city numbering 800,000 strong, with hundreds of
Churches and able pastors, and scores of thousands of respectable members, and
education and schools and wealth, and all the elements that should insure
social virtue and general thrift, and God’s abundant and abiding blessing. But
there is a moral blot upon it. There is an “accursed thing” winked at. A
handful of corrupt officials are suffered to rule it and curse it. Gambling,
drinking, crime, are suffered to run riot. There is power in the mass, in the
Christian element, to put it down, stamp it out. But it is not invoked. And so
the whole city has to suffer the shame and ignominy and loss. The pulpit, the
Church, virtue, law, are all shorn of their strength. For God will not wink at
such things, if His people do; and so “Ichabod” is written on that city.
3. Here is a community in which a horrible crime has been
committed--a man shot down in cold blood for his fidelity to truth or virtue or
the public welfare. The blood of that man God will require of that entire
community, unless they exhaust every resource of law and society to bring the guilty
to punishment! We may narrow the circle to the individual, and the principle
will still apply. One sin in the heart will neutralise a thousand virtues in
the life. One secret offence will make a man a coward in the face of the world.
One moral weakness will spoil a whole character. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
Defeat through miscalculation
This old story of the battle at Ai is paralleled in all its
essential features in every age and country. Some unrecognised weakness, some
unforeseen turn of events, confuses the most careful calculations and
neutralises the most elaborate preparations. Probably the splendid military
strategy of Napoleon was never more clearly illustrated than in his plan of the
battle of Waterloo; and yet a little strip of sunken road, which was overlooked
in the preliminary survey of the engineers, threw all his calculations into
disarray and lost him the battle and the empire of Europe. Some unnoticed
defect in the machinery negatives the skill of the captain and the seamanship
of the crew of the Atlantic steamer. It was only an insignificant bubble of
air, overlooked in the foundry when the steel was wrought, but it resulted in
weakness in the core of the main shaft, and in the supreme hour of trial there
is failure and disaster. Some lack of fibre in character, and the time comes
when the man who supposed himself sufficient for anything finds himself unequal
to the emergency. And these unforeseen interferences and checks are nowhere so
common and so potential as in the department of religious life. A low type of
piety is not necessarily or probably the result of a resolution to be satisfied
with a certain level of spiritual attainment. I believe that at heart the
majority of Christian men and women desire and attempt to be and do the best
and most possible, but there is some defect of will, some infirmity of temper,
some unwillingness to surrender to God what may be considered an unimportant
particular, and so long as that hindrance is in the way, our prayers and
struggles for better and larger growth are unavailing, and the influence of
that obstacle continually makes itself more and more felt for evil. And what is
true of the individual Christian life is true also of the life and progress of
the Christian Church as a whole. That Church has made great advances and won
not a few triumphs at various periods and in certain directions. At the same
time it is true that the Church ought to have accomplished greater things,
ought to be doing far more than it is to-day. It is God’s Church, and He abides
in it, and that of itself is a warrant for imperial greatness. What conquest is
too vast to be expected when the Lord of hosts marshals the forces that are
enlisted to win it? With such portents and prophecies of triumph, why should
there be any discouragement, or half-heartedness, or laggard marches, or
unwilling hands, or partial successes? Why was not the promise fulfilled long
ago, that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and
of His Christ”? A great deal is said in our time about the need of a working
Church. There is another need quite as great--the need of a Church through
which God Can work. It is not the method and spirit of the working of the
Church, so much as the way and the extent in which and to which it is wrought
upon of the Divine Spirit that determines its efficiency. It is the folly of
the Church of this age that it spends so much ingenuity in devising machinery
and too little time in preparing the way of the Lord and making His paths
straight. No wisdom, nor eloquence, nor marvel of contrivance can make good the
lack of a devoted and submissive spirit that waits and waits and still waits
with the inquiry: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Let us have that in the
Church, a singleness of union with God, and then, through the membership, the
converting energy from on high will flow unhindered, and men be reached and
transformed. (E. S. Atwood.)
Hindered by sin
1. As a matter of fact, there
are unexplained checks in human progress. We wonder why we do not advance more
surely and quickly.
2. Such checks bring Divine providence under criticism and suspicion
(Joshua 7:6-9). This is an easy refuge for
men. Providence has had to sustain many a slander. It seems the handiest of all
things to blame the mysteriousness of the Divine way. Who ever says, “The fault
must be within the house itself; let every man in the house be examined;
somebody is to blame for this mystery--who is it?” But it is easier to sit down
under the supposed comforting doctrine that all this is meant for our good; it
is chastisement; it is part of the mysterious process of human education At the
same time it must be remembered that the sufferer himself may not be personally
guilty. Certainly Joshua was no criminal in this case; yet Joshua suffered more
than any other man. Here we may find the mysteriousness of the Divine action.
This is not an action of mere virtue, as it is socially understood and limited;
it is the very necessity of God: He cannot touch “the accursed thing”; He
cannot smile upon fraud. A new light is thus thrown upon sovereignty and God’s
elective laws. God elects righteousness, pureness, simplicity, nobleness. He
will forsake Israel if Israel forsake Him. The Lord gives the reason why we are
stopped. We must go to Heaven to find out why we are not making more money,
more progress, more solidity of position. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Verses 6-9
Joshua . . . fell . . . before the ark of the Lord.
Joshua’s plea before the ark
The ark was the centre of mercy to Israel, and the glory of
the tabernacle, their refuge in trouble, their security in danger, and their
deliverance in distress. Here they mourned, and made supplication, where the
cause only could be known, where relief only could come. From hence had
proceeded all their pardons, their conquests, and possessions. But for the ark
and the mercy-seat above, its propitiatory covering, Israel had been a lost
people, and long had perished in want or conflict. No such seat of grace and
habitation of mercy in At. The God of glory was still in the sanctuary of His
people, though an accursed thing was in the camp. And where but to God in
Christ, the true ark of the covenant and token of His gracious presence, can
the afflicted, the oppressed, or the convicted go? This is their peculiar
privilege, their constant need, and their never-failing resource. The pleadings
of Joshua are a fine specimen and example of a true supplicatory spirit. It was
before the ark, that grand and expressive type of Christ. Nothing in the
worship of the spiritual sanctuary, no act of prayer or praise, no penitential
pleadings or humiliations, can be acceptable, but as offered in the name, and
through the mediation, of our Divine and glorious peace-maker, the Lord Jesus.
Though the fears and apprehensions of unbelief mingle some infirmity with the
pleadings of this great intercessor for Israel, yet there is impressive beauty
and strength in his expressions, but in none so much as those which discover a
mind tenderly affected for the glory
of God, the honour of His name, and the prevalence of His truth. “What wilt
Thou do unto Thy great name?” Oh! this was the grand point, the highest
consideration, and beyond which pleading could not go. This failing, no other
could avail. And still here is all the force of pleading, as from it all the
cause of prevailing. This name, with all its glory and honour, is in Christ
known to the Church and published to the world, a name ever dear to God, and
dearer than a thousand worlds. This will prevail above all the distresses of
the Church, all the triumphs of her enemies. Peace and pardon, and every
blessing of providence, grace and glory, are insured to the believer, so that
he who rests here can never perish or be conquered. (W. Seaton.)
Deep affliction
When Achilles heard of the death of Patrocius his grief was so
great that he cast himself on the ground as one that could not be comforted.
“With
both his hands black dust he gathers now,
Casts
on his head and soils his comely brow,
Foul
ashes cling his perfumed tunic round,
His
noble form lies stretched upon the ground.”
Here we have a grief similarly expressed, but more pathetic and noble.
Joshua shows here again that he was a perfect leader. In all the affliction of
the people he is afflicted. All the feeling of dismay in the camp is
concentrated, as it were, in him. His great capacity for leadership gives him
greater capacity for suffering. Thus is it always. He who is most interested in
the cause of Christ, he whose heart is most enthusiastic, will be most east
down by defeat. The man whose soul is most sensitive to sin, most fully alive
to the commandments of God and the demands of truth, has the keenest
sensibility, and therefore suffers most in a region of rebellion. That is to
say, the more real spiritual life there is in the soul, the more suffering must
there be. The sorrow of Jesus is the deepest because the love of Jesus is the
highest. Joshua’s sorrow, it is very plain, was sincere and unfeigned. There
was no acting here. And his grief was as unselfish as it was sincere. His chief
sorrow is for the people. Their fate, their prospects, are his chief concern.
Joshua’s perplexity is very great. This indeed is the biggest element in his
trouble, and two parallel questions manifest it--“What shall I say, when Israel
turneth their backs before their enemies?” (verse 8), and “What wilt Thou do
unto Thy great name?” (verse 9). If things continue as they are, and lead to
their natural issues, in regard to Thy ways. What shall I say? What conclusion
am I to come to? What construction am I to put on this event? Joshua makes no
allowance for defeat. The chances of the glorious game of war have no place in
his reckoning. Joshua cannot reconcile this defeat, unimportant though it may
seem to some, with three grand facts wherein lay his chief confidence. The fact
of the Divine presence--“Is God with us after all?” he might ask. The fact of the
Divine promise--“Has God indeed spoken?” The fact of the Divine power--“Is God
able to give unbroken victory?” The sad fact of defeat seemed to go in the face
of these other facts. But to Joshua these other facts were as patent as that
over which he mourned; hence his consternation. He is dumbfounded. And surely
this noble sorrow, this believing consternation of Joshua, should be a reproof
to many. We believe that there are individuals and congregations who would be
more perplexed and confounded by a spiritual victory than by a spiritual
disaster. But Joshua had a second question, which is the expression of a still
deeper cause of perplexity. His first question, “What shaft I say?” rose from
his faith in God. His second question, “What wilt Thou do unto Thy great name?”
arose from his fidelity to God. Thus Joshua’s second question becomes a
powerful plea before God, commanding His attention and drawing forth a reply.
And it is well to notice here for our encouragement in any spiritual emergency
that in the very trouble of Joshua’s soul there exists the germ of good hope.
Joshua, just because he knows, feels, and owns his trouble before God, is every
moment helping forward the solution of the difficulty. To know that we are
beaten may be a bad thing in ordinary warfare; hence Napoleon’s complaint
against the British troops; but it is not so in the spiritual fight; rather is
it essential to continued success. Let us imitate Joshua in his godly sorrow.
