But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the devoted thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.- Jos_7:1.
After a victory like that of Jericho, given so manifestly by Divine power, the people felt that it was unnecessary to take in full force the toilsome march against the little highland fortress of Ai. Three thousand men went up at Joshua's order-and fled before the men of Ai. In the long chase fell thirty-six men of the army which Israel believed invincible-invincible because the Lord of Hosts was with them. No wonder that a panic seized the people, that Joshua and the elders fell down in despair for a whole day before the ark of God. In the evening came the answer. Israel, said Jehovah, had sinned, and therefore Israel fell.
Those men of Israel were not less worthy than when they compassed Jericho a few brief days before. There was no obvious reason why they should not have sent the Canaanites flying before them as they did in fact send them a few days after. The signs seemed right for another triumph. And yet, as a matter of fact, there was a deep-lying reason why the army had no warrant in looking for victory that day. A vital nerve of Israel's strength had been destroyed. A cankerworm was at the root of her best hopes. Disobedience, disloyalty, decay had entered. Under a certain tent in Judah's camp one might have found the fresh marks of a spade. And, if one had dug away the carefully laid earth, a curious display would have been brought to light-a Babylonian garment and a pile of gleaming gold.
1. Achan's sin was a breach of trust, for so the phrase “committed a trespass” might be rendered. The expression is frequent in the Pentateuch to describe Israel's treacherous departure from God, and has this full meaning here. The sphere in which Achan's treason was evidenced was “in the devoted thing.” The spoil of Jericho was set aside for Jehovah, and to appropriate any part of it was sacrilege. God had said, “And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when ye have devoted it, ye take of the devoted thing; so should ye make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.” This was the Divine edict against which trespass had been made. In that restriction warning had been given beforehand that any man's sin would occasion general suffering, and bring a curse upon the whole camp. The universality of the punishment was calculated to impress upon the nation more strongly the necessity of perfect obedience, the danger of evil beginnings, the need of strengthening each other, and being careful every man alike for himself and for his neighbour. The sin was, therefore, something more than an act of disobedience. It was a violation of the Divine covenant. It was sacrilege, a robbery of God, an impious seizure, for base, selfish purposes, of that which belonged to Him.
The Danes, having landed near the city of Worcester, from which most of the peaceful burghers had fled on their approach, looted the houses and the great church, and then made off to their long ships. The heavy sanctus bell of the cathedral, abandoned, one may suppose, by the rest of the marauders as too cumbersome to carry off, seemed to one man a desirable acquisition, and he lingered behind his comrades to get it. Presently, before he was able, loaded as he was, to join the retreating Danes, the townsmen returned. Doubtless from a distance they had been witnesses of many outrages, and right and left along their streets they now saw signs of the violence of their foes; and in the heat of their rage and indignation they came upon the sacrilegious wretch upon whose shoulder was the sanctus bell. We will not try to picture the final scene; the Englishmen's blood was up, the Dane was caught redhanded in theft and sacrilege, and moreover there was probably not a man in all the throng who did not burn under a sense of some private wrong inflicted on him by the pirates. Upon the devoted head of the one the misdeeds of all were visited; and his skin, in attestation of his guilt and of his doom, was fastened to the church door.1 [Note: W. Andrews, Church Treasury. 161.]
2. Achan's sin was a sin of covetousness, a sin that had to do with the love of worldly things. Andrew Fuller says that covetousness will probably prove the eternal overthrow of more characters among professing Christians than any other sin, because it is almost the only crime that can be indulged in and a profession of religion at the same time be supported. Achan, we should remember, was a professed servant of Jehovah. He was not a Canaanite; he was not a foreigner; he was a member of the commonwealth of Israel; he was a man of privilege, a man who had been admitted to the outward Church of that day, like Ananias and Sapphira of later days. He was not a poor man, whose family was starving. He belonged to the tribe of Judah, which was to have the first and largest lot in the land of Canaan. But he could not wait for what God gave him. If he had only been patient he would have had a good inheritance in the new country in a few months' time. He did not rob any man. He did not take what belonged to other people. That was not his fault. His fault was simply covetousness born of the selfishness which leads to rebellion. The unhappy Achan could not resist the desire to secure for himself a share of the booty. He sought his own selfish ends in the cause of God.
How mean-not to give it a greater name-how mean was the sin of Achan. What a sin this was in a soldier, when he ought to have been filled with enthusiasm, with patriotism, with love to God, with great desires for his tribe and people. He saw a goodly Babylonish garment, and the shekels of silver, and a covetous gleam shot through his eyes, and all the soldier in him withered up, and he became a sneaking thief. What a contemptible figure-an Israelitish soldier a thief!2 [Note: J. McNeill.]
The criminal laws of a nation take cognizance only of overt actions. Covetousness is a motive within the breast which could only be guessed at by the law; its precedence to an act of theft could hardly be proved in the witness-box. The tenth commandment is altogether outside the boundaries of civil jurisprudence. Its presence in the Decalogue is a manifest proof of the spiritual intention and ethical character of the Sinaitic Code. It reminds us that Israel was to be not only a commonwealth but the people of Jehovah's possession. The Decalogue does more than lay down the duties of a citizen. It embraces within its purview more than the crimes which it desires to express. It looks ultimately to the cultivation of a better temper and a right spirit. Like the other parts of the Mosaic Law it aims at developing the consciousness of sin. Unless the Law had said, “Thou shalt not covet,” Paul affirms that he would not have known what sin meant.1 [Note: W. S. Bruce, The Ethics of the Old Testament, 165.]
3. Achan's sin involved others in ruin as well as himself. Observe that the sin is laid at the doors of the whole nation, while yet it was the secret act of one man. That is a strange “for” in Jos_7:1 -the people did it; for Achan did it. Observe, too, with what bitter particularity his descent is counted back through three generations, as if to diffuse the shame and guilt over a wide area, and to blacken the ancestors of the culprit. Achan was the sinner; all Israel suffered. Those soldiers who marched against Ai were just as loyal as any that ever marched under Israelitish banners. They had all the advantage of Joshua's superior skill. And they were just as surely pushing forward the cause of righteousness in the subjugation of the land as at any later time. Yet they had no more chance of effecting the overthrow of Ai that day than they had of breaking into heaven: they went without God's blessing, disqualified, alone.
It is needless to discuss the question, how one guilty of sin should involve in the consequences of that sin those connected with him, whether by family or by social ties. It is simply a fact, admitting no discussion, and is equally evident when God's law in nature or when His moral law is set at defiance. The deepest reason of it lies, indeed, in this, that the God of nature and of grace is also the founder of society; for the family and society are not of man's devising, but of God's institution, and form part of His general plan. Accordingly, God deals with us not merely as individuals, but also as families and as nations. To question the rightness of this would be to question alike the administration, the fundamental principles, and the plan of God's universe.
There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone: you can't isolate yourself, and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease.1 [Note: George Eliot, Adam Bede.]
