Joshua 7:15

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:10-15 God awakens Joshua to inquiry, by telling him that when this accursed thing was put away, all would be well. Times of danger and trouble should be times of reformation. We should look at home, into our own hearts, into our own houses, and make diligent search to find out if there be not some accursed thing there, which God sees and abhors; some secret lust, some unlawful gain, some undue withholding from God or from others. We cannot prosper, until the accursed thing be destroyed out of our hearts, and put out of our habitations and our families, and forsaken in our lives. When the sin of sinners finds them out, God is to be acknowledged. With a certain and unerring judgment, the righteous God does and will distinguish between the innocent and the guilty; so that though the righteous are of the same tribe, and family, and household with the wicked, yet they never shall be treated as the wicked.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

burnt with fire - i. e. after he had been put to death by stoning Joshua 7:25; Leviticus 20:14.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10-15. the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up—The answer of the divine oracle was to this effect: the crisis is owing not to unfaithfulness in Me, but sin in the people. The conditions of the covenant have been violated by the reservation of spoil from the doomed city; wickedness, emphatically called folly, has been committed in Israel (Ps 14:1), and dissimulation, with other aggravations of the crime, continues to be practised. The people are liable to destruction equally with the accursed nations of Canaan (De 7:26). Means must, without delay, be taken to discover and punish the perpetrator of this trespass that Israel may be released from the ban, and things be restored to their former state of prosperity.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Burnt with fire, as persons and things accursed were to be. See Numbers 15:30,35 Deu 13:16. All that he hath; his children and goods, as is noted, Joshua 7:24, according to the law, Deu 13:6.

He hath wrought folly; so sin is oft called in Scripture, as Genesis 34:7 Judges 20:6, &c., in opposition to the idle opinion of sinners, who commonly esteem it to be their wisdom and interest.

In Israel, i.e. among the church and people of God, who had such excellent laws to direct them, and such an all-sufficient and gracious God to provide for them, without any such indirect and unworthy practices.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire,.... He that is taken by lot, and the accursed thing found with him, this should be the death, burning, one of the four capital punishments with the Jews: this was ordered in this case, because the city of Jericho, accursed or devoted, was burnt with fire, Joshua 6:24,

he and all that he hath; the particulars of which are enumerated, Joshua 7:24,

because he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord; See Gill on Joshua 7:11,

and because he hath wrought folly in Israel; as all sin and every transgression of the law is, and was the cause of Israel's turning their backs on their enemies; which, as Abarbinel says, was folly, and made the people of Israel look foolish, mean, and contemptible: the word has also the signification of a dead carcass, and may possibly have respect, to the thirty six men whose death he was the occasion of, Joshua 7:5, and therefore justly ought to die himself.

Geneva Study Bible

And it shall be, that he that is {h} 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.

(h) That is found guilty, either by lots, or by the judgment of Urim. Nu 27:21.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. shall be burnt with fire] Achan by his conduct had become cherem or devoted, and is so called in Joshua 7:12, and everything devoted to punishment for the reparation of the Divine honour was to be burnt. Comp. Leviticus 20:14; Leviticus 21:9; Joshua 6:24; 2 Kings 23:16.

folly] Or, as in margin, wickedness; “and hath do sacrilege in Ysrael,” Wyclif.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. He that is taken with the accursed thing; or, according to Keil, "he on whom the ban falls." He and all that he hath (cf. ver. 24). The opinion that Achan's family had in some way become participators in his sin would seem preferable to the idea that his sin had involved them in the ban (see Deuteronomy 24:16, which qualifies Leviticus 26:39; so Hengstenberg, 'History,' p. 218). The destruction of their possessions is due to the fact that all the family had come under the ban. Folly נְבָלָה used of the heart as well as the head (cf. Genesis 34:7: Deuteronomy 22:21; Judges 19:23, 24; Judges 20:6; 2 Samuel 13:12; Psalm 14:1). The LXX. render by ἀνόμημα, and the Vulgate by herae, but Theodotion renders by ἀφροσύνη.

CHAPTER 7:16-26. THE DISCOVERY OF ACHAN'S SIN. - Joshua 7:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Joshua was to take away this ban from the nation. To discover who had laid hands upon the ban, he was to direct the people to sanctify themselves for the following day (see at Joshua 3:5), and then to cause them to come before God according to their tribes, families, households, and men, that the guilty men might be discovered by lot; and to burn whoever was found guilty, with all that he possessed. נקרב, "to come near," sc., to Jehovah, i.e., to come before His sanctuary. The tribes, families, households, and men, formed the four classes into which the people were organized. As the tribes were divided into families, so these again were subdivided into houses, commonly called fathers' houses, and the fathers' houses again into men, i.e., fathers of families (see the remarks on Exodus 18:25-26, and by Bibl. Archaeology, 140). Each of these was represented by its natural head, so that we must picture the affair as conducted in the following manner: in order to discover the tribe, the twelve tribe princes came before the Lord; and in order to discover the family, the heads of families of the tribe that had been taken, and so on to the end, each one in turn being subjected to the lot. For although it is not distinctly stated that the lot was resorted to in order to discover who was guilty, and that the discovery was actually made in this way, this is very evident from the expression אשׁר־ילכּדנּה (which the Lord taketh), as this was the technical term employed, according to 1 Samuel 14:42, to denote the falling of the lot upon a person (see also 1 Samuel 10:20). Moreover, the lot was frequently resorted to in cases where a crime could not be brought home to a person by the testimony of eye-witnesses (see 1 Samuel 14:41-42; Jonah 1:7; Proverbs 18:18), as it was firmly believed that the lot was directed by the Lord (Proverbs 16:33). In what manner the lot was cast we do not know. In all probability little tablets or potsherds were used, with the names written upon them, and these were drawn out of an urn. This may be inferred from a comparison of Joshua 18:11 and Joshua 19:1, with Joshua 18:6, Joshua 18:10, according to which the casting of the lot took place in such a manner that the lot came up (עלה, Joshua 18:11; Joshua 19:10; Leviticus 16:9), or came out (יצא, Joshua 19:1; Joshua 19:24; Numbers 33:54). בּחרם הנּלכּד, the person taken in (with) the ban, i.e., taken by the lot as affected with the ban, was to be burned with fire, of course not alive, but after he had been stoned (Joshua 7:25). The burning of the body of a criminal was regarded as heightening the punishment of death (vid., Leviticus 20:14). This punishment was to be inflicted upon him, in the first place, because he had broken the covenant of Jehovah; and in the second place, because he had wrought folly in Israel, that is to say, had offended grievously against the covenant God, and also against the covenant nation. "Wrought folly:" an expression used here, as in Genesis 34:7, to denote such a crime as was irreconcilable with the honour of Israel as the people of God.