But trouble came upon Israel as well as upon their leader. As a single grain of
colouring matter will tinge gallons of water, so one sin will affect a whole
people. Achan’s transgression influenced for evil the whole of that nation. His
little leaven leavened the whole lump. No man can confine the effects of any sin
within the small compass of his own personal experience. Just as in the heart
of a rich city a collection of squalid and filthy dens may spread disease and
death in its finest mansions, so the wicked, wherever found, become centres of
spiritual infection, and no soul near them is safe; hence, just as men wisely
seek in self-defence to improve the physical conditions of the poorest
dwellings, so should we, if for no other motive than the preservation of our
own spiritual health, labour in all directions, and in every possible way, to
improve and elevate the masses. And if this principle holds in the body
politic, much more powerfully does it manifest itself in the body mystic, i.e.,
the Church of the living God. Here the influence of sin is most acutely and
quickly felt. Hence the constant care that should be manifested in casting out
every particle of the leaven of sin. He who takes heed to his own heart and
life, keeping them clean and pure in the sight of God, edifies the brethren,
and is health and strength and joy to all the body of Christ. He who is
careless and sinful, must, like Achan, be a troubler of the house of God. Yes,
and he himself must be miserable. What joy had Achan in all his ill-gotten
gains? The rust of gold, like some strong Satanic acid, ate into his soul, to
his unspeakable torture. Every transgressor sooner or later will find, like
Achan, that in every sin lies its own punishment, and therefore escape is
impossible. And Achan’s act had an evil influence upon the Canaanites as well
as on himself and Israel. The effect of this defeat at Ai would be to harden
their hearts, to make them persist in their rebellion. How often does the
success of the wicked turn out their destruction. Applying these things to the
work of the Lord in our days, we are reminded by the effect of Achan’s sin on
these Canaanites of the evil that is brought on the world through the
unfaithfulness of professing Christians. We must remember that not only the
honour of the Master and the prosperity of the Church are connected with our
faithfulness, but also, to no inconsiderable extent, the spiritual state of the
world around. Therefore let us take heed as we name the name of Christ to
depart from all iniquity, and perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. (A.
B. Mackay.)
Verses 10-15
Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?
Get thee up
To trust God is manifestly our duty. We are commanded to put our
trust in Him. Trust in God is also a crowning means of safety and prosperity.
Exceedingly great and precious promises are made to confidence in God. Watch
over and cherish your trust in God. Cherish it by the study of the promises of
your God. Cherish it by intercourse with God; and make this trust in God strong
by giving it plenty of work to do. The more you exercise this principle, the
stronger will it become. Trust in God is a manifest duty. But there are other
obligations. We are under obligations to personal exertion. To trust is one
duty; to exert ourselves is another: and although some persons would think that
these two things cannot work together, they not only can, but they do work
together in the experience and in the life of every man who is really walking
with his God. Joshua, as you know, was leading the people forward to the entire
conquest of Canaan. God has shown Israel’s captain marvellous deliverances,
and, as is common in our own life, after these wonderful deliverances there
comes a check. And so entirely does this prostrate him, that God his helper has
to rebuke him, and say to him in the language of rebuke, “Get thee up:
wherefore liest thou upon thy face?” Now, it strikes me that there are not a
few who are in the position of Joshua.
1. In the first place, there is the doubter, depressed and paralysed
by his doubts. I say to that man, “Get up--get thee up, and inquire--get thee
up, and call upon God--get thee up and search the book of God--get thee up and
think, and meditate--get thee up and converse with sober, intelligent, wise,
kind-hearted, Christlike disciples.” Follow out your beliefs, and speak of that
which you know. Then deal with your doubts. Do not let these doubts tarry. Do
not let them become normal and constitutional. Regard them as a something
to be taken away from your heart if possible.
2. We might, also, address these words to those who have fainted
under the struggles of life. The words of those who have fainted in the day of
adversity are such words as these, “All things are against me.” “I shall one
day fall by the hand of mine enemy.” “Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain,
and washed my hands in innocency.” Well, under depressing thoughts like these,
those who have become weary in the struggle of life sink into prostration; and
we say to such, “Get thee up.” Out of most troubles there is a present way of
escape, and a future way out of them all. Your trouble may be poverty. Why
conclude that God means you to be poor all your days? Get up, and look if there
be a way out of that poverty. Your trouble may be bodily weakness and sickness.
Why conclude that you are to be an invalid all your days? Get thee up, and
look. See if there be a way of escape from this bodily infirmity. Out of many
of our troubles there is, I say, a way of escape; but we require to get up, and
to look for the way of escape. All that we require in such circumstances is
strength to wait. The working together of the various events of life is of
course a process. That very idea of working together involves a succession of
effects and of results. The good must come.
3. Perhaps, too, there is that class of person known by the common
name of backslider. It is a serious thing to go back. But the man who has gone
back is not in a hopeless state. He ought not to despair. Thanks be to God, I
can appeal to your hope. I can in the name of God say, “Return unto the Lord,
and He will return to you.” He will heal your backsliding; He will love you
freely; He will be as the dew to you, and you shall revive as the corn and grow
as the vine. Only, only, return to the Lord.
4. Those who are hindered and disheartened in their godly
enterprises, as were many of the companions of Nehemiah, in connection with the
work of rebuilding the city and rebuilding the temple. Now God sent Haggai to
say to the people, in substance, just what He said to Joshua, “Get thee up;
wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?”--for by His prophet God spake thus:
“Is it time for you to dwell in coiled houses while God’s house lies waste?”
“Get thee up: wherefore liest thou upon thy face?” Now, just see that
self-prostration and inertness are wrong. For, in the first place, it is God
who speaks to us thus: “Get thee up”; God, whose power is almighty; God, whose
resources are unsearchable riches; God, who is ever working to keep us up, and
to lift us up, and who, when He has helped us ten thousand times, has His hands
stretched out to help us still; God, who proffers His interposition to the weak
and to the needy. And He speaks, observe, to our will, and to our hearts. By
the use of these words He is seeking to work confidence, resolution, and
determination. “Get thee up.” He is appealing to our hopes, that He may comfort
us by hope. There is no evil for which there is no remedy. The position,
therefore, of a man of God is not that of prostration. Even when he is
confessing his sins, his position is not that of prostration. Prostration is
not his posture. His right position is to stand up like a man before God. Oh!
do not thus lie prostrate on your faces. Do not yield to your despondency and
despair. I speak to you men of God, and I may say to you, “All is right. All is
right in Heaven concerning you: and if there be things wrong down here, Heaven
can set them right.” It may be, too, that there is some accursed thing that is
producing your present perplexities and your present difficulties. I know not
what that accursed thing may be. Perhaps it is sinful trust in yourselves;
perhaps it is undue reliance on your fellow-creatures; perhaps you have done
wrong ill endeavouring to obtain an instrumentality to assist you that is not
holy, and that is not heaven-approved. What the accursed thing may be a little
honest inquiry will soon discover. By the power of God, I say, get rid of it;
but, even before you get rid of it, get up. You cannot see the accursed thing
while you are thus spiritually prostrate. You cannot see what you ought to do
while you are thus spiritually prostrate. Whatever may be the cause of your
present difficulty and depression, it is your duty to get up, and stand before
God upright as a man. (S. Martin.)
God’s voice to the desponding
I. Despondency
sometimes overtakes the greatest men.
1. Examples: Jacob, Elijah, David, &c.
2. The causes of despondency are numerous: remorse, disappointment,
forebodings, failure, &c.
II. Despondency
must be struggled against: “Get thee up.”
1. Regrets for the past are useless. What is done cannot be undone.
2. There is urgent work to do. Resolute, earnest activity is
required.
3. Despondency exhausts strength and unfits for work. Despair
unstrings nerves, relaxes muscles, prostrates energies.
4. Effort will shake off the oppressive load, and give fresh energy
to your soul. (Homilist.)
Israel hath sinned, . . . stolen and dissembled.--
The sinfulness of sin
I. The successive
stages of sin. “When Achan longed, he ought to have resisted; when he planned,
he ought to have stopped before taking; when he had taken, he should have cast
it away instead of stealing; when he had stolen, he should have freely
confessed it; and when it was buried he ought to have dug it up again.”
II. The aggravated
guilt of sin.
1. It was a transgression of righteousness: “Israel hath sinned.”
2. It was a transgression of the law of gratitude. Achan ignored the
covenant altogether.
3. It was a transgression of God’s word: “Which I commanded them.”
4. It was the transgression of good faith. Under the specific
condition of not touching the spoil, the victory had been granted, and Achan
had “even taken of the cherem.”
5. It was a transgression of honesty and truth: “They have stolen
and dissembled also.”
6. It was a transgression of Achan’s own conscience. Had he not felt
it wrong to put the devoted things “among his own stuff,” he would not have
hidden them.
III. The
wide-reaching evil of sin.
IV. The connection
between sin and unbelief. Achan had no real faith--
1. In Divine omniscience. Had he really believed that God saw him,
he could not have taken of the spoil.
2. In Divine punishment. Had he been convinced that he would have
been “devoted,” he would have resisted the temptation.
3. In the Divine Word. To disbelieve in the punishment was to
disbelieve Him who had threatened to destroy. (F. G. Marchant.)
Secret sin
We have a mournful interest in sin. Three characteristics of sin
are seen in Achan--
1. Sin is secret; that is, from men, not from God.
2. Sin is gradual. Captivates the senses: “I saw.” Captivates the
desires: “I coveted.” Captivates the soul: “I took.”
3. Sin is the herald of a curse: “The curse of the Lord is in the
house of the wicked.” Note its effects.
I. On Joshua--the
leader.
1. Changed the hero into a coward. His heart became as water.
2. Changed the man of faith to a doubter (verse 7).
3. This in spite of his Divine call and his great ability. So secret
sin affects the leaders of the Church to-day.
II. On Israel--the
church.
1. Changed victors into victims. They fled from before At. Sin is
weakness as well as wicked ness. Sin deters the progress of the Church.
2. This in spite of the Divine covenant. That covenant was to give
the land to the true sons of Abraham- the faithful: “If ye be willing and
obedient,” &c.
3. This, too, in spite of previous victory at Jericho. They won at
Jericho, for they were all sanctified. They failed at Ai, for there was sin in
the camp. One secret sinner may ruin a Church’s worth.
III. On achan--the
sinner. Did not sin gain for him much spoil? Yes--and more. He got gold and
brave apparel, but he also got for his secret sin--
1. Public shame.
2. Public punishment. Sad as are the effects on others, the secret
sinner feels them most of all.
