_ACHAN'S PUNISHMENT._
JOSHUA vii.
"Be sure your sin will find you out." It has an awful way of leaving
its traces behind it, and confronting the sinner with his crime.
"Though he hide himself in the top of Carmel, I will search and take
him out thence; and though he be hid from My sight in the bottom of
the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite him"
(Amos ix. 3). "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil"
(Eccles. xii. 14).
When Achan heard of the muster that was to take place next morning, in
order to detect the offender, he must have spent a miserable night.
Between the consciousness of guilt, the sense of the mischief he had
done, the dread of detection, and the foreboding of retribution, his
nerves were too much shaken to admit the possibility of sleep.
Weariedly and anxiously he must have tossed about as the hours slowly
revolved, unable to get rid of his miserable thoughts, which would
ever keep swimming about him like the changing forms of a
kaleidoscope, but with the same dark vision of coming doom.
At length the day dawns, the tribes muster, the inquiry begins. It is
by the sure, solemn, simple, process of the lot that the case is to be
decided. First the lot is cast for the tribes, and the tribe of Judah
is taken. That must have given the first pang to Achan. Then the tribe
is divided into its families, and the family of the Zarhites is taken;
then the Zarhite family is brought out man by man, and Zabdi, the
father of Achan, is taken. May we not conceive the heart of Achan
giving a fresh beat as each time the casting of the lot brought the
charge nearer and nearer to himself? The coils are coming closer and
closer about him; and now his father's family is brought out, man by
man, and Achan is taken. He is quite a young man, for his father could
only have been a lad when he left Egypt. Look at him, pale, trembling,
stricken with shame and horror, unable to hide himself, feeling it
would be such a relief if the earth would open its jaws and swallow
him up, as it swallowed Korah. Look at his poor wife; look at his
father; look at his children. What a load of misery he has brought on
himself and on them! Yes, the way of transgressors is hard.
Joshua's heart is overcome, and he deals gently with the young man.
"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." 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-peor; 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. "Achan answered Joshua,
and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and
thus and thus have I done: 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."
The confession certainly was frank and full; but whether it was made
in the spirit of true contrition, or whether it was uttered in the
hope that it would mitigate the sentence to be inflicted, we cannot
tell. It would be a comfort to us to think that Achan was sincerely
penitent, and that the miserable doom which befell him and his family
ended their troubles, and formed the dark introduction to a better
life. Where there is even a possibility that such a view is correct we
naturally draw to it, for it is more than our hearts can well bear to
think of so awful a death being followed by eternal misery.
Certain it is that Joshua earnestly desired to lead Achan to deal with
God in the matter. "Make confession," he said, "unto Him." He knew the
virtue of confession to God. For "he that covereth his sins shall not
prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy"
(Prov. xxviii. 13). "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through
my roaring all the day.... I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine
iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto
the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (Psalm xxxii. 3,
5). It is a hopeful circumstance in Achan's case that it was after
this solemn call to deal with God in the matter that he made his
confession. One hopes that the sudden appearance on the scene of the
God whom he had so sadly forgotten, led him to see his sin in its true
light, and drew out the acknowledgment,--"Against Thee, Thee only,
have I sinned." For no moral effect can be greater than that arising
from the difference between sin covered and sin confessed to God. Sin
covered is the fruitful parent of excuses, and sophistries, and of all
manner of attempts to disguise the harsh features of transgression,
and to show that, after all, there was not much wrong in it. Sin
confessed to God shows a fitting sense of the evil, of the shame which
it brings, and of the punishment which it deserves, and an earnest
longing for that forgiveness and renewal which, the gospel now shows
us so clearly, come from Jesus Christ. For nothing becomes a sinner
before God so well as when he breaks down. It is the moment of a new
birth when he sees what miserable abortions all the refuges of lies
are, and, utterly despairing of being able to hide himself from God in
his filthy rags, unbosoms everything to Him with whom "there is mercy
and plenteous redemption, and who will redeem Israel from all his
transgressions."
It is a further presumption that Achan was a true penitent, that he
told so frankly where the various articles that he had appropriated
were to be found. "Behold, they are hid in the midst of my tent." They
were scalding his conscience so fearfully that he could not rest till
they were taken away from the abode which they polluted and cursed.
