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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 231. Achan
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Literature
Byrum, E. E., The Secret of Prayer (1912), 122.
Clayton, J. W., The Genius of God (1903), 76.
Gibbon, J. M., The Children's Year (1903), 248.
Greenhough, J. G., in Men of the Old Testament: Cain to David (1904), 181.
Jeffs, H., The Art of Exposition (1910), 116.
Keble, J., Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide (1875), 83.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: Deuteronomy, etc. (1906), 145.
Macleod, A., The Child Jesus (1895), 187.
McNeill, J., Regent Square Pulpit, i. (1890) 81.
Meyer, F. B., Joshua and the Land of Promise, 85.
Moore, E. W., Christ in Possession (1899), 165.
Morrison, G. H., The Footsteps of the Flock (1904), 105.
Moulton, J. H., Visions of Sin (1898), 37.
Murray, A., The Ministry of Intercession (1898), 67.
Oosterzee, J. J. van, The Year of Salvation, ii. 406.
Peck, G. C., Bible Tragedies (1900), 51.
Rankin, J., Character Studies in the Old Testament (1875), 116.
Vaughan, C. J., Liturgy and Worship (1867), 53.
Vaughan, J., Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), x. (1873), No. 831.
Virgin, S. H., Spiritual Sanity (1905), 245.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Adam to Achan (1896), 290.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. (1878) 104 (A. Mursell); xviii. (1880) 40 (J. B. Heard); lxxvi. (1909) 199 (G. H. Abey).
Homiletic Review, xxxi. (1896) 35 (T. T. Eaton).
Keswick Week, 1908, p. 28 (J. Battersby Harford).
Literary Churchman, xxxvii. (1891) 276 (J. T. Parsons).
The chapter that gives the history of the sin of Achan is one of the darkest pages of the Word of God, but nevertheless it contains many precious lessons. It shows in an eminent degree the working of temptation in a man's heart before the evil deed is done; it shows the hardening that results after the committing of the sin; it shows how one man's sin may prove a snare to those about him; it shows how the most secret crime is bare before God; and it shows how God can and will bring about exposure and punishment. The very fact that the sin of Achan is so circumstantially narrated would itself lead us to infer some strong reason for its being so-that it was in a peculiar manner calculated to serve as a warning, and to impress the readers of the Bible in all ages with somewhat of that deep horror which thrilled through Israel at the time when the criminal was pointed out. It was the deed of but one man, yet to understand it aright it will be needful for us to look for a little at the position of the whole people; for the sin of Achan not only had an influence on all Israel after it was committed, but it was the special circumstances in which Israel stood just before this sin that gave to it its peculiar wickedness.
1. The Israelites were come out of Egypt, had ended their desert sojourn, had crossed the Jordan, had taken Jericho. A stern charge had been laid upon the invading army not to touch the spoil of Jericho. One part of the spoil was to be brought into the treasury: the rest was to be burnt with fire. A nation which had been taken from the midst of another nation by a strong hand not its own, and which was now to be brought into the inheritance of another nation by the outstretched arm of God, must be reminded, at the very outset, of its dependence and of its responsibility; there must be no forgetfulness of the source of its strength, of the condition of its success, of the high purposes of its mission; there must be no selfish grasping, and no mean lust of getting, to interfere with the grandeur and the sanctity of its election; on this first occasion of all, a lesson was to be taught for all time as to the awfulness of privilege; as to the dreadful consequences of being brought very near to God, as His Church and His people, and forgetting or trifling with Him; as to the inseparable connexion between knowledge and duty, between light and accountability, between trust and reckoning.
2. Every single soldier in all Israel had heard Joshua's proclamation about Jericho; both what his men were to do till the walls fell and how they were to conduct themselves after the city had been given of God into their hands. But war is war; and the best of commanders cannot make war a silken work, nor can he hold down the devil in the hearts of all his men. In the hearts of many of them he may, if he first does it in his own heart, but scarcely in the hearts of them all. Night fell on the prostrate city, and the hour of temptation struck for Joshua and all his men. “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 the crown of life that night-all his men but one.
Was it a sudden gust of temptation that swept Achan before it when, with the rest of the host, he entered Jericho? Or was it that some long growth of unjudged evil flowered into that act which has made his name a reproach to all after time? It is impossible to say. Only the terribleness of his fate seems to indicate something more than a transient yielding to sin. This, at least, is clear, that in the late afternoon of the day of Jericho's capture, and before the lurid flames of its conflagration rose to heaven, he had pilfered one of those robes of exquisite texture for which the plain of Shinar was famous, together with gold and silver-the latter coined, the former in a wedge-and had borne them surreptitiously away.
Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. For what thief will abide a thief? not even a rich thief one stealing through want. Yet I lusted to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through a cloyedness of well-doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. For I stole that of which I had enough and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Now, behold, let my heart tell Thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself. Foul soul, falling from thy firmament to utterdestruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself1 [Note: Confessions of St. Augustine.]