Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
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 unto the valley of Achor.
Then Joshua and all Israel, i.e., the whole nation in the person of its heads or
representatives, took Achan, together with the things which he had purloined, and his
sons and daughters, his cattle, and his tent with all its furniture, and brought them into
the valley of Achor, where they stoned them to death and then burned them, after
Joshua had once more pronounced this sentence upon him in the place of judgment:
"How hast thou troubled us" ( `aakar (OT:5916), as in Josh 6:18, to bring into
trouble)! "The Lord will trouble thee this day." It by no means follows from the
expression "stoned him" in v. 25, that Achan only was stoned. The singular pronoun
is used to designate Achan alone, as being the principal person concerned. But it is
obvious enough that his children and cattle were stoned, from what follows in the
very same verse: "They burned them (the persons stoned to death, and their things)
with fire, and heaped up stones upon them." It is true that in Deut 24:16 the Mosaic
law expressly forbids the putting to death of children for their fathers' sins; and many
have imagined, therefore, that Achan's sons and daughters were simply taken into the
valley to be spectators of the punishment inflicted upon the father, that it might be a
warning to them.
But for what reason, then, were Achan's cattle (oxen, sheep, and asses) taken out
along with him? Certainly for no other purpose than to be stoned at the same time as
he. The law in question only referred to the punishment of ordinary criminals, and
therefore was not applicable at all to the present case, in which the punishment was
commanded by the Lord himself. Achan had fallen under the ban by laying hands
upon what had been banned, and consequently was exposed to the same punishment
as a town that had fallen away to idolatry (Deut 13:16-17). The law of the ban was
founded upon the assumption, that the conduct to be punished was not a crime of
which the individual only was guilty, but one in which the whole family of the
leading sinner, in fact everything connected with him, participated. Thus, in the case
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