The remedy is--
1. Not inactive grief: “Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?”
(verse 10).
2. Active search for hidden sin (verse 13).
3. Entire sanctification of all (verse 13). (James Dunk.)
Secret sin discovered
Sin as a rule is committed under a false and pernicious
impression, namely--
If sinners did not deceive themselves on these points there would
not be half the sin in the world there is.
I. There is and
can be no secret thing in God’s universe. Every sin, though no human eye or ear
takes cognisance of it, is seen as soon as conceived by the all-seeing eye.
That sin a secret when high Heaven knows it all!
II. There is in sin
itself the element of exposure and retribution. Sin, like every other natural
and moral force, works out certain results, physical, spiritual, and moral, and
those results are not under man’s control; they are the developments of law.
The transgressor is impotent. He cannot stay the Almighty Hand, which, by means
of the law of cause and effect, has its firm grip upon him. He is no longer
master of himself, much less of his secret. And a thousand influences are
working upon him and closing in upon him, all tending to disclosure and final
retribution.
III. All the laws of
God’s universe are put in requisition to expose sin and bring it in due time to
punishment.
1. His physical laws. They even cry out against sin, as in the case
of the inebriate, the glutton, the adulterer, &c. The heavens and the earth
conspire to track and fasten guilt upon the murderer.
2. His moral law. Under its flashes and thunder peals many a guilty
soul has quaked and been driven to confession or suicide. Conscience, echoing
God’s law, makes cowards of sinners; makes life an insupportable burden, drives
them from home and makes them wanderers on the earth, as Cain was.
3. His providential law. A thousand agencies and forces are set to
work to expose and punish transgression as soon as it is committed. Earth, air
and water, science, art, and human law, all furnish evidence to point out and
convict the criminal and bring him to judgment. (J. M. Sherwood, D.
D.)
The punishment of sin
1. How necessary to Christian success is the presence of God.
2. When that presence is withheld, there is generally a cause.
3. When the presence of God is withheld, the Christian should be
humbled and make inquiry before God.
4. Sin is the cause of the Divine displeasure, and must be searched
out.
5. Mark the progress of sin. He who parleys with sin is half-way
towards embracing it.
6. Behold the fatal termination of sin. (J. G. Breay, B. A.)
Sin a reproach and hindrance
Sin, that accursed thing which God hates is a hindrance and a
reproach to any people, viewed either as a nation or as individuals.
I. Let us look at
the sin of the jews, as a nation, in persisting to despise and reject Jesus of
Nazareth. Now, what a shame and reproach are the Jews exposed to for their sin
in rejecting Christ, the anointed of God! From what rich blessings also are
they excluded in consequence of their not admitting Jesus Christ to be the Son
of God and the Saviour of the world! What an accursed thing, too, is the sin of
idolatry to any nation! Those people who are ignorant of the one living and
true God, through Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, and who are bowing down to
stocks and to stones, are in the lowest state of misery and degradation. But
further. Those nations which are professedly Christian nations are frequently
seen to encourage some great evil, which operates against their prosperity, and
which is a reproach to them. In no country which is called a Christian country
should any laws be enacted which are likely to be detrimental to the religion
of Christ. Now, whenever this is the case, it is a reproach to any people, and
a great hindrance to their prosperity and comfort.
II. We come now to
A closer application of our subject, and to consider it in reference. To
individuals. You are all Christians by profession. But remember, “He is not a
Jew which is one outwardly.” Are ye living in the commission of gross sins and
scandalous vices, while ye claim, in virtue of your baptism, to be the children
of God, and heirs according to the promise? Ye are a reproach to the Lord’s
people, and a cause to them of much sorrow and anguish of heart. Remember that
a day is coming when He, who is at present waiting, on thy true repentance, to
be gracious unto thee and to save thee, will appear as thy terrible adversary
to destroy thee. But further. May not sin, the accursed thing, in some degree
be found among the real servants of God as well as among His enemies? How
important, then, and necessary is it that believers should be continually
aiming to mortify the remains of inbred corruption, and to be fortifying
themselves against the inroads of sin by following after righteousness and
holiness of life. (W. Battersby, M. A.)
Neither will I be with you
any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.
God’s part in the war
I. Success in war
is a blessing which is given by God. By this I mean that it does not depend
only on the armaments which are fitted out, or the perfection of our war
machinery, or the number of our troops, or the sagacity of our leaders, or the
power of our enemy, whether we shall be successful in the end. It is clearly
told us in Scripture--so clearly that there is no excuse for the man who
disbelieves it--that God keeps the ultimate results of war entirely in His own
hand. Perhaps there is no other department of human affairs in which Jehovah
has so frequently in Scripture asserted His prerogative as that of war. “The race
is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” And once more we find that
Jehovah retains for Himself the name of Commander over all the armies of the
earth.
II. So long as we
cherish sin, we cannot expect God to grant us success in war. I do not mean to
say that success is always given to the holiest--that victory is the guarantee
of rectitude and defeat the sign of sin; for God ofttimes tries His people by
afflictions, and permits the wicked for a time to prosper. We are not
sufficient judges of these things. But the only ground on which we can well
expect the blessing of success from God is, surely, that of walking uprightly
before Him; and when we cherish sin wilfully and consciously within our
breasts, neither this nor any other blessing can we expect Jehovah to bestow
upon us. It was the sin of one man in the camp. It is the same with us. For
public and national sins we are indeed called to mourn this day. They form a
long black roll. They are too many for enumeration. But we have also our private,
our individual sins to mourn. They are concerned in our disasters. There has
been a vainglorious boasting--a self-sufficient confidence in the prowess of
our soldiers, and the irresistible force of our arms, as if we could not fail.
We thought we were presenting to the world an unequalled spectacle. We have not
been relying, as a nation, upon the help and sufficiency of Jehovah. Until we
come to a more fitting state of heart--till our self-confidence be less--till
our recognition of Jehovah be more--till we feel that we are less than nothing
and vanity--till we feel that all our sufficiency is of God--we can by no means
look that the Omnipotent should scatter our foes before us and humble them in
the dust. (J. E. Cumming, D. D.)
Covetousness in the Church
I. A heinous
transgression was committed. Some pursue the acquisition of wealth with quiet
plodding industry, not appearing to be the subjects of much excitement, but
associating greediness with wariness and caution, never permitting themselves
to swerve from the contemplation of the end, or the employment of the means for
attaining to it. Others, again, in the emphatic language of Scripture, have
“hasted to be rich.” The appetite has been suddenly and uncontrollably kindled,
either by a combination of internal suggestions or by the fatal facilities and
opportunities which of late have been so signally multiplied. It must, however,
here be remembered that there are other forms of covetousness besides that
which consists in the craving and the pursuit of wealth. The love of fame, the
love of power, and the love of sensual pleasure--all these constitute
covetousness; and such covetousness also we conceive to have intruded itself
much into the hearts of the professing people of God.
II. A mournful
consequence was incurred.
1. Observe the consequence, as relating to the individual himself.
God, by virtue of His essential omniscience, was aware of the perpetration of
the sin; notwithstanding its concealment He saw it done, and He instantly
arranged a series of events, by which, in the most impressive manner, there
might be immediate detection, and then condign and adequate punishment. There
is nothing but what is naked and manifest before the eyes of Him with whom we
have to do; and as God knows the sin, so also God punishes the sin. Sometimes
He punishes covetousness, when it is remarkably revolting in its operations, by
judgments similar to the one which is recorded here--the abrupt termination of
life, either by the hands of men or by judgments from His own power, which
cannot be misapprehended or mistaken. Or, frequently, God punishes covetousness
by mental anxiety and dissatisfaction; by the loss of that for which they have
craved, so that it becomes to them as though it had never been; by social
disgrace, contempt and dishonour; by the ruin of bodily and intellectual
health, and by an abandonment to remorse and despair. Always God punishes
covetousness, when it constitutes and is cherished to the last as a master
passion, by an exclusion from His favour, and from the abodes of His celestial
glory. Ye professing Christians see to it that, under the cloak of your
religion, you hide nothing and cherish nothing of a spirit which is deadly
wherever it is indulged. And let us all endeavour, with constant anxiety, to remember
that “God will not be mocked”; and that “it is a fearful thing” to fall into
His hands.
2. Again, we are also to trace the consequences, as relating to the
community to which the individual belonged. For important reasons, the welfare
of the whole people of Israel was affected by the individual transgression. You
will now be prepared for the statement we have simply to advance--that the
prosperity of the Christian Church has been much checked, and that its progress
has been grievously retarded, by the covetousness and by the worldly conformity
of those who have professed to be connected with it.
III. A momentous
duty was required. It was that the people should “put away the accursed thing”
from them.
1. There is comprehended here uncompromising separation from all
that is polluted and pernicious.
2. There must also be devoted engagement in direct effort for the
advancement of the Divine glory. There ought to be, throughout the whole of the
Christian Church, one spirit of devoted, unwearied, and incessant activity in
the proclamation of the unsearchable riches of Christ. And, in connection with
personal labour, there must be pecuniary contribution. The property which has
been vouchsafed to man as a stewardship is to be taken away from the service of
mammon, and devoted to the service of the Saviour, is to be taken away from the
service of Satan and devoted to the service of God, and of souls, and of
salvation. There must also be prayerfulness--incessant and persevering
prayerfulness--prayer involving matters as wide as the universe can supply;
that our own souls may be spiritually established, and may prosper; that the
souls of our fellow-saints may be aroused, revived, and preserved. (James
Parsons.)
Verses 16-19
Achan . . . was taken.
.
Achan’s sin
1. Look at it in itself. It
was sacrilege--a robbing God of what He had directed to be devoted to His glory
and appropriated to the use of His sanctuary.
2. View it in its circumstances. It was committed immediately after
the offender, together with the rest of the people of Israel, had solemnly
renewed their dedication to God in the ordinances of circumcision and the
Passover, and after the most signal display of almighty power; and it was
committed when God had declared that the person who should be found guilty of
such a sin should be accursed.
3. Look, too, at Achan’s sin in its effects. In consequence of it,
God had withdrawn His favour and His help from His people; they had sustained a
humiliating defeat, in which six-and-thirty of their number had been slain; and
had the sin not been punished, it would have procured the destruction of the
whole nation. (W. Cardall, B. A.)
Achan’s trespass
A vessel in full sail scuds merrily over the waves.
