A disobedient soldier (Josh. 7:1, 20–21)

I. The sinner (Josh. 7:1)

7 But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed

A. Because of Achan’s disobedience, Israel was defeated at Ai.

Never underestimate the amount of damage one person can do outside the will of God. Abraham’s disobedience in Egypt almost cost him his wife (Gen. 12:10-20); David’s disobedience in taking an unauthorized census led to the death of 70,000 people (2 Sam. 24); and Jonah’s refusal to obey God almost sank a ship (Jonah 1). The church today must look diligently “lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble” (Heb. 12:15, NKJV).

That’s why Paul admonished the Corinthian believers to discipline the disobedient man in their fellowship, because his sin was defiling the whole church (1 Cor. 5).

B. It was Israel that had sinned and not just Achan alone.

Why would God blame the whole nation for the disobedience of only one soldier? Because Israel was one people in the Lord and not just an assorted collection of tribes, clans, families, and individuals. God dwelt in the midst of their camp, and this made the Jews the Lord’s special people (Ex. 19:5–6).

God walked about in their camp, and therefore the camp was to be kept holy (Deut. 23:14). Anyone who disobeyed God defiled the camp, and this defilement affected their relationship to the Lord and to one another.

C. The sin was that Israel “acted unfaithfully.

The term in question here (mʿl) is used to describe a wife’s adultery (see Num 5:12–13): it was a betrayal of a trust that existed between two parties. In almost every use of this term in the Bible, the trust broken is that between God and humans.

So, in taking the devoted things, Achan was acting in a way that broke the fundamental covenantal relationship between God and Israel, and vv. 11 and 15 make that explicit: Israel had broken God’s covenant. The damage was not repaired until the cause of the betrayal of trust had been removed from the nation (v. 26); then God’s anger abated.

D. The sin was more than simple theft.

The tribes west of the Jordan accused the two and one-half Transjordan tribes of acting unfaithfully by building an altar they thought was a source of idolatry and false worship. These tribes accused the Transjordan tribes of acting in exactly the same way that Achan had (see 22:20), even though the specific actions of Achan and these tribes were different.

The point of continuity in both episodes is the betrayal of God’s trust and the pursuing of some other object of affection. In this sense, Achan’s sin was a violation of the First Commandment, which prohibited having any other gods before the Lord (Exod 20:3).

II. The sin (Josh. 7:20–21).

20 And Achan answered Joshua and said, “Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I have done: 21 When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it.”

A. Achan heard his commander give the order that all the spoils in Jericho were to be devoted to the Lord and were to go into His treasury.

Achan’s first mistake was to look at these spoils a second time. He probably couldn’t help seeing them the first time, but he should never have looked again and considered taking them. A man’s first glance at a woman may say to him, “She’s attractive!” But it’s that second glance that gets the imagination working and leads to sin. If we keep God’s Word before our eyes, we won’t start looking in the wrong direction and doing the wrong things.

His second mistake was to reclassify those treasures and call them “the spoils”. They were not “the spoils”; they were a part of the Lord’s treasury and wholly dedicated to Him. They didn’t belong to Achan, or even to Israel; they belonged to God. When God identifies something in a special way, we have no right to change it. In our world today, including the religious world, people are rewriting God’s dictionary!

B. If God says something is wrong, then it’s wrong; and that’s the end of the debate.

Achan’s third mistake was to covet. Instead of singing praises in his heart for the great victory God had given, Achan was imagining in his heart what it would be like to own all that treasure. The imagination is the “womb” in which desire is conceived and from which sin and death are eventually born.

His fourth mistake was to think that he could get away with his sin by hiding the loot. Adam and Eve tried to cover their sin and run away and hide, but the Lord discovered them. How foolish of Achan to think that God couldn’t see what he was doing, when “all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13, NKJV).

Achan’s sin becomes even worse when you stop to realize all that God had done for him. God had cared for him and his family in the wilderness. He had brought them safely across the Jordan and given the army victory at Jericho. The Lord had accepted Achan as a son of the covenant at Gilgal. Yet in spite of all these wonderful experiences, Achan disobeyed God just to possess some wealth that he couldn’t even enjoy. Had he waited just a day or two, he could have gathered all the spoils he wanted from the victory at Ai!