7. And Joshua said, Alas, O 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!

8. O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies?

9. For the Canaanites, and all inhabitants of the land, shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth; and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?

10. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?

11. Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them; for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. 12. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they

were accursed; neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.

13. Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow; for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.

14. In the morning, therefore, ye shall be brought according to your tribes and it shall be, that the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof; and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households; and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man.

15. And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath; because he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel.

The children of Israel committed a trespass. The act of wickedness here described was committed directly by one man; but it is charged to the account of all the people. There is sound philosophy in this. It is the business of the people to so cultivate, discipline and influence their citizens, that they will not commit such wickedness. If they fail to do this, they should be punished; and they are punished accordingly. This opens before us a great subject, and we can not discuss it now.

Ordinarily a trespass is not punished with death. Ordinarily it was not so punished under the laws of Moses. But the term trespass, as here used, denotes a greater offense than that term denotes with us. The sins of men were divided by the law into three general divisions,

each division having some modifications. The general divisions were 1, Sins of Ignorance; 2, Wilful Sins; 3, Presumptuous Sins. The sin of Achan was ranked under the last head, and admitted of no reprieve, but was punished with death. It was not always the nature of the offense, in itself considered, that gave it this aggravated character. That was determined by the circum stances under which it was committed. Gathering a few sticks on the Sabbath, when it was done with a view to insult the Almighty, acquired this character, and was punished accordingly. Num. xv. 30, 31.

Ai is represented as a small place; but from a reference to its gates it appears to have been a walled town or "fenced city."

"Alas, O Lord God!" The language ascribed to Joshua does not seem in character. One who could encourage others as he could; and especially one who had received such assurances as he had from Jehovah, should not be so discouraged and cast down. The fact shows that he was human like the rest of mankind. Rending the clothes, falling on the earth, throwing dust on the head, etc., were signs of grief and distress among the Hebrews.

"What wilt thou do unto thy great name?" Joshua was not alone concerned for his own reputation, and that of the people under him. He was fearful that the glory of Jehovah would be tarnished. The defeat itself was not a serious misfortune, the loss of men being very inconsiderable. But it was felt that any defeat any loss

was a great misfortune, and a reproach to people who claimed that the Almighty God was on their side. In view of this claim, it was so. It was this, no doubt, that made the grief and mortification of Joshua so pungent All his claims to divine aid seemed in a moment overthrown; and he would become a reproach and a by-word with the inhabitants of the land. And he felt that the character of Jehovah was as deeply involved as his own.

Ye shall be brought according to your tribes. This was to determine who was the guilty one. It was evidently done by lot, in some form that is not described.

The Hebrews could not have clearer or more satisfac tory evidence that God was with them than the result of the lot by which the true criminal was ascertained. It appears to be the same as the Urim and Thummim. See Ex. xxviii. 30, and Bib. Review. Vol. III. p. 84.

Shall be burnt with fire. The form of punishment was taking the life, and then burning the body. There is no evidence that burning alive was ever practiced among the Hebrews as a punishment. Burning, as well as hanging on a tree, was a post mortem infliction, and employed only on the worst of criminals.

JOS.

16. So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought 1srael by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken;

17. And he brought the family of Judah; and he took the family of the Zarhites: and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken:

18. And he brought his household man by man; and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.

19. And Joshua said unto Achan, 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.

20. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done.

VII.

them, and took them; and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.

22. So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it.

23. And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua and unto all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord.

24. And Joshua, and all Israel with him, 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 to the valley of Achor.

25. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall 21. When I saw among the trouble thee this day. And all Isspoils a goodly Babylonish gar-rael stoned him with stones, and ment, and two hundred shekels of burned them with fire, after they silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty had stoned them with stones. shekels weight, then I coveted

26. And they raised over him a

great heap of stones unto this day. | So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger: wherefore the

name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day.

It does not appear that all the people of the tribes came together. This was not necessary to reach the ends of justice; and they must have extended over a very large territory. The lot was applied only to the representatives of the people, called the "congregation," consisting of seventy elders, and constituting the highest tribunal in the land.

He brought the family of Judah. By family we are to understand, not merely the immediate family, that is, the parents and children; but these and the grand-parents, and grand-children, with other known relations. Family in our sense of the term is expressed by household in verse 18th.

"My son, give I pray thee, glory to the Lord." Joshua addresses the criminal very kindly, and calls on him to make a full confession. This would not turn aside the sword of justice, but it would show to all that he suffered justly, and would produce toward himself a better impression.

The Babylonish garment may have possessed great value, and it may have merely seemed valuable to the soldier. Achan was born in the wilderness, and had scarcely known any thing of civilized life; and he may have estimated this garment much above its intrinsic value. At all events it could have possessed but little real value to him, as wearing it would surely expose his crime, and bring upon him certain punishment. We all see and confess that he was very foolish. No man that violates any one of the laws of the Creator is less so.

Some have endeavored to make an argument from the Babylonish garment, to prove that the book of Joshua was not written till after the captivity at Babylon. But the argument has no force. It is probable that the nations of Canaan had commercial intercourse with the Babylonians, long before the Hebrew invasion. Besides,

some garment manufactured by the Canaanites themselves, or a garment imported from Egypt or some other nation, may have been called a "Babylonish garment," from some supposed resemblance to articles manufactured at Babylon.

Gold and silver were also tempting articles to this soldier. There was but little of either among the Hebrews. They had been used up in the construction of the tabernacle and its furniture. The value of the gold and silver taken by the soldier was not great. But great and small are relative terms. To him the value was great. Two hundred shekels of silver and fifty shekels of gold! A shekel of silver is fifty cents, American money; and a shekel of gold is four dollars. The ag gregate value was three hundred dollars!

It is not certain whether any of Achan's relatives suffered death, or were taken out into the valley merely to be witnesses of his punishment. The latter is the more probable conclusion; not merely on grounds of justice, but because the language of the history will not bear out any other construction. The 15th verse reads as follows: "He that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath." "All that he hath” does not embrace his relations, but only his possessions.

Besides, the record says they "stoned him with stones." Had more than he suffered death, they should have been stoned as well as he. Hence, when it is added that they burned them with fire, the reference is to him, and “all that he had," his Babylonish garment, and all his other possessions. The Vulgate makes him only to be killed, and his property to be burned. The Septuagint says "they stoned him with stones," and says nothing more on the subject. The Hebrew agrees essentially with the English version. We would call the attention of the reader to the circumstance, that the burning of Achan was a post mortem infliction.

This scene took place in the valley of Achor. The name was derived from the word achor, made use of by