Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
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 Gen 34:7, to denote
such a crime as was irreconcilable with the honour of Israel as the people of God.
Joshua 7:16-18
So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and the
tribe of Judah was taken:
Execution of the Command. - Vv. 16-18. Discovery of the guilty man through the
lot. In v. 17 we should expect "the tribe" ( shebet ) or "the families" ( mishpachoth )
of Judah, instead of "the family." The plural mishpachoth is adopted in the LXX and
Vulgate , and also to be met with in seven MSS; but this is a conjecture rather than
the original reading Mishpachah is either used generally, or employed in a collective
sense to denote all the families of Judah. There is no ground for altering lagªbaariym
(OT:1397) (man by man) into lªbaatiym (OT:1004) (house by house) in v. 17,
according to some of the MSS; the expression "man by man" is used simply because
it was the representative men who came for the lot to be cast, not only in the case of
the fathers' houses, but in that of the families also.
Joshua 7:19
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.
When Achan had been discovered to be the criminal, Joshua charged him to give
honour and praise to the Lord, and to confess without reserve what he had done. It is
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