Everything betokens a successful and delightful voyage. The log has just been
taken, marking an extraordinary run. The passengers are in the highest spirits,
anticipating an early close of the voyage. Suddenly a shock is felt, and terror
is seen on every face. The ship has struck on a rock. Not only is progress
arrested, but it will be a mercy for crew and passengers if they can escape
with their lives. Not often so violently, but often as really, progress is arrested in many a good enterprise
that seemed to be prospering to a wish. There may be no shock, but there is a
stoppage of movement. The vital force that seemed to be carrying it on towards
the desired consummation declines, and the work hangs fire. In all such cases
we naturally wonder what can be the cause. And very often our explanation is
wide of the mark. In religious enterprises we are apt to fall back on the
sovereignty and inscrutability of God. “He moves in a mysterious way, His
wonders to perform.” It seems good to Him, for unknown purposes of His own, to
subject us to disappointment and trial. We do not impugn either His wisdom or
His goodness; all is for the best. But, for the most part, we fail to detect
the real reason. That the fault should lie with ourselves is the last thing we
think of. We search for it in every direction rather than at home. It was an
unexpected obstacle of this kind that Joshua now encountered in his next step
towards possessing the land. Hitherto Joshua had been eminently successful, and
his people too. Not a hitch had occurred in all the arrangements. The capture
of Jericho had been an unqualified triumph. It seemed as if the people of Ai
could hardly fail to be paralysed by its fate. The men of Israel were not
prepared for a vigorous onslaught, and when it came thus unexpectedly they were
taken aback and fled in confusion. As the men of Ai pursued them down the pass,
they had no power to rally or retrieve the battle; the rout was complete, some
of the men were killed, while consternation was carried into the host, and
their whole enterprise seemed doomed to failure. And now for the first time
Joshua appears in a somewhat humiliating light. He is not one of the men that
never make a blunder. He rends his clothes, fails on his face with the elders
before the ark of the Lord till even, and puts dust upon his head. There is
something too abject in this prostration. And when he speaks to God, it is in
the tone of complaint and in the language of unbelief. Like peter on the
waters, and like so many of ourselves, he begins to sink when the wind is
contrary, and his cry is the querulous wail of a frightened child! After all he
is but flesh and blood. Now it is God’s turn to speak. “Get thee up; wherefore
liest thou thus upon thy face?” Why do you turn on Me as if I had suddenly
changed, and become forgetful of My promise? Then comes the true
explanation--“Israel hath sinned.” Might you not have divined that this was the
real cause of your trouble? Is not sin directly or indirectly the cause of all
trouble? What a curse that sin is, in ways and forms, too, which we do not
suspect! And yet we are usually so very careless about it. How little pains we
take to ascertain its presence, or to drive it away from among us! How little
tenderness of conscience we show, how little burning desire to be kept from the
accursed thing! And when we turn to our opponents and see sin in them, instead
of being grieved, we fall on them savagely to upbraid them, and we hold them up
to open scorn. How little we think, if they are guilty, that their sin has
intercepted the favour of God, and involved not them only, but probably the
whole community in trouble! How unsatisfactory to God must seem the bearing
even of the best of us in reference to sin! The peculiar covenant relation in
which Israel stood to God caused a method to be fallen on for detecting their
sin that is not available for us. The whole people were to be assembled next
morning, and inquiry was to be made for the delinquent in God’s way, and when
the individual was found condign punishment was to be inflicted. The tribe is
taken, the family is taken, but that is not all; the household that God shall
take shall come “man by man.” It is that individualising of us that we dread;
it is when it comes to that, that “conscience makes cowards of us all.” But
before passing on to the result of the scrutiny, we find ourselves face to face
with a difficult question. If, as is here intimated, it was one man that
sinned, why should the whole nation have been dealt with as guilty? We are to
remember that practically the principle of solidarity was fully admitted in
Joshua’s time among his people. The sense of injustice and hardship to which it
might give rise among us did not exist. Men recognised it as a law of wide
influence in human affairs, to which they were bound to defer. Let us think of
Achan’s temptation. A large amount of valuable property fell into the hands of
the Israelites at Jericho. By a rigorous law, all was devoted to the service of
God. Now a covetous man like Achan might find many plausible reasons for
evading this law. “What I take to myself (he might say)will never be missed.
Nobody will suffer a whir by what I do--it cannot be very wrong.” Now the great
lesson taught very solemnly and impressively to the whole nation was, that this
was just awfully wrong. The moral benefit which the nation ultimately got from
the transaction was, that this kind of sophistry, this flattering unction which
leads so many persons ultimately to destruction, was exploded and blown to shivers.
That sin is to be held sinful only when it hurts your fellow-creatures, and
especially the poor among your fellow-creatures, is a very common impression,
but surely it is a delusion of the devil. That it has such effects may be a
gross aggravation of the wickedness, but it is not the heart and core of it.
And how can you know that it will not hurt others? Not hurt your
fellow-countrymen, Achan? Why, that secret sin of yours has caused the death of
thirty-six men and a humiliating defeat of the troops before At. More than
that, it has separated between the nation and God. Many say, when they tell a
lie, it was not a malignant lie; it was a lie told to screen some one, not to
expose him, therefore it was harmless. But you cannot trace the consequences of
that lie, any more than Achan could trace the consequences of his theft,
otherwise you would not dare to make that excuse. Is there safety for man or
woman except in the most rigid regard to right and truth, even in the smallest
portions of them with which they have to do? Is there not something utterly
fearful in the propagating power of sin, and in its way of involving others,
who are perfectly innocent, in its awful doom? Happy they who from their
earliest years have had a salutary dread of it, and of its infinite
ramifications of misery and woe! (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
A great crime
I. The crime of
Achan was marked by disobedience. And the remembrance of the solemn covenant
between God and His people rendered the disobedience very aggravated. The act
of Achan was a glaring breach of its conditions.
II. It was also an
act of theft, a breach of the eighth commandment. There was, on the part of
Achan, a definite and deliberate breach of trust; as much so as
if the crime had been embezzlement or forgery. And it is very plain that this
act was deliberately planned and carried out. Achan’s action was not that of a
man suddenly overcome by temptation. His act was most deliberate. It was also
inexcusable. There was no pressing want or demand upon him to coerce right
principle.
III. Deceit also
characterised Achan’s conduct. So is it always. Lying and stealing are twin
brothers, inseparable. The words “committed a trespass” might be more literally
translated, “deceived a deceit.” The whole transaction occurred under cover of
a cloud of guile. He not only stole, but also tried hard to cover his offence
with craft.
IV. Achan’s conduct
also revealed unbrotherliness. He wished in an underhand way to get the better
of his brethren, and that was bad enough; it showed how utterly selfish he was.
But he had also been warned that such conduct would be visited not only on the
perpetrator himself, but on all the people (Joshua 6:18). Accordingly his act was unbrotherly
and unpatriotic. The real enemy of God’s people is not opposing strength but
inner corruption; not the quibbles of the infidel but the carelessness of the
Christian. Achan’s wedge of gold was a more formidable weapon against Israel
than all the swords of the aliens. The grand lessons here taught are, that
while the holy are invincible, the defiled must be defeated; and “He that is
greedy of gain troubleth his own house.”
V. Still further,
Achan’s conduct revealed ingratitude. And this was all the more sad, because
Jehovah was no hard master, eager to gather all to Himself and leave His
servants as little as possible. Each of them will have plenty in good time.
There is sufficient for each and all, and for their children after them. Surely
He may well demand the firstfruits as His due.
VI. Achan’s deed
betokened impiety. It was the act of a godless heart. Could Achan have believed
that God spoke true, when He warned the army of the evil that would come upon
them if they disobeyed His command? Nay, he did not believe the Divine word.
Neither did he believe in the Divine knowledge. Whom did Achan conceive the God
of Israel to be? One like the blind and deaf deities of Canaan--a god who could
not see and understand. His act was an invasion of God’s rights before His very
face; the alienation of His property under His very eyes; the devoting to
private use that which He had devoted to His glory, and therefore it amounted
to daring and impudent sacrilege. Is such a sin as Achan’s extinct? Is there no
unjust getting in these days? no “getting of treasures by a lying tongue”? Is
there no undue grasping in these days? Has God no claim on any portion of what
we possess? (A. B. Mackay.)
Found out
One man spoiled the unity, spoiled the success. It is put in plain
English: for the sin of one man the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel, and they all suffered. For that unity, that solidarity, is a reality
far more than we think. God counts a great deal upon it. If one member suffer,
the whole body suffers. If there is health, there is general health. If there
is sickness, we are all enfeebled and hurt by that sickness. It is somewhat
like what takes place in connection with our electric telegraph system.
Messages and communications are flying to and fro, say, between the different
parts of an army in a foreign country engaged in foreign campaign, one being in
complete accord and close communication with the other, when suddenly there is
a breakdown. Suddenly the generals in each host cease to be able to communicate
with each other. United movement is impossible: united counsel is impossible.
Why? Because, at some one place the enemy, by means of a spy, has tapped the
wire; and all this communication of theirs is being turned not for them, but
against them. At some place the wire is tapped and the communication is taken
off and is used by the enemy. So with Israel. At one point the tide of the
Spirit’s power that was circulating through them all was deflected. By one
unfaithful man the whole tide of God’s energy was shed helplessly down to the
earth. The problem on that day was this. There was one man who had broken the
chain. A leakage was taking place at one point, at one particular man, an
ordinary man, a man who but for his sin would never have been heard of in the
world. Oh, see how staring, glaring, conspicuous a man becomes by sin; not by
cleverness, not by intellectuality, not by wealth, not by culture, not by rank,
not by wearing clothes, and taking positions, but by this dirty thing--sin. Sin
makes a man conspicuous who otherwise, as I have said, would not have been
heard of--an ordinary man in the ranks of men. There is that missing link;
there is that break; there is that leakage; there is that sinner. The problem
is, how to find him out--how to have the damage repaired, how to have that man
detected, and either put right or put out. And the problem is intensified thus.
