Chapter 7:3-12
After gazing up at the mighty walls of Jericho, Israel looked at Ai as a contemptible little place. Its name means “a heap of ruins,” and from this it would seem that it was not a mighty and fortified city like Jericho. If it had been, perhaps Israel would have sought God about its overthrow.
But as it was, when the men sent by Joshua to view the place returned, they said, “Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labor thither; for they are but few.” The very language of these men indicates confidence in their own strength instead of trusting in God for Ai’s destruction. Alas, so little an enemy administered so great a defeat to Israel. Still flushed with the pride of their victory over Jericho the three thousand men fled before the men of Ai who chased them and smote them: “wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.”
God hates pride, and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. His great Name requires humility in man. Pride is the cause of many a defeat in the lives of Christians, whereas to walk humbly with God will bring many a victory.
Plunged into grief Joshua rent his clothes and fell on his face before the ark of God, where he remained until evening. Both he and the elders put dust on their heads. This was well, but then Joshua seems to give way to despair, so unbecoming to one who was leader and captain of the Lord’s host. And he said, in the bitterness of his soul, “Alas, oh Lord God, wherefore hast Thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!”
Joshua, like natural man, almost blames God for their overthrow. The shame and disappointment of their defeat seems to fill his soul, not the reason for it. Is it not so that we are prone to look any where else but in our own state of soul for the reason for our loss and defeat.
Joshua complained to the Lord that the Canaanites will “cut off our name from the earth": then he adds, “and what wilt Thou do unto Thy great Name?” When, at the end of the day, he brought in the Lord’s great name, the Lord revealed the secret of Israel’s trouble.
“Get thee up,” the Lord told him; “wherefore liest thou upon thy face? Israel hath sinned,... they have taken of the accursed thing,.. Therefore Israel could not stand before their enemies... neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.”
God was acting according to His great Name. It might have appeared that Israel’s defeat was a dishonor to His Name, but Israel had sinned, and they must deal themselves with the sin and put it away in order that His name might be cleared of the dishonor.
There is a time for the believer to lie upon his face before God, but to lie there, not in self-judgment but blaming God, is neither faith nor humility. God used the Amorite to bring home to His people their sin and departure, and sometimes He uses the power of Satan to chasten us, to bring us into His presence that we might act in judging any evil in our lives or in the assembly of His people.
ML-07/24/1977