They seemed to be crying out against him and his with a voice which
could not be silenced. To bring them away and expose them to public
view might bring no relaxation of the doom which he expected, but it
would be a relief to his feelings if they were dragged from the hiding
hole to which he had so wickedly consigned them. For the articles were
now as hateful to him as formerly they had been splendid and
delightful. The curse of God was on them now, and on him too on their
account. Is there anything darker or deadlier than the curse of God?
And now the consummation arrives. Messengers are sent to his tent,
they find the stolen goods, they bring them to Joshua, and to all the
children of Israel, and they lay them out before the Lord. We are not
told how the judicial sentence was arrived at. But there seems to have
been no hesitation or delay about it. "Joshua and all the children of
Israel 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. And Joshua said, Why hast
thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel
stoned him with stones, and they burned him with fire, after they had
stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of
stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His
anger. Therefore the name of that place was called, The valley of
Achor, unto this day."
It seems a terrible punishment, but Achan had already brought defeat
and disgrace on his countrymen, he had robbed God, and brought the
whole community to the brink of ruin. It must have been a strong lust
that led him to play with such consequences. What sin is there to
which covetousness has not impelled men? And, strange to say, it is a
sin which has received but little check from all the sad experience of
the past. Is it not as daring as ever to-day? Is it not the parent of
that gambling habit which is the terror of all good men, sapping our
morality and our industry, and disposing tens of thousands to trust to
the bare chance of an unlikely contingency, rather than to God's
blessing on honest industry? Is it not sheer covetousness that turns
the confidential clerk into a robber of his employer, and uses all the
devices of cunning to discover how long he can carry on his infamous
plot, till the inevitable day of detection arrive and he must fly, a
fugitive and a vagabond, to a foreign land? Is it not covetousness
that induces the blithe young maiden to ally herself to one whom she
knows to be a moral leper, but who is high in rank and full of wealth?
Is it not the same lust that induces the trader to send his noxious
wares to savage countries and drive the miserable inhabitants to a
deeper misery and degradation than ever? Catastrophes are always
happening: the ruined gambler blows out his brains; the dishonest
clerk becomes a convict, the unhappy young wife gets into the divorce
court, the scandalous trader sinks into bankruptcy and misery. But
there is no abatement of the lust which makes such havoc. If the old
ways of indulging it are abandoned, new outlets are always being
found. Education does not cripple it; civilization does not uproot it;
even Christianity does not always overcome it. It goeth about, if not
like a roaring lion, at least like a cunning serpent intent upon its
prey. Within the Church, where the minister reads out "Thou shalt not
covet," and where men say with apparent devoutness, "Lord, have mercy
upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law"--as soon as their
backs are turned, they are scheming to break it. Still, as of old,
"love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after
they erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows."
Achan's sin has found him out, and he suffers its bitter doom. All his
visions of comfort and enjoyment to be derived from his unlawful gain
are rudely shattered. The pictures he has been drawing of what he will
do with the silver and the gold and the garment are for ever
dispersed. He has brought disaster on the nation, and shame and ruin
on himself and his house. In all coming time, he must stand in the
pillory of history as the man who stole the forbidden spoil of
Jericho. That disgraceful deed is the only thing that will ever be
known of him. Further, he has sacrificed his life. Young though he is,
his life will be cut short, and all that he has hoped for of enjoyment
and honour will be exchanged for a horrible death and an execrable
memory. O sin, thou art a hard master! Thou draggest thy slaves, often
through a short and rapid career, to misery and to infamy!
Nevertheless, the hand of God is seen here. The punishment of sin is
one of the inexorable conditions of His government. It may look dark
and ugly to us, but it is there. It may create a very different
feeling from the contemplation of His love and goodness, but in our
present condition that feeling is wholesome and necessary. As we
follow unpardoned sinners into the future world, it may be awful, it
may be dismal to think of a state from which punishment will never be
absent; but the awfulness and the dismalness will not change the fact.
It is the mystery of God's character that He is at once infinite love
and infinite righteousness. And if it be unlawful for us to exclude
His love and dwell only on His justice, it is equally unlawful to
exclude His justice and dwell only on His love. Now, as of old, His
memorial is, "The Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious,
longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty."