The man knows what he has done, and the man will not tell. We have the same
thing still. This accursed thing is in us, namely, that our heart shall depart
from the living God; our heart shall forget its purpose; our heart shall turn
aside to sin, and outwardly we shall brazen it out with our very Leader and
defy Him, and deny so far as we are concerned, that we are responsible--that
the blame lies at our door. There was no confession. The Lord was not helped in
the least. He had to take judgment in hand. Joshua was nonplussed; and if God
Himself had not come, Israel’s history as a successful people would have come
to a close at this very point. We talk in our homely proverb of the difficulty,
the impossibility, of finding a needle in a haystack. That familiar phrase
receives a moral illustration here. What God has to do is to find out the one
sinner among these assembled thousands, when he is keeping as dark as the
grave. God could have come and simply taken that unclean thing, Achan. He could
have taken him “neck and crop” without all this process. God could have gone
straight to him, and put His hand upon his shoulder, and hurled him out into
the outer darkness at once. Why take all this time--tribe by tribe, family by
family, man by man? Surely that was mercy. That was in Achan’s interest. He
gave the poor, infatuated fool time, space, place, room to repent; and as he
saw Nemesis evidently on his track he had time to cast himself down before
Joshua, and to exclaim, “Stop! I confess! I am the man.” Had he done so, this
story, I am convinced, would have been one of the brightest stories of mercy in
God’s book, instead of one of its darkest, almost without a ray of light. Achan
was taken. That same God is the God of the New Testament Church. I do not know
how it may be with you: but this is the kind of preaching I was brought up
under, and I have seen no reason to turn from it--a God of inflexible
righteousness and holiness, who will not allow sin to go unpunished. Now do not
stand up blatantly and ask whether I have ever heard of the Cross and the New
Testament. I have been to the Cross. This story is intensified by the Cross. At
the Cross we behold at once the goodness and the severity of God. At the Cross
we learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the dazzling, blinding holiness of
God, as well as the mercy that is intershot through all. Sin is no metaphysical
abstraction. It is not a mere arrangement of the letters of the alphabet. It is
not a mere thing of theology or of philosophy. It is a deep, dark, abominable
thing found in the hearts of men; and if God spared not the angels that sinned,
how shall He spare us? No, it was no exaggeration. It was no “trouble for
nothing.” It was no mere cry. God was justified. There was a stone in the
machine, and God found out the stone and took it away; and then the wheels
ceased to grate and jar and move heavily. There is a stone in the machine yet,
in the moral machinery of God’s Church and of God’s world. I may be that stone,
and I may be concealing what I am--concealing it behind the profession of the
ministry, concealing it behind preaching to you on this very subject. You may
be concealing it behind the office of the elder. You may be concealing it
behind a great anxiety to keep the table of the Lord and the communion roll
pure; and I say that this is needful, and it is a good sign and a good thing
that the Church should conserve and be anxious about her purity before God and
man; and yet it may be part of the dress that we put on, to look as Achan
looked. For while the judgment processes were going on Achan, very likely, held
up his head and looked round. “It is not I, at any rate”; and the nearer it came
the more brazen he looked; “It is not I.” So our very scrupulosity and care in
connection with God’s house and book and day may belong to the Pharisee within
us, the Achan, the hypocrite. God Almighty alone could have detected this man,
and God Almighty Himself had to take the judgment work in hand. I am speaking
to Achan here, and I want to let you know that you will get all you are working
for. The day comes when the sweet gales of mercy no longer shall blow--when you
will hear no more about cleansing blood--when there will be nothing but “a
fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation that shall devour the
adversaries”--when your sin shall be proved on you, and in you, and to you, and
before an assembled world, with no chance for ever of getting its curse and its
power lifted away. It is coming. God will here lead us now to confession, or
there to too late confession and doom beyond remedy. (John McNeill.)
Achan a representative man
There is nothing old in these words. Achan is “taken” every day.
Achan is sure to be “taken.” If we are practising the policy of Achan, the fate
of Achan we can never avert. What a representative man is Achan! Does he not
represent those, for example, who are continually taking great risks? What a
life some men lead I But the mystery of it is that Achan represents also men
who have no need to take risks. They have plenty; they have sweet homes. They
need not go out of their own doors for a single pleasure. Yet they covet just a
little more: it is only one acre to complete the estate. Achan committed a sin
which is common to us all, in so far that he felt it extremely difficult to
subordinate the personal to the communal. He might have said--and in so saying
he would have talked good, round English”--What can a wedge of gold matter in
all this great heap of wealth? What is the difference one Babylonish garment
more or less? Who will be the worse for my taking it? Nobody need know. I want
a relic of this event, I want a keepsake; this has been a very wonderful
miracle, and I want to keep in my house some memorial of it; I could turn these
things into good, moral uses: I could preach sermons upon them, I could derive
lessons from them. It cannot make any difference where thousands of men are
concerned if I take one wedge of gold, two hundred shekels of silver, and a
goodly Babylonish garment--they are all but a handful, and who will miss them?
In fact, there will be no reckoning; things in connection with a battle are
done so tumultuously and so irregularly that none will ever think of looking up
such a handful of spoil as I may seize.” That is the exaggeration of
individualism; that is the lie which man is always telling to himself. It is
the falsehood which enables him to cheat the body politic: “What can it matter
if I do not vote? There are thousands of people who want to vote, let them
enjoy themselves, and I will take mine ease. What can it matter if I do not
keep the laws of the company--the municipal or other company? The great
majority of the neighbours will keep them, and as for any little infraction of
them of which I may be guilty, it is mere pedantry to remark upon it. Who cares
for the body politic--the body corporate?” We are being taught to respect that
so-called abstraction; but the lesson is a very difficult one to learn. When
shall we come to understand fully that there is a corporate humanity, a public
virtue, a body politic, with its responsibilities, laws, duties--a great
training-school in which individualism is subordinated to the commonwealth?
Does not Achan represent those who create unnecessary mysteries in the course
of Divine providence? It is the concealed man who could explain everything. It
is the thief behind the screen who could relieve all our wonder, perplexity,
and distress. We have to search him out by circumstantial evidence. If he would
stand up and say, “Guilty!” he would relieve our minds of many a distressing
thought even about the Divine government. We wonder why the people are delayed,
why the battle goes the wrong way, why the heathen pursues the chosen man, and
beats him down, and scorns his assaults. We speak of God’s mysterious way. It
is a mistake on our part. The silent man, skulking behind the arras, could
explain the whole affair, and relieve Divine providence of many a wonder which
grows quickly into suspicion or distrust. Look at the case in one or two
remarkable aspects.
1. Consider Achan, for example, as a solitary sinner. He was the
only man in the host who had disobeyed the orders that were given. “Why arrest
a whole army on account of one traitor? Let the host go on.” So man would say.
God will not have it so. He does not measure by our scale. One sin is a
thousand.
2. Think of Achan as a detected sinner. For a time there was no
prospect of the man being found out. But God has methods of sifting which we do
not know of.
3. Then look at Achan as a confessing sinner. He did confess his
sin, but not until he was discovered. And the confession was as selfish as the
sin.
4. The picture of Achan as a punished sinner is appalling. Who
punished the sinful man? The answer to that inquiry is given in Joshua 7:25, and is full of saddest yet
noblest meaning. Who punished the thief? “All Israel stoned him with stones”--not
one infuriated man, not one particularly interested individual, but “all
Israel.” The punishment is social. It is the universe that digs hell--the all
rising against the one. (J. Parker, D. D.)
My son, give, I pray thee,
glory to the Lord.--
Kindness to the sinner
There was infinite kindness in that word “my son.” It reminds us
of that other Joshua, the Jesus of the New Testament, so tender to sinners, so
full of love even for those who had been steeped in guilt. It brings before us
the great High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
seeing He was in all things tempted like as we are, yet without sin. A harsh
word from Joshua might have set Achan in a defiant attitude, and drawn from him
a denial that he had done anything amiss. How often do we see this! A child or
a servant has done wrong; you are angry, you speak harshly, you get a flat
denial. Or if the thing cannot be denied, you get only a sullen acknowledgment,
which takes away all possibility of good arising out of the occurrence, and
embitters the relation of the parties to each other. But not only did Joshua
speak kindly to Achan, he confronted him with God, and called on him to think
how He was concerned in this matter. “Give glory to the Lord God of Israel.”
Vindicate Him from the charge which I and others have virtually been bringing
against Him, of proving forgetful of His covenant. Clear Him of all blame,
declare His glory, declare that He is unsullied in His perfections, and show
that He has had good cause to leave us to the mercy of our enemies. No man as
yet knew what Achan had done. He might have been guilty of some act of
idolatry, or of some unhallowed sensuality like that which had lately taken
place at Baal-peer; in order that the transaction might carry its lesson it was
necessary that the precise offence should be known. Joshua’s kindly address and
his solemn appeal to Achan to clear the character of God had the desired
effect. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Confession of sin to God
God’s omniscience should indeed make us ashamed to commit sin, but
it should embolden us to confess it. We can tell our secrets to a friend that
does not know them; how much more should we do it to Him that knows them
already? God’s knowledge outruns our confessions and anticipates what we have
to say. As our Saviour speaks concerning prayer, “Our heavenly Father knows
what you have need of before you ask,” so I may say of confession, your
heavenly Father knows what secret sins you have committed before you confess.
But still He commands this duty of us; and that not to know our sins but to see
our ingenuity. Adam, when he hid himself, to the impiety of his sin added the
absurdity of s, concealment. Our declaring of our sins to God who knows them
without being beholden to our relation; it is like opening a window to receive
the light which would shine in through it howsoever. Now there is no duty by
which we give God the glory of His omniscience so much as by a free confession
of our secret iniquities. Joshua says to Achan, “My son, give, I pray thee,
glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him.” (R. South.)
Verse 20-21
Achan answered . . . I coveted and took.
The eye, the heart, and the hand
I. The eye an
occasion of sin. We will suppose that Achan came into contact with this
Babylonish garment in the course of his duty. He could not help seeing it, and
therefore there was no harm in seeing it; in the simple contact of this garment
with his eye, and of this silver and gold with his eye, there could be no
wrong; this was a permission of Divine Providence. The sin was in the looking
at it. He saw; and instead of turning his eye away from the temptation, he
continued to look, and he looked until he coveted, and he coveted until he
took. And we will suppose that you cannot help seeing things which suggest the
thought of doing wrong, and which excite the desire to do wrong; but you can
help fixing your eyes upon them, and keeping your eyes intent upon them.
II. Mark the
progress of sin. It was an evil thing to continue looking; it was a greater
evil to desire to take. The desire springing up, what did Achan with respect to
it? Instead of trying to quench it, he fed it. He let imagination fly and work,
and, under the influence of that imagination, and the thinking connected with
that imagination, the desire to possess this garment, and to lay hold of this silver
and gold, became in his heart exceedingly strong, and mastered him. Under the
power of that desire he stretched forth his hand and took. Just see here the progress of
the sin--I saw, I coveted, I took; I first took that which was doomed to be
destroyed, and then I took that which was devoted to the service of my God.
