Joshua 7:16 - Meaning and Application

In these verses we see Achan discovered by the lot. The process moved step by step, but it reached a sure result. Joshua likely rested easier once he knew the worst of the trouble in Israel, under God, and had a clear way to deal with it. Still, he rose early in the morning (Joshua 7:16), because his heart was set on removing the sin that had brought trouble on the camp.

Notice first that the guilty tribe was Judah, the most honored and famous of the tribes. That was a stain on its honor, and it could check any pride they had. Many in Judah were its glory, but here one man brought shame on it. Even the best families should not be shocked if someone from among them becomes their grief and disgrace. Judah was also to receive the first and largest share in Canaan, so the sin of one man from that tribe was even more blameworthy. He was not willing to wait for his own portion, and he stole into what belonged to God.

Notice also that the guilty person was finally fixed upon, and the lot seemed to say, “You are the man” (Joshua 7:18). It is surprising that Achan, knowing his own guilt, did not try to flee or confess as the lot came closer and closer to him. But sin had hardened his heart through its deceit, and that led to his ruin. We can imagine how his face changed when he was singled out, and how much fear and shame filled him as all Israel looked at him.

This warns us about people who think they can sin in secret. The righteous God has many ways to expose hidden evil and bring shame on those who keep fellowship with works of darkness. When God chooses, even a bird in the air will carry the news (Ecclesiastes 10:20). See also (Psalm 94:7). It also reminds us that when God is dealing with us, we should find out the real cause. We should search our hearts and examine our consciences, so we can discover the accursed thing that is troubling our camp. Then we should pray as Job did, asking the Lord to show us why he is contending with us. Once the traitor is found, he will no longer be sheltered.

Next comes Achan’s trial and questioning (Joshua 7:19). Joshua sits as judge. He is already fully convinced by the lot, yet he still urges Achan to confess, so that his soul might be saved in the next life, even though Joshua could not promise to save his life in this one. Joshua speaks to him with great gentleness. He could have called him thief, rebel, or fool, but instead he calls him son. He might have demanded a confession harshly, or used force to get one, but instead he pleads with him: “Please make a confession.”

This gives a model for how we should treat those who are in misery, even when they brought it on themselves by sin. We should not mock them, but deal with them in a spirit of humility and kindness. It also gives a lesson to rulers and judges. When they carry out justice, they must keep tight control over their own tempers and never let anger shape their words or actions, even toward people who have deeply offended them. Human anger does not produce God’s righteousness. They must remember that judgment belongs to God, who rules even over his own anger. Gentle treatment is often the best way to lead offenders to repentance.

Joshua also wants Achan to confess to God, the one truly offended by the sin. Joshua stood in God’s place to him, so to confess to Joshua was to confess to God. Such a confession would satisfy Joshua and the people about the charge against him. It would also show repentance and warn others not to follow the same sin. Above all, Joshua wanted God to be honored, as the Lord who sees all things and from whom no secret is hidden. He is also the God of Israel, who specially notices wrongs done to his people and wrongs done by his people.

When we confess sin, we are taking shame to ourselves and giving glory to God. We own him as righteous, admitting that he was right to be displeased with us. We also own him as good, trusting that he will not use our confession against us, but will forgive justly when we admit that he would also be just to punish us. By our sin we have harmed God’s honor. Christ, by his death, has made satisfaction for that wrong. Yet we are still required, by repentance, to show our concern for God’s honor and to give him glory as far as we can. Bishop Patrick quotes the Samaritan chronicle as making Joshua say to Achan, “Lift up your eyes to the king of heaven and earth, and admit that nothing can be hidden from him who knows the deepest secrets.”

At last Achan confesses freely and plainly when he sees that hiding the matter is useless (Joshua 7:20-21). First, he admits his guilt with a penitent heart. “Indeed, I have sinned. What I am charged with is true, and I cannot deny it or excuse it. I own it, and I grieve for it. The Lord is right in bringing it into the open, because I have truly sinned.” That is the language of a person whose conscience is burdened and who is sick of his sin. He has nothing to say against anyone else, only much to say against himself. The accursed thing has been found with him; he is the man who has done wrong, and it brought him no gain.

He also makes the sin worse by saying that it was committed against the Lord God of Israel. He was himself an Israelite, sharing in the high privileges of that people. So in offending the God of Israel, he offended his own God. That made his sin a great act of treachery and ingratitude. Then he gives a full account of what he had done: “Thus and thus have I done.”

