OS 7-8{M. This is a very sorrowful chapter, for the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. A man named Achan took some things and hid them in his tent, and the Lord was much displeased. But Joshua sent men to look at Ai. Ai was the next city they were going to conquer, and they came back and said to Joshua that it was quite a little place, a few people could take it, so Joshua sent them to fight against Ai. They seemed to forget that the Lord was captain of His host, for they, did not ask Him what they should do; they did not wait for Him to tell them how to conquer Ai, they thought it was easy because it was a smaller place than Jericho; so Joshua sent three thousand men to take the city, and they fled before the men of Ai, and many of them were killed. But Joshua was greatly grieved, and he fell on his face before the ark of the Lord, and he and all the elders of Israel mourned before the Lord, and Joshua said, O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turn their backs before their enemies!.... and what wilt Thou do unto Thy great name?
But the Lord answered Joshua and said, Get up: why do you lie upon your face? Israel has sinned! For they have taken of the accursed thing, and they have stolen and they have hidden it, and they have put it with their own stuff.
S. Did that make the camp accursed, as Joshua said?
M. Yes. The whole camp was unclean in God's sight, and God said He would not be with them any more until they had destroyed the accursed from among them. It was no use for Joshua to lie on his face and cry to God: he must get up and put away the evil thing. So Joshua rose up early in the morning to sanctify the people; and he brought them by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken, and he tried all the families of Judah and the household of Zabdi was taken, and he brought his household man by man, and Achan was taken. And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give, I pray you, glory to the God of Israel and make confession to Him and tell me what you have done. And Achan said, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, for I saw a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold, and I took them and they are hid in the earth, in the midst of my tent. Unhappy man! He did not think that the Holy God was looking at him as he hid it there? He did not feel what it was to belong to the Holy God, or he could not have hidden an unholy thing with his own stuff. He touched what was accursed and be made himself accursed for it. Then Joshua sent to his tent and found it as he said. So they took Achan, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons and his daughters, his oxen, his asses, his sheep, his tent and all that he had, and brought them to the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why halt thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. Then all Israel stoned him with stones, and burnt them all with fire, sorrowful act! But God's law was broken and there was no help for a man under law, he must die. What was, unclean must be destroyed. Then the anger of the Lord was turned away from Israel, but they raised a great heap of stones over the spot where Achan perished, and the place was called the valley of Achor, that is, the valley of trouble, which still tells of Israel's first failure in the promised land. They let the word of God slip from them, and they got careless because the way seemed easy.
S. But it was not easy when God did not fight for them, for some of them were killed.
M. True, and so God showed them, that though He would give them His favor again, yet He would not put honor upon them, as He had done when they went forth in His power; yet His grace to Joshua is very beautiful. He said to him, Fear not, take all the people of war with you and go up to Ai, I have given it into your hands; and God told Joshua how to take Ai. So Joshua went up to Ai, and he made some of the people go by night and hide behind the city, and in the morning Joshua attacked the city, and the king of Ai, and all his people came out to fight against Joshua; then Joshua pretended to fly from them, so they all pursued after Israel and left the city open. Then the Lord told Joshua to stretch out the spear that was in his hand towards Ai, and as soon as he did so the Israelites that were hiding behind the city rose up, and went into the, city and took it and set it on fire. And when the men of Ai looked toward their city they saw the smoke of it going up to the sky, and they did not know which way to go to fly from Israel, so they were all destroyed, but the cattle God said they might take for themselves.
S. Pretending to fly was not so grand as seeing the walls fall down before them.
M. No. God never made much of them in that way again. It is just like what the children of God have done since Jesus went back to heaven. They have not kept themselves from the things in the world, they have grieved God's Holy Spirit by having unholy things mixed up with their own things, and so God does not honor us now as He honored His servants Paul and Peter, and John, who faithfully kept themselves unspotted from the world. And Joshua burnt Ai, and he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening, and as soon as the sun had set he commanded the body to be taken down.
S. Why must it not be there in the evening?
M. Because the Lord had said, as we read in the book of the law, that the body of one who was hanged should not remain all night upon the tree, because the land which God had given them must not be defiled; it showed that Joshua felt it was God's land, when he forbade the body to be left there all night. Then Joshua did another thing that God had told Moses about, for he built an altar in Mount Ebal, and there they offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings.
S. Was that the mountain where they were to read out all the curses?
M. Yes. Joshua wrote upon all the stones of the altar a copy of the law of Moses. And all Israel stood with the priests and the Levites on each side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, with the strangers that dwelt among them, while Joshua read out all the words of the law, the blessing and the curses as Moses commanded, and the women and the little ones were listening too.
Moses had said, on the day that they went over Jordan, they were to set up that altar, but Joshua had not done so at once.