III. Look at the deceitfulness
of sin. When Achan saw, and coveted, and took, the taking promised him great
things. There is nothing in the universe so deceitful and so treacherous as
doing wrong. Doing wrong always promises some good result, and doing wrong has
never yet realised it, nor ever can.
IV. Look at the
cowardice of the transgressor. He hid these things. He first put them among his
furniture. I dare say he thought that there would be no notice taken of it.
Then, when a stir is made about the matter, and the lot begins to be used, what
did he? Instead of having the courage and manliness to remove suspicion from
his fellows, and to say, “I am the sinner,” he hides in the earth, in the midst
of his tent, the treasures and the garment which he has taken. This seems to be
a general fact in connection with sin: “The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth,
but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
V. Look at the
folly and the madness of persisting in transgression. The wages of sin, what
are they? You see this illustrated here. “The wages of sin is death.” Achan,
instead of gaining anything by this transgression, lost all. He lost net only
the spoil he had taken, but he lost even life itself. Now this is God’s
arrangement, that he whose transgressions are not pardoned shall die, and shall
die a second death. Tell me, then, what is a man profited if he gain the world,
and die that second death? (S. Martin.)
Achanism; or, self-seeking a hindrance to tits victories of
Christianity
I. This principle
applies to the efforts of men to promote their own individual christianity. It
is common to hear Christians mourning their spiritual barrenness; regretting
their little progress in the great work of self-discipline and personal
sanctification. They refer the cause sometimes to the circumstances in which
they are placed, and sometimes to the profitless ministry which they attend,
whereas there is some Achan within--some unholy principle or passion that is
neutralising every effort, and rendering the spirit powerless to strike one
conquering blow.
II. This principle
applies to the efforts which individual churches make to promote christianity
in their own neigbourhood. Some sweeping system of discipline must come before
your efforts to evangelise will be of much avail. The tares must be plucked from
the wheat.
III. This principle
applies to the efforts which the general church is employing to promote
christianity throughout the world. The self-seeking spirit hinders the spread
of the Gospel.
1. By preventing that agency which is indispensable for the purpose.
Self-sacrifice.
2. By prompting that agency which must necessarily neutralise its
aim. Priestcraft. Slavery. War. (Homilist.)
Achan
I. The gradual progress of sin.
II. The deceitful nature of sin (Job 20:12-15; Habakkuk 2:11).
III. The certain detection of sin.
IV. The awful penalty of sin.
V. The only way of forgiveness of sin.
VI. The uncertainty of a later repentance. (T. Webster, B. D.)
Sin’s progress
I. The glance: “I saw.”
II. The greed: “I coveted.”
III. The guilt: “I took.” (Thomas Kelly.)
Achan’s sin
I. The fascination: “Babylonish garment.”
II. The feeling: “I coveted.”
III. The felony: “I took.”
IV. The fear: “I hid them.”
V. The fate: “Israel stoned him.” (Thomas Kelly.)
Achan and his sin
I. The tempting sight: “A goodly Babylonish garment,” &c.
II. The covetous heart: “I coveted them.”
III. The grasping hand: “Took them.”
IV. The crafty action: “Hid.”
V. The judicial search: “Joshua sent,” &c.
VI. The lawful seizure: “They took them.”
VII. The religious ceremony: “Laid them out before the Lord.”
VIII. The merited retribution: “Stoned him.”
IX. The admonitory memorial: “Raised over him a great heap of stones.”
X. The appeased avenger: “So the Lord turned,” &c. (J. Henry
Burn, B. D.)
Achan’s sin
God, who looks deeply into the hidden springs of human conduct, is
careful to lay a special emphasis upon the more subtle evil of covetousness.
‘It deserves attention that, along with murder, theft and lying, it has one
entire commandment to itself. Drunkenness, violence, sensuality, luxurious
living, corruption and bribery are doubtless making havoc with reputations,
with human life and with immortal souls. But who shall say how often these open
vices draw their inspiration or the means of gratification from “the love of
money, which is,” in very deed, “a root of all evil”? Many of the more violent
sins are like fire in dry stubble--they burn out rapidly. But avarice is like
those fish which can best thrive in Arctic seas--it flourishes in the chilly
blood of old age.
I. In turning our
attention to the dealings of God with Israel concerning Achan’s transgression
let us briefly review the facts.
II. These dealings
of God with Achan’s family and with Israel because of one man’s sin bring
before us in a startling shape that great mystery--fellowship in guilt and in
suffering. Bishop Butler states a fact of daily experience when, in his
irrefutable reply to objections against the mediation of Christ (“ Analogy” pt.
2. ch. 5.), he reminds us that nearly the whole of what we enjoy or suffer
comes to us through our relation to other men. Every thinking man can see for
himself that the conduct of parents shapes the destiny of their children.
Drunkenness, sensuality and gluttony stamp themselves upon the offspring that
is yet unborn. The more obvious operations of the law are visible to our feeble
eyes. How much farther it extends is known only to God or as He reveals it to
us. When the attempt is made to break the force of this analogy by saying, “It
is all natural,” that same sagacious thinker reminds us that “natural” means
are appointed by Him who is the Author of nature. So it appears that, explain
the facts as we may, deny them if we dare, we cannot get rid of the principle
so long as we hold to a belief in an almighty Creator.
III. From this
discussion, notwithstanding our imperfect apprehension of its great theme,
certain conclusions seem to follow which are of immense practical importance.
1. How vain to hope for escape from punishment so long as sin
remains unrepented of!
2. A wise regard to our own happiness will make us deeply interested
in the welfare of our neighbour. God holds us accountable in this regard to an
extent that many seem not to dream of.
3. It especially becomes parents to consider the influence which, in
the nature of things, they must exert over the destiny of their children. Not
miserable Achan only, but far better men, as Noah, Lot, Eli, and David, are sad
examples of this. “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but He
blesseth the habitation of the just.”
4. Among other duties it is incumbent upon such parents to consider
well what place shall be made in their plans for “goodly” garments and for
shekels of gold and silver. There may be, there often is, a place for such
things, but it becomes us to consider the text upon which our Lord preached
that wonderful sermon, the parable of the rich fool: “Take heed and beware of covetousness,”
&c. (W. E. Boggs, D. D.)
Achan’s crime, confession, and punishment
In the progress of the evil, temptation entered by the eye, that
chief inlet of corruption to the heart. He might be characterised by all that
was evil: an evil eye, an evil heart, and an evil hand. Correct imitator of the
first transgressor! David’s distress and dishonour originated in the same
course; and so did the covetousness of Ahab, who could not see Naboth’s
vineyard without conceiving the purpose of making it his own. Thus the eye,
exquisitely nice in construction, beautiful in form, and precious in use,
formed too for purposes of purity and pleasure, is pressed into the service of
sin, and has opened to the heart, that deep and rising fountain of evil, that
spring of moral corruption, endless forms of sin and allurement. In the advance
of sin the temptation laid hold of his affections, those strong ties of inward
life, and too frequent controllers of outward action. The first conceptions of
evil, and its last impressions, are in the heart: the eye is but as a servant
in its employ. When I saw, &c., then I coveted them. The only thing that
remained was to make them his own, for which we may conceive many palliating
considerations were admitted, matured by unbelief. Oh! to what cruelties and
outrage have forbidden desires, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,
impelled on many who, in love of power, wealth, and pleasure, have not only
laid hands on what God has prohibited, but, with property, taken away the very
lives of its owners! “I took them.” The hand, as the eye, now became the
servant of the heart to perfect its evil wishes. Ah! little did he consider
that the whole progress of this action was marked with a curse--the sight, the
desire, and the act of sin, and that therein he had even appropriated a curse
from which he would never be able to free himself. “And, behold, they are hid
in the earth in the midst of my tent.” What perplexities did these riches
bring! a thousand embarrassments felt, before a place could be found for their
deposit!--at last, his tent; not among the things seen, nor were they deemed
safe in the privacy
of his most concealed possessions, but, as though dead to his heart, and never
again to see the light, he gave them burial beneath his tent! Neither friend,
nor wife, nor children, could be entrusted with the secret. Oh! that any should
transact what fear or shame induces them to conceal from the observation of
others, and even sometimes what they could not endure their nearest friends
should know! But what can all avail when men cannot hide themselves, or any of
their actions, from the eye of infinite purity, which sees into every dark
recess of infidelity and corruption. In this instance of confession one
melancholy reflection arises--it was out of the order of mercy as to this life,
and therefore unavailing. Instead of preceding detection, it was after
conviction, and but the desperate necessity of his case, wanting the
ingenuousness which ever characterises the sincere penitent as the hater of his
own offence. Whatever his situation in the next world, it may be viewed as a
faint picture of their ineffectual confessions and unavailing miseries who
shall appear convicted and condemned at the bar of God. The awfulness of the
sentence naturally throws our reflections upon the aggravations of the offence.
“He that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all
that he hath.” The reason assigned vindicates the severity of justice. “Because
he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he hath wrought
folly in Israel.” Achan acted against the mightiest displays of vengeance and
love, the obligations of favours received, and the awful severities of justice
executed upon idolaters. To all the wonders of providence and grace displayed
through many years, the interposition of power so recently experienced in the
destruction of Jericho, added new claims of obedience. The covenant relation in
which he stood to God as one of His professing people, and the instructions of revelation
with which he was favoured, gave an aggravation to his offence, beyond whatever
could characterise the sin of idolaters. The ruinous consequences that
followed. Many the evils which had resulted to others, but the most awful fell
upon himself and family. To the loss of men, the distress of the camp, the
triumphs of the enemy, and the dishonour cast upon the Divine name, ensued the
execution of a sentence the most exemplary. How terrible this scene of
judgment, more awful than the burning of Jericho. For how small a portion of
ill-gotten gain, and how short a time, did he lose life, and all the good to be
enjoyed in the land of Canaan. All Israel concurred in the execution of the
sentence: it is so spoken of as though every man had cast a stone, and every
one thrown fuel to the fire. How awful their case, and how aggravated their
crimes, when even those they have lived among are employed by God, as the
executioners of His justice. (W. Seaton.)