God had already told Joshua, in general terms, that some of the devoted things had been taken. Now he leads him to draw the details out of Achan himself, for in one way or another God will make sinners speak against themselves (Psalm 64:8). If they are brought to repentance, they become their own accusers, and their awakened conscience stands like a thousand witnesses. It is right for repentant people, when they confess sin to God, to be very specific. They should not only say, “I have sinned,” but also name the exact sins, and look back with sorrow on every step and circumstance that made them worse: “This is what I did.”

Achan confesses, first, the things he took. While plundering a house in Jericho, he found a fine Babylonian robe. The word means a royal robe, the kind princes wore when they appeared in public, and it likely belonged to the king of Jericho. It had come from Babylon, far away, and may have been richly colored. Whatever it was, it looked very grand to him. He likely thought, “It is a pity to burn this. It will do no one any good that way. If I keep it, it will be my best garment for many years.” With such excuses, he dared to take the first thing, and thought he was doing no wrong by saving it from the fire.

But once his hand was in that sin, he went on to take a bag of silver, two hundred shekels, about one hundred ounces, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, about twenty-five ounces. He could not claim he was saving these from the fire, since the silver and gold were to be placed in the treasury. But people who make a small excuse to commit one sin often harden their hearts enough to commit the next without any excuse at all, because the road of sin goes downhill. See what a poor prize Achan ran after at such great risk, and how terribly he lost in the end (Matthew 16:26).

Achan also confesses the way he took them. The sin began in the eye. He saw these fine things, as Eve saw the forbidden fruit, and was strongly drawn to them. This shows what happens when the heart follows the eyes. We need to make a covenant with our eyes, so that if they stray, they will surely grieve for it. Do not look longingly on wine when it is red, or on a woman when she is attractive. Guard yourself against the first pull of temptation, so you do not have to cut it off later (Matthew 5:28-29).

The sin then moved into the heart. Achan says, “I coveted them.” Lust was conceived there and gave birth to the sin. Anyone who wants to keep from sinful actions must first check sinful desires, especially the desire for money, which we commonly call greed. What great evil comes from love of money, which is the root of so much trouble! If Achan had looked at these things with faith, he would have seen they were devoted to destruction and would have feared them. But he looked only with his natural eyes, saw lovely things, and wanted them. It was not the looking that ruined him, but the craving.

After he had done it, he worked hard to hide it. Having taken the forbidden goods, he buried them in the ground, hoping to keep them and never make restitution. In this way Achan lays out the whole matter, so that God’s sentence against him is shown to be just. See how deceitful sin is. What seems pleasant when it is done is bitter when it is remembered. In the end it bites like a serpent. See also what comes of stolen wealth, and how those who rob God will be cheated in the end. “He has swallowed riches, and he will vomit them up again” (Job 20:15).

God had already convicted Achan by the lot, and Achan had convicted himself by his own confession. But Joshua wanted no room left for complaint from any unhappy Israelite, so he had the matter proved again by searching Achan’s tent. There the stolen goods were found, just as Achan had admitted. The messengers are especially noted for how quickly they ran to the tent (Joshua 7:22). This showed both their readiness to obey Joshua and their eagerness to have the camp cleared of the cursed thing, so they could regain God’s favor. People who feel God’s anger should not delay putting sin away. Delays are dangerous, and there is no time for trifling.

When the stolen goods were brought out, they were laid before the Lord (Joshua 7:23). This let all Israel see how plain the evidence was against Achan. It also made them honor the seriousness of God’s judgment, both for punishing even these small stolen things and for defending his right to the things devoted to him. It warned them to fear doing the same. By laying the goods before the Lord, they acknowledged that the things belonged to him and waited for his direction about them. Those who think they can cheat God are only deceiving themselves. What is taken from him, he will recover (Hosea 2:9), and in the end he will lose nothing by anyone.

Joshua then passes sentence on Achan (Joshua 7:25): “Why have you troubled us?” Some read it as, “Oh, how much you have troubled us!” He is pointing back to the warning given when Israel was told not to touch the cursed thing, “or you will make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it” (Joshua 6:18). Sin is a very troublesome thing, not only to the sinner, but to everyone around him. A greedy man like Achan troubles his own house (Proverbs 15:27) and all the groups he belongs to. Joshua says, “Now God will trouble you.” Achan was dealt with so severely not only because he robbed God, but because he troubled Israel. It was as if the charge above him read, “Achan, the troubler of Israel,” as with Ahab (1 Kings 18:18). So this was his sentence: God will trouble you. The righteous God will surely repay trouble to those who trouble his people (2 Thessalonians 1:6). Those who are troublesome will themselves be troubled.

