Roots of the Rift

God now speaks to Joshua, calling him to action and at last showing him the root of Israel’s woe. “ ‘Get up!’ ” God tells him. “ ‘Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things.’ ” It is not, as Joshua speculated, that God is not keeping His covenant promises to the Israelites; rather, they have done precisely what they specifically were commanded not to do—they have taken of the plunder of Jericho. God had promised to be “ ‘an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries’ ” as long as Israel obeyed His commands (Ex. 23:22). By implication, He would not fight for them if they became disobedient. Such had now happened. “ ‘Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction.’ ”

Now Israel must choose to continue in sin or to repent. A failure to repent will be devastating: “ ‘Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.’ ” The loss of God’s presence would be an unspeakable tragedy for Israel, and no one knows that better than Joshua. “The accursed thing must be discovered and cast out, and the sooner the better; Joshua is the man that must do it, and therefore it is time for him to lay aside his mourning weeds, and put on his judge’s robes, and clothe himself with zeal as a cloak,” Matthew Henry writes. His task is to find and eliminate “ ‘the accursed’ ”—not the objects Achan has taken and hidden, but Achan himself, for his actions have made him accursed and have cursed the entire nation (Josh. 6:18).

God tells Joshua how to proceed. He is to instruct the Israelites to sanctify themselves—to “prepare to meet their God,” as Henry says—and then to bring all the people before the tabernacle. This will show the people their collective guilt. But by use of lots, perhaps by the Urim and Thummim (Ex. 28:30), God Himself will select one of the tribes, one of the families of that tribe, one of the households of that family, and finally the guilty individual. And that person, along with all his family and possessions, shall be burned with fire for transgressing God’s covenant, “ ‘a disgraceful thing in Israel.’ ”