The Babylonish garment
I. We find, in the
case of Achan, that the wandering and wanton eye was the first avenue of
mischief. Yet this is the very function to which the great Teacher appeals as
the first guardian against sin: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
temptation.” There is an eye in the heart as well as in the head, and Christ,
knowing how easily the one is decoyed, enjoins wakefulness upon the other. Keep
both open, and let the eye of the conscience supervise and test all that the
eye of sense may contemplate. I once went into a garden where a lady and her
little child were engaged in putting in some spring roots and seeds. By some
mischance, the little plants had got mixed up with some which were only
worthless weeds. The child, anxious to be busy, was thrusting all alike
indiscriminately into the soil, till the mother checked the little eager hand,
and said, “Bring them to me, and let me see them before you put them in, that I
may tell you
which to plant and which to throw away.” And there was an added pleasure in
this work of testing and submitting which made the child not only more useful
but more happy. And thus, when the child-eye of the sense beholds something
which seems goodly and fair, let it be brought to the inspection of the
mother-eye of the conscience before it is taken and sown and assimilated into
the soil of character. “I saw.” The spirit of these times, and of modern
habits, addresses itself to this avenue of the heart. The eye of the voluptuary
is opened to let in the comely procession which turns the world into a huge
Babylonish seraglio. His life is a closing dalliance among houri, till the
fever of ignited lust attains its climax of delirium, and then, having
conceived its progeny of illusions, brings forth its only permanent
offspring--death (James 1:15). The eye of the man of luxury
is opened to turn the world into one vast Babylonish kitchen, and the great
problem of living is, “What shall I eat? What shall I drink?” We know the
guerdon and the result of all such entrail-worship. The meat turns to worms
within the pampered lips, and the consequential sequence is--“whose god is
their belly, whose end is destruction.” The eye of the slave of commerce looks
at the world as one great Babylonish mart. There is the wedge of gold,
appearing and re-appearing in a thousand shapes. Now it is a lump of solid
bullion, now it is melted, minted, stamped into coin; now it is bartered for
scrip, now cropping up in consols, now in coupons, now in debentures (a coffin
and a grave being the simple end of all the race and turmoil); but through all
the changes the wedge is at its wedge-like work, splitting asunder, as it is
driven home into the fibres of the life-character, all that gives life its
buoyancy, or character its weight, until the whole fabric of the manhood is
shivered and destroyed, and the mart becomes a mausoleum, as sin, perfected,
brings forth death. And the eye of the proud or the votary of fashion turns the
world into a vast Babylonish shop. Life is one interminable Regent Street.
There is the goodly Babylonish garment folding and unfolding, and as it rustles
while the smiling courtiers hold it up, first in this light, then in that, it
seems to whisper a silken accompaniment to the anxious duet of prudery and foppery
which the dolls of fashion are for ever singing,” Wherewithal shall I be
clothed?” Lust! Luxury! Commerce! Fashion! They all come like besiegers to this
gateway of the eye, and try to storm it. It is the first and the last of these,
perhaps, which most hotly assail young men--lust and fashion, both kindred
evils, both sore enemies of the soul. The lust of the eye and the pride of
life. Beware of them!
II. Seeing is
wanting. There is a covetousness of the sense which looks and craves; there is
a covetousness of the soul which looks and learns. The first is the lust which
consumes itself to death; the second is the patience which watches unto life
eternal. Be yours the wiser choice. Don’t shut your eyes upon the beauty of the
garment or the richness of the gold, but look, that you may adorn the spirit
with the beauty, and enrich the soul upon the wealth.
III. Fatal
graduation--the eye, the appetite, the act. The glance, the greed, the
gathering. The look, the lust, the larceny. I see a man before me in this place
who has looked upon the office and position of another, and who has longed for
it, and has begun to take it, by falsehood and innuendo against his character.
I see another who has grudged a neighbour his good fortune, and has tried to
steal his wedge of gold by driving in the wedge of scandal and detraction to
destroy his credit.
IV. The same path
must ever lead to the same end. The lust is soon satiated, and then begins to
crave and rage again. The Delilahs who charmed can charm no more; all they can do
is to point the white and taper fingers with which they beckoned in derision at
your shame, and part the coral lips that smiled you into sin to hiss the taunt,
“The Philistines be upon thee.” The tresses that you played with are stiffened
to Cassandra’s snakes, to sting you into fiercer pain. The luxury is soon gone.
The Babylonish kitchen is soon empty, and all that is left is but the reek of
the past banquet, which sickens and repels. The gold is soon spent, and only
emptiness remains. The Babylonish garment is soon threadbare and worn out, and
shabbiness, nakedness, and chill are all that linger now. The path along which
you look with wanton eye leads to lust, and the lust to sin, and at the end of
all is nothing but a grave. The last garment is the shroud--the last shekel is
the funeral fee--the last beckoner is death. (Arthur Mursell.)
Covetousness
The man in the text, in one view, it should seem at first sight,
was an object of pity; for gold and silver and fine clothes, to be had for
carriage, formed a great temptation. Hence arises a question, why doth
providence put in our way such agreeable objects, and yet forbid us to touch
them? Let us give glory to God by acknowledging that by such means we are
exercised, first as creatures to discover the natural grandeur of our own
passions, the incompetence of the world to make us happy, and if reason be not
asleep the all-sufficiency of God. Next, these exercises try us as servants,
and by the emotions of depraved passions we become acquainted with the natural
rebellion of an evil heart, that disputes dominion with God. By an habitual
deadness to these, because God commands it, we discover the true religion of a
renewed mind, and enter on the enjoyment of conscious rectitude, a preference
of virtue, the felicity of heaven. Why, then, do we blame Achan? Because he was
not a boy, for none but men above twenty bore arms, and he was old enough to
know that he ought not to have disobeyed his general, or his God. Because he
was a Jew, and of the tribe of Judah, and had been brought up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord. Because he must have heard what mischief, the
golden calf, the iniquity of Peer, and the murmuring at Kadesh had brought upon
his countrymen. Because he knew God had expressly forbidden plunder. Had he
exercised his understanding, some or all these reasons would have cooled his
passion for perquisites. In like manner we say of ourselves. We have
temptations and passions; but we have reason, too, to resist them. We have
passions; but we have had a Christian education, and have been apprised of the
danger of gratifying them. We have passions; but we have eyes and ears, and
live among people who daily die for gratifying the same passions which we feel.
We covet; but God says, “Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy
neighbour’s.” To covet is to desire beyond due bounds. God hath set these due
bounds. He hath bounded passion by reason, and reason by religion and the
nature of things.
1. Covetousness is unjust. Let the prince enjoy the privilege of his
birth; let the man who hath hazarded his life for wealth possess it in peace;
let the industrious enjoy the fruit of his labour; to transfer their property
to myself without his consent, and without putting something as good in the
place, would be an act of injustice. Only to covet is to wish to be unjust.
2. Covetousness is cruel. A man of this disposition is obliged to
harden his heart against a thousand plaintive voices, voices of poor,
fatherless, sick, aged, and bereaved people in distress; voices that set many
an eye a-trickling, but which make no impression on a covetous man.
3. Covetousness is ungrateful. Shall the whole world labour for this
old miser, one to feed him, another to guard him, and all to make him happy,
and shall he resemble the barren earth that returns nothing to him that
dresseth it? This is a black ingratitude.
4. Covetousness is a foolish vice; it destroys a man’s reputation,
makes everybody suspect him for a thief, and watch him; it breaks his rest,
fills him with care and anxiety, excites the avarice of a robber, and the
indignation of a housebreaker; it endangers his life, and, depart how he will,
he dies unblest and unpitied.
5. Covetousness is unprecedented in all our examples of virtue. It
is Judas, who hanged himself, and not such as Peter, whom covetous men imitate.
6. Covetousness is idolatry. It is the idolatry of the heart, where,
as in a temple, a miserable wretch excludes God, sets up gold instead of Him,
and places that confidence in it which belongs to the great Supreme alone.
Achan, and all such as he, cause a great deal of trouble, and to pass
everything else let us only observe what covetous men do with their wealth.
“Behold, it is hid in the earth in the midst of my tent.” Observe a miser with
his bag. With what an arch and jealous leer the wily fox creeps stealthily
about to earth his prey!
He hath not a friend in the world, and judging of others by
himself, he thinks there is not an honest man upon earth, no, not one that can
be trusted.
1. Remark his caution. He turns his back on his idol, trudges far
away, looks lean, and hangs all about his own skeleton ensigns of poverty,
never avoiding people in real distress, but always comforting himself with the
hope that nobody knows of his treasure, and that therefore nobody expects any
assistance from him.
2. Take notice of the just contempt in which mankind hold this hoary
mass of meanness. He thinks his wealth is hid; but it is not hid, his own
anxious side-looks betray the secret. People reckon for him, talk over all his
profits, omit his expenses and losses, declare his wealth to be double what it
is, and judge of his duty according to their own notions of his fortune. One
lays out his good work for him, another rates him at so much towards such a
charity, and all execrate him for not doing what is not in his power.
3. Mark his hypocrisy. He weeps over the profligacy of the poor, and
says it is a sad thing that they are brought up without being educated in the
fear of God. He laments every time the bell tolls the miserable condition of
widows and orphans. He celebrates the praise of learning, and wishes public
speakers had all the powers of a learned criticism, and all the graces of
elocution. He prays for the downpouring of the Spirit, and the outgoings of God
in His sanctuary, and then, how his soul would be refreshed! What a comfortable
Christian would he be then! Tell him that the gratitude of widows, the hymns of
orphans, and the blessings of numbers ready to perish, are the presence of God
in His Church. Tell him all these wait to pour themselves like a tide into his
congregation, and wait only for a little of his money to pay for cutting a
canal. See how thunderstruck he is! His solemn face becomes lank and black; he
suspects he has been too liberal already, his generosity has been often abused.
Why should he be taxed and others spared? The Lord will save His own elect; God
is never at a loss for means, no exertions will do without the Divine presence
and blessing; and besides, his property is all locked up, “Behold, it is hid in
the earth in the midst of my tent!” Let us respect truth even in the mouth of a
miser. This ignoble soul tells you that he would not give a wedge of gold to
save you all from eternal ruin; but he says God is not like him, God loves you,
and will save you freely. This is strictly and literally true. There have been
thousands of poor people besides you who have been instructed and animated,
converted and saved, without having paid one penny for the whole; but this,
instead of freezing, should melt the hearts of all who are able, and set them
a-running into acts of generosity. I conclude with the words of Ambrose.