But if it be awful to contemplate the death, and the mode of death of
Achan, how much more when we think that his wife and his sons and his
daughters were stoned to death along with him! Would that not have
been a barbarous deed in any case, and was it not much more so if they
were wholly innocent of his offence? To mitigate the harshness of
this deed, some have supposed that they were privy to his sin, if not
instigators of it. But of this we have not a tittle of evidence, and
the whole drift of the narrative seems to show that the household
suffered in the same manner and on the same ground as that of Korah
(Num. xvi. 31-33). As regards the mode of death, it was significant of
a harsh and hard-tempered age. Neither death nor the sufferings of the
dying made much impression on the spectators. This callousness is
almost beyond our comprehension, the tone of feeling is so different
now. But we must accept the fact as it was. And as to the punishment
of the wife and children, we must fall back on that custom of the time
which not only gave to the husband and father the sole power and
responsibility of the household, but involved the wife and children in
his doom if at any time he should expose himself to punishment. As has
already been said, neither the wife nor the children had any rights as
against the husband and father; as his will was the sole law, so his
retribution was the common inheritance of all. With him they were held
to sin, and with him they suffered. They were considered to belong to
him just as his hands and his feet belonged to him. It may seem to us
very hard, and when it enters, even in a modified form, into the
Divine economy we may cry out against it. Many do still, and ever will
cry out against original sin, and against all that has come upon our
race in consequence of the sin of Adam.
But it is in vain to fight against so apparent a fact. Much wiser
surely it is to take the view of the Apostle Paul, and rejoice that,
under the economy of the gospel, the principle of imputation becomes
the source of blessing infinitely greater than the evil which it
brought at the fall. It is one of the greatest triumphs of the
Apostle's mode of reasoning that, instead of shutting his eyes to the
law of imputation, he scans it carefully, and compels it to yield a
glorious tribute to the goodness of God. When his theme was the riches
of the grace of God, one might have thought that he would desire to
give a wide berth to that dark fact in the Divine economy--the
imputation of Adam's sin. But instead of desiring to conceal it, he
brings it forward in all its terribleness and universality of
application; but with the skill of a great orator, he turns it round
to his side by showing that the imputation of Christ's righteousness
has secured results that outdo all the evil flowing from the
imputation of Adam's sin. "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one
the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as
through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so
through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous.
Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound; but where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound: that, as sin reigned in death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. v. 18-21).
Very special mention is made of the place where the execution of Achan
and his family took place. "They brought them unto the valley of
Achor, ... and they raised over him a great heap of stones, ...
wherefore the name of that place is called, The valley of Achor, unto
this day." Achor, which means _trouble_, seems to have been a small
ravine near the lower part of the valley in which Ai was situated, and
therefore near the scene of the disaster that befell the Israelites.
It was not an old name, but a name given at the time, derived from
the occurrence of which it had just been the scene. It seemed
appropriate that poor Achan should suffer at the very place where
others had suffered on his account. It is subsequently referred to
three times in Scripture. Later in this book it is given as part of
the northern boundary of the tribe of Judah (chap. xv. 7); in Isaiah
(lxv. 10) it is referred to on account of its fertility; and in Hosea
(ii. 15) it is introduced in the beautiful allegory of the restored
wife, who has been brought into the wilderness, and made to feel her
poverty and misery, but of whom God says, "I will give her vineyards
from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope." The
reference seems to be to the evil repute into which that valley fell
by the sin of Achan, when it became the valley of trouble. For, by
Achan's sin, what had appeared likely to prove the door of access for
Israel into the land was shut; a double trouble came on the
people--partly because of their defeat, and partly because their
entrance into the land appeared to be blocked. In Hosea's picture of
Israel penitent and restored, the valley is again turned to its
natural use, and instead of a scene of trouble it again becomes a door
of hope, a door by which they may hope to enter their inheritance. It
is a door of hope for the penitent wife, a door by which she may
return to her lost happiness. The underlying truth is, that when we
get into a right relation to God, what were formerly evils become
blessings, hindrances are turned into helps. Sin deranges everything,
and brings trouble everywhere. The ground was cursed on account of
Adam: not literally, but indirectly, inasmuch as it needed hard and
exhausting toil, it needed the sweat of his face to make it yield him
a maintenance. "We know," says the Apostle, "that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." "For the creation
was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered
out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
children of God."
No man can tell all the "trouble" that has come into the world by
reason of sin. As little can we know the full extent of that
deliverance that shall take place when sin comes to an end. If we
would know anything of this we must go to those passages which picture
to us the new heavens and the new earth: "In the midst of the street
of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life,
which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month:
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And
there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb
shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see
His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be
no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for
the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and
ever."