Some Jewish teachers say that because the text says his troubling would last “to this day,” he would not be troubled in the world to come. They think the flesh was destroyed so that the spirit might be saved, and if so, the punishment was really less severe than it seemed. In both his sin and his punishment, there is a clear play on his name, Achan, or Achar, which means trouble (1 Chronicles 2:7). He matched his name all too well.

No delay could be allowed in his execution. A diseased limb must be cut off at once.

When Achan was proved to be devoted to destruction and the one who had troubled the camp, we may imagine all the people crying out against him, “Away with him! Stone him!” This judgment had several parts.

First was the place of execution. They brought him outside the camp, showing that they were putting that wicked person far from them (1 Corinthians 5:13). When our Lord Jesus was made a curse for us, so that we might have peace through his suffering, he suffered as one cursed outside the gate, bearing our shame (Hebrews 13:12-13). The execution was done at a distance so the camp, already troubled by Achan’s sin, would not be defiled by his death.

Second were the people who carried out the punishment. It was the act of all Israel (Joshua 7:24-25). All of them watched, so they could see and fear. Public punishments are public warnings. More than that, they all agreed to his death, and as many as could took part, showing how deeply they hated his sacrilegious act and how much they feared God’s anger against them.

Third were those who suffered with him. He did not perish alone in his sin (Joshua 22:20). The stolen goods were destroyed with him. The garment was burned, as it should have been with the other things from Jericho, and the silver and gold were ruined, melted, lost, and buried under the stones with the rest of his goods, so they could never be used for anything else. This shows that stolen wealth, especially what is gained by stealing from God, will not profit a person. It often ruins the rest of what he owns.

All his other possessions were destroyed too, not just his tent and its furnishings, but also his oxen, asses, and sheep. The point is clear: goods gained by wicked means do not only fail to help, they can ruin everything else a person has. A fable says an eagle stole meat from the altar and brought back a coal of fire that burned her nest (Habakkuk 2:9-10; Zechariah 5:3-4). People who grasp at more than their own often lose what they already have.

His sons and daughters were also put to death with him. Some think they were only brought out to watch their father’s punishment (Joshua 7:24), but most conclude that they died with him, since Joshua 7:25 says they burned them with fire after stoning them with stones. God had said that judges should not put children to death for their fathers’ sins, but he was not bound by that rule. In this case he had already ordered that the criminal and all he had should be burned (Joshua 7:15). It is possible that his sons and daughters helped in the crime, or at least helped hide it. They may have known what was concealed in the tent and kept silent. If they shared in the guilt at all, even a little, then the punishment was just. In this way God was honored, and the judgment became even more serious.

The punishment itself was that Achan was stoned, and then his dead body was burned as something accursed, with no remnant left behind. Some think he was stoned as a Sabbath-breaker, assuming the sacrilege happened on the Sabbath day. The agreement of all the people in this execution teaches how important it is for a nation that everyone should do what they can, in their own place, to stop evil and irreverence and to improve public behavior. Sin brings shame on any people, so every true Israelite should be ready to throw a stone at it.

By this, God’s fierce anger was turned away (Joshua 7:26). Putting away sin through true repentance and changed behavior is not only the right way, it is the surest and most effective way to regain God’s favor. Remove the cause, and the effect will stop.

A record was also kept of Achan’s conviction and execution, as a warning for later generations. A heap of stones was raised where he was executed, and perhaps everyone in the congregation threw in a stone as a sign of their hatred for the crime. A new name was given to the place, the Valley of Achor, which means trouble. This became a lasting disgrace on Achan’s name and a lasting warning to all people not to take what belongs to God.

By this severity toward Achan, Joshua’s authority, still new and just beginning, was upheld. And Israel, as they entered the promised land of Canaan, were reminded at once to keep the conditions and limits of the grant by which they held it. The Valley of Achor is said to become a door of hope, because when the accursed thing is put away, then hope begins again in Israel (Hosea 2:15; Ezra 10:2).