In Joshua 6 is the story about how the Israelites were on a mission to capture Jericho. Verses 16-17a, 18-19 say: “Then the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua yelled: ‘Get ready to shout! The Lord will let you capture this town. But you must destroy it and everything in it, to show that it now belongs to the Lord…The silver and gold and everything made of bronze and iron belong to the Lord and must be put in his treasury. Be careful to follow these instructions, because if you see something you want and take it, the Lord will destroy Israel. And it will be all your fault.’”
When you move on with the story you learn things weren’t done as they had been instructed, regardless of that very strong and clear warning in verse 19. Joshua 7:1 says: “The Lord had said that everything in Jericho belonged to him. But Achan from the Judah tribe took some of the things from Jericho for himself. And so the Lord was angry with the Israelites, because one of them had disobeyed him.”
From there, the story continues with how Joshua sent some spies to check out the town of Ai. When they returned they told Joshua that he needed to only send 2,000-3,000 men, because the town was small. So 3,000 men advanced on the town of Ai, but their men came out fighting and sent the Israelites running and they lost 36 men in the battle.
The army, along with Joshua and all the leaders, were discouraged and obviously upset. They did all their usual things lamenting the defeat. They were on their faces before the Lord questioning why He had allowed this to happen. Joshua 7:9 says: “‘Everyone will think you weren’t strong enough to protect your people. Now the Canaanites and everyone else who lives in the land will surround us and wipe us out.’”
Is that Joshua accusing God for their failure? After their astounding victory at Jericho, did they get a bit full of themselves thinking they had it going on and any failure would fall on God’s shoulders? I don’t know, but it almost seems that way to me. And, when you think about it, don’t we at times step back and look at negative things that happen in our lives and wonder how God would have allowed it? We don’t consider that bad decisions and/or actions on our part could have played a part.
It seems to me God makes clear that the fault lies with them and them alone as His frustration with them shows up in the next verses (10-13): “The Lord answered: ‘Stop lying there on the ground! Get up! I said everything in Jericho belonged to me and had to be destroyed. But the Israelites have kept some of the things for themselves. They stole from me and hid what they took. Then they lied about it. What they stole was supposed to be destroyed, and now Israel itself must be destroyed. I cannot help you anymore until you do exactly what I have said. That’s why Israel turns and runs from its enemies instead of standing up to them. Tell the people of Israel, ‘Tomorrow you will meet with the Lord your God, so make yourselves acceptable to worship him. The Lord says that you have taken things that should have been destroyed. You won’t be able to stand up to your enemies until you get rid of those things.’”
In other words, they had to get their lives in order and do the right things in order to experience the blessings of God. This is a consideration we ourselves need to take seriously. We can’t “lay on the ground” and weep and mourn and think things will get better. We have to get up! Face the music and make the necessary corrections to turn our lives around and experience all God has for us.
Their instructions for the next day were that all of Israel was to appear before the Lord, tribe by tribe. The Lord would then show them the guilty tribe. Then from that tribe the clans would come forward until the guilty clan was shown to them. Then one by one the families from the guilty clan would come forward until the guilty family was shown. Finally the men in that family would come forward until the guilty man that stole what should have been destroyed would be revealed – and he would have to be put to death.
It is apparent that God takes His instructions to man very seriously and expects that they will be followed. Because this one man – Achan – chose to selfishly take things that should have been destroyed he brought judgment on the entire nation. It would seem that one man’s actions can affect many. (“Achan…had violated an explicit command given by God, and all of Israel paid the price…God is very clear in this story that even if defeat is not always the result of sin, sin will result in defeat. Disobedience undermines His intended blessings.”*)
After reading through this story I then couldn’t help but wonder why they had to go through the whole scenario of being marched forward tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, and then a parade of men. God could’ve saved so much time by just revealing to Joshua who the guilty party was and had him and the leaders deal with it as instructed.
But then I thought about how all of us can be so dense and hard-headed at times. If God had chosen to do it the easier way, it may have had little impact on many of the people. It would be easier to just blow off. But by going through the long process, they had to pay attention, with tension building each step of the way. Then, when the guilty party was revealed and punished – they would not soon forget.
Our lives could be so much less complicated and troubled if we would just do the right things. But if we fail to do that, then rather than wallowing in defeat, grief, sadness and blame we should just GET UP!, brush ourselves off, and take the corrective measures to get back on God’s track.
Written by Karran Martin – June 1, 2024
*Quote by Chris Tiegreen
[All bold & underlined emphasis is mine]
All Bible quotes are from the CEV translation
Karran's Korner 