Joshua 7

Remember in Joshua 1 when I wrote that most stories suck unless the characters are in situations that suck? (That sentence, by the way, is the product of one who fancies himself a writer. And to think that I teach the intricacies of the language to others.) While the story of Jericho contained plenty of thrills (and possibly spills, if one of the citizens of Jericho had happened to leave his mug of Odwalla juice on the city wall just before it fell), there wasn't really any strife. Sure, the Israelites provided some action when they put everyone in the city to the sword (save Rahab and Company), but did Jericho really put up much of a fight at that point? Could they?

But now, it's like the Israelites are at the end of a TV episode--Game of Thrones, Daredevil, some K-drama or jdorama, take your pick--in which our heroes have won some magnificent victory. But just when we think it's over, a bombshell revelation drops, or a character we thought was dead reappears, and suddenly matters are looking very dire for the main characters. Some fellow named Achan decides to remind everyone, in the off chance that they forgot, just how pumice-brained humans can be. He does expressly what the Israelites have been told not to do: He takes some "devoted things" plundered from Jericho--a bunch of silver, an ingot of gold, and a fetching robe (verse 21).

But Achan's sin has ramifications far beyond his wretched self. When Joshua sends 3,000 scouts to Ai, the people of Ai (Aians? Aianese? Aiish?) trounce them, killing 36 of their number (verse 5). When Joshua supplicates himself before God, asking why everything has suddenly gone more wrong than a twenty-toed psychic, God responds in an amusingly crotchety manner: "Stand up! What are you doing on your face?" (verse 10). Well, if I knew that someone's willful idiocy had caused the death of 36 of my friends, I'd be a little cantankerous as well.

With God's guidance, Joshua and the Israelites eventually scare up Achan, stone him, and burn the corpse. Then, they dump a pile of rocks over his body for good measure. What disturbs me a bit about Achan's punishment isn't what happened to Achan himself--he probably deserved what was coming for him. Rather, it's that his sons and daughters were stoned as well (verses 24, 25). Imagine having your father fail you in such a way that you find yourself being stoned to death. Maybe Achan's family members were confederates in his dastardly deed, but if not, surely God had some other reason for condemning Achan's offspring. If nothing else, this story serves as a sobering reminder of the gaping gulf between sin and God's holiness, a gulf that, as we'll learn in a thousand or so pages, only Jesus can span.