Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joshua 7:10 - 7:10
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The answer of the Lord, which was addressed to Joshua directly and not through the high priest, breathed anger against the sin of Israel. The question, “Wherefore liest thou upon thy face?” (“fallest,” as in Deu 21:1) involved the reproof that Joshua had no reason to doubt the fidelity of the Lord. Instead of seeking for the cause of the calamity in God, he ought to seek it in the sin of the people.
Jos 7:11
Israel had sinned, and that very grievously. This is affirmed in the clauses which follow, and which are rendered emphatic by the repetition of גַּם as an expression of displeasure. The sin of one man was resting as a burden upon the whole nation in the manner explained above (on Jos 7:1). This sin was a breach of the covenant, being a transgression of the obligation into which the people had entered in their covenant with the Lord, to keep His commandments (Exo 19:8; Exo 24:7); yea, it was a grasping at the ban, and a theft, and a concealment, and an appropriation of that which was stolen to their own use. The first three clauses describe the sin in its relation to God, as a grievous offence; the three following according to its true character, as a great, obstinate, and reckless crime. “They have put it among their own stuff” (house furniture), viz., to use and appropriate it as their own property. As all that had been stolen was a property consecrated to the Lord, the appropriation of it to private use was the height of wickedness.
Jos 7:12
On account of this sin the Israelites could not stand before their foes, because they had fallen under the ban (cf. Jos 6:18). And until this ban had been removed from their midst, the Lord would not help them any further.
Jos 7:13-15
Joshua was to take away this ban from the nation. To discover who had laid hands upon the ban, he was to direct the people to sanctify themselves for the following day (see at Jos 3:5), and then to cause them to come before God according to their tribes, families, households, and men, that the guilty men might be discovered by lot; and to burn whoever was found guilty, with all that he possessed. נִקְרַב, “to come near,” sc., to Jehovah, i.e., to come before His sanctuary. The tribes, families, households, and men, formed the four classes into which the people were organized. As the tribes were divided into families, so these again were subdivided into houses, commonly called fathers' houses, and the fathers' houses again into men, i.e., fathers of families (see the remarks on Exo 18:25-26, and by Bibl. Archaeology, §140). Each of these was represented by its natural head, so that we must picture the affair as conducted in the following manner: in order to discover the tribe, the twelve tribe princes came before the Lord; and in order to discover the family, the heads of families of the tribe that had been taken, and so on to the end, each one in turn being subjected to the lot. For although it is not distinctly stated that the lot was resorted to in order to discover who was guilty, and that the discovery was actually made in this way, this is very evident from the expression אֲשֶׁר־יִלְכְּדֶנָּה (which the Lord taketh), as this was the technical term employed, according to 1Sa 14:42, to denote the falling of the lot upon a person (see also 1Sa 10:20). Moreover, the lot was frequently resorted to in cases where a crime could not be brought home to a person by the testimony of eye-witnesses (see 1Sa 14:41-42; Jon 1:7; Pro 18:18), as it was firmly believed that the lot was directed by the Lord (Pro 16:33). In what manner the lot was cast we do not know. In all probability little tablets or potsherds were used, with the names written upon them, and these were drawn out of an urn. This may be inferred from a comparison of Jos 18:11 and Jos 19:1, with Jos 18:6, Jos 18:10, according to which the casting of the lot took place in such a manner that the lot came up (עָלָה, Jos 18:11; Jos 19:10; Lev 16:9), or came out (יָצָא, Jos 19:1; Jos 19:24; Num 33:54). בַּחֵרֶם הַנִּלְכָּד, the person taken in (with) the ban, i.e., taken by the lot as affected with the ban, was to be burned with fire, of course not alive, but after he had been stoned (Jos 7:25). The burning of the body of a criminal was regarded as heightening the punishment of death (vid., Lev 20:14). This punishment was to be inflicted upon him, in the first place, because he had broken the covenant of Jehovah; and in the second place, because he had wrought folly in Israel, that is to say, had offended grievously against the covenant God, and also against the covenant nation. “Wrought folly:” an expression used here, as in Gen 34:7, to denote such a crime as was irreconcilable with the honour of Israel as the people of God.