“Joshua,” said he, “could stop the course of the sun; but all his power could
not stop the course of avarice. The sun stood still, but avarice went on.
Joshua obtained a victory when the sun stood still; but when avarice was at
work, Joshua was defeated.” (R Robinson.)
Achan’s sin
“I coveted.” What multitudes of sinners of that class are to be
found--revenge, theft, adultery, murder, carried on in the feelings. This is
the secret of the sudden falls and failures in society. Achan must have had a
weakness for at least looking at questionable and unlawful things before this
trouble. Woe to the man who cannot confront a bad impulse with the solid
masonry of a good character! Unless we thus fence ourselves off from evil, our
downfall will be only a matter of time. Only character, evolved from the
principles of truth and righteousness, can withstand the seductive influences
of the world and the attacks of the powers of darkness. The influence of home
and friends is all that keeps many people straight and respectable. Like
coopers’ casks, they are held upright and in shape by the hoops of external
influences that surround them. Woe to the man whose restraints are all on the
outside! The internal, more than the external, should suggest our conduct, and
shape our activities. It is the Japanese, I think, who say that a snake is
quite orderly and straight so long as you keep it in a bamboo stick, but the
moment it gets out it begins to wriggle and act snaky. So there are many who
are quite decorous and respectable while in the bamboo of home influences who
show the old serpent and act snaky enough when such restraints are taken away.
(T. Kelly.)
Achan
Jericho was one of the largest and richest cities in all ancient
Canaan. At one time, indeed, and but for the terrible ban pronounced by Joshua,
Jericho might have taken the place of Jerusalem itself as the chief city of
ancient Israel. Jericho was an excellently situated and a strongly fenced city.
There were great foundries of iron and brass in Jericho, with workshops also in
silver and in gold. The looms of Babylonia were already famous over all the
eastern world, and their rich and beautiful textures went far and near, and
were warmly welcomed wherever the commercial caravans of that day carried them.
“A goodly Babylonish garment” plays a prominent part in the tragical history
that now opens before us. The rich and licentious city of Jericho was doomed of
God to swift overthrow and absolute extermination, but no part of the spoil,
neither thread nor shoe-lachet, was to be so much as touched by Joshua or any
of his armed men. Nothing demoralises an army like sacking a fallen city.
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall
receive the crown of life.” And Joshua and all his men received a crown of life
that night--all his men but one. Who is that stealing about among the smoking
ruins? Is that some soldier of Jericho who has saved himself from the devouring
sword?
1. Everybody who reads the best books will have long had by heart
Thomas a Kempis’s famous description of the successive steps of a successful
temptation. There is first the bare thought of the sin. Then, upon that, there
is a picture of the sin formed and hung up on the secret screen of the
imagination. A strange sweetness from that picture is then let down drop by
drop into the heart; and then that secret sweetness soon secures the consent of
the whole soul, and the thing is done. That is true, and it is powerful enough.
But Achan’s confession to Joshua is much simpler, and still closer to the
truth: “I saw the goodly Babylonish garment, I coveted it, I took it, and I hid
it in my tent.” Had Joshua happened to post the ensign of Judah opposite the
poor part of the city this sad story would never have been told. But even as it
was, had Achan only happened to stand a little to the one side, or a little to
the other side of where he did stand, in that case he would not have seen that
beautiful piece, and not seeing it he would not have coveted it, and would have
gone home to his tent that night a good soldier and an honest man. But when
once Achan’s eyes lighted on that rich garment he never could get his eyes off
it again. As a Kempis says, the seductive thing got into Achan’s imagination,
and the devil’s work was done. Achan was in a fever now lest he should lose
that goodly garment. He was terrified lest any of his companions should have
seen that glittering piece. He was sure some of them had seen it, and was
making off with it. He stood in between it and the searchers. He turned their
attention to something else. And then when their backs were about he rolled it
up in a hurry, and the gold and the silver inside of it, and thrust it down
into a hiding-place. His eyes were Achan’s fatal snare. It was his eyes that
stoned Achan and burned him and his household to dust in the valley of Achor.
Had God seen it to be good to make men and women in some way without eyes the Fall
itself would have been escaped. In his despair to get the devil out of his
heart Job swore a solemn oath and made a holy covenant with his eyes. But our
Saviour, as He always does, goes far deeper than Job. He knows quite well that
no oath that Job ever swore, and no covenant that Job ever sealed, will hold
any man’s eyes in; and therefore He demands of all His disciples that their
eyes shall be plucked out. He pulls down His own best handiwork at its finest
part so that He may get the devil’s handiwork destroyed and rooted out of it;
and then He will let us have all our eyes back again when and where we are fit
to be trusted with eyes. Miss Rossetti is writing to young ladies, but what she
says to them it will do us all good to hear. “True,” says that fine writer,
“all our lives long we shall be bound to refrain our soul, and to keep it low;
but what then? For the books we now forbear to read, we shall one day be endued
with wisdom and knowledge. For the music we will not listen to, we shall join
in the song of the redeemed. For the pictures from which we turn, we shall gaze
unabashed on the Beatific Vision. For the companionships we shun, we shall be
welcomed into angelic society and the communion of triumphant saints. For all
the amusements we avoid, we shall keep the supreme jubilee.” Yes, it is as
certain as God’s truth and righteousness are certain, that the crucified man
who goes about with his eyes out; the man who steals along the street seeing
neither smile nor frown; he who keeps his eyes down wherever men and women
congregate, in the Church, in the market-place, at a station, on a ship’s deck,
at an inn table, where you will; that man escapes multitudes of temptations
that more open and more full-eyed men and women continually fall before. You huff
and toss your head at that. But these things are not spoken for you yet, but
for those who have sold and cut off both eye and ear, and hand and foot, and
life itself, if all that will only carry them one single step nearer their
salvation.
2. Look at the camp of Israel that awful morning! It is the day of
judgment, and the great white throne is set in the valley of Achor before its
proper time. Look how the hearts of those fathers and mothers who have sons in
the army beat till they cannot hear the last trump. Did you ever spend a night
like that night in Achan’s tent? A friend of mine once slept in a room in a
hotel in Glasgow through the wall from a man who made him think sometimes that
a madman had got into the house. Sometimes he thought it must be a suicide, and
sometimes a damned soul come back for a visit to the city of its sins. But he
understood the mysterious noises of the night next morning when the officers
came in and beckoned to a gentleman who sat at the breakfast-table, and drove
him off to a penal settlement, where he died. Groanings that cannot be imitated
to you were heard by all Achan’s neighbours all that night. Till one bold man
rose and lifted a loop of Achan’s tent in the darkness, and saw Achan still
burying deeper and deeper his sin. O sons and daughters of discovered Achan! O
guilty and dissembling sinners! It is all in vain. It is all utterly and
absolutely in vain. Be sure as God is in heaven, and as He has His eyes upon
you, that your sin wilt find you out. You think that the darkness will cover
you. Wait till you see!
3. The eagle that stole a piece of sacred flesh from the altar
brought home a smouldering coal with it that kindled up afterwards and burned
up both her whole nest and all her young ones. And so did Achan. It was very
sore upon Achan’s sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his
sheep, and his tent, and all that he had. But things are as they are. God
gathers the solitary into families for good, and the good family tie still
continues to hold even when all the members of the family have done evil. Once
a father, always a father: the relationship stands. Once a son, always a son,
even when a prodigal son. Every son has his father’s grey hairs and his
mother’s anxious heart in his hands, and no possible power can alter that. Drop
that stolen flesh! A coal is in it that shall never be quenched.
4. Make a clean breast of it, then. Go home to your tent to-night,
go home to your lodgings, take up the accursed thing out of its hiding-place,
and lay it out before Joshua, if not before all Israel. Lay it out and say,
“Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I
done.” And if you do not know what more to say, if you are speechless beside
that accursed thing, try this; say this. Ask and say, “Is Thy name indeed
Jesus? Dost Thou indeed save found-out men from their sins? Art Thou still set
forth to be a propitiation? Art Thou truly able to save to the uttermost? For I
am the chief of sinners,” say. Lie down on the floor of your room--you need not
think it too much for you to do that, or that it is an act unworthy of your
manhood to do it: the Son of God did it for you on the floor of Gethsemane.
Yes, lie down on the floor of your sinful room, and lay your tongue in the dust
of it, and say this about yourself: say that you, naming yourself, are the
offscouring of all men. For “thus and thus,” naming it, “have I done.” And then
say this
“The
dying thief rejoiced to see
That
Fountain in his day”--
and see what the true Joshua will stand over you and say to you.
5. Therefore the name of that place is called the valley of Achor to
this day. Achor; that is, as interpreted on the margin, “Trouble”--the valley
of trouble. “Why hast thou troubled us?” demanded Joshua of Achan. “The Lord
shall trouble thee this day.” The Lord troubled Achan in judgment that day, but
He is troubling you in mercy in your day. Yes; already your trouble is a door
of hope. You will sing yet as you never sang in the days of your youth. You
never sang songs like these in the days of your youth, or before your trouble
came--songs like these: The Lord will be a refuge for the overwhelmed: a refuge
in the time of trouble. Thou art my hiding-place; Thou shalt preserve me from
trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. (A.
Whyte, D. D.)
Verse 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 (Proverbs 11:21; Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 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 (Ecclesiastes 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 potter’s 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.
Achan’s 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 Achan’s 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 Achan’s 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 Achan’s 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 men’s 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 employer’s 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 one’s life, that our words and views have been the teachers which
fostered in the transgressor’s 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 men’s 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 Achan’s 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
man’s 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 men’s 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 cannon’s 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 Jehovah’s
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 Jehovah’s judgment. This third heap in the
valley of Achor, the cairn erected over the dead body of Achan, was the token
of Jehovah’s discipline. The twelve stones speak of Jehovah’s 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 Jehovah’s relation to the
sin of these who stubbornly resist Him. He smites them with a rod of iron. This
rugged pile speaks of Jehovah’s 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 Jordan’s bank were a monument
of Israel’s 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 Israel’s 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 Israel’s
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 Achan’s 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 Achan’s 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 God’s will, to enter into God’s 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 leader’s
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
Achan’s 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
Achan’s 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 Achan’s 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 God’s 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 Achan’s 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 Achan’s sin and therefore shared his punishment. Another
explanation is that Achan’s 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
Achan’s 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 surgeon’s 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.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》