11. Achan.
1893 364 After their long and weary journey through the torrid desert the vast host of the Israelites had at length triumphantly crossed Jordan and taken the garrisoned and embattled city of Jericho. Their goal is at last attained. All their sorrows are over; all their troubles past! … All? No, not all.
The next town they must occupy, Ai, a mere village of a place, against which they felt it was only necessary to detach a mere handful of troops, stops them. The men of Ai were as valiant as they were wicked; for unfortunately the popular theory that bad men are cowardly is not always true. They resist desperately; "heroically," we should say if they were on our side, but "furiously" is the word generally used for the enemy; and the attacking Israelites are mown down or flee before them. The immediate cause was that the invaders under-estimated their enemies and sent a small detachment to do work that the whole nation should have been engaged in; (Joshua 7:3, Joshua 8:1.) but the remote cause was something far more serious.
What an atrocious surprise it is to us, when we have overcome great difficulties, to find ourselves suddenly stopped by some apparently trifling obstacle: to conquer the line of the Danube, and be stopped at the little fort of Plevna; to gain all Europe and find disaster at the small village of Waterloo. It is to climb over the great mountain, and then fall over the "ridiculous mouse." Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall! It never ceases to be necessary to "walk circumspectly." It is customary to despise the power of our foes too much, and to make a joke of the devil. It is a poor joke. At the gate of Utgard, says the Norse legend, they showed the great giant Thor a cat and asked him to move it. "Small as the feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength could not; he bent up the creature's back, could not raise its feet off the ground, could at the utmost raise one foot. Why, you are no man, said the Utgard people: there is an old woman that will wrestle you! Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this haggard old woman; but could not throw her."
But there was a reason, as for most things: the cat was the great world-serpent; the old woman was time; and who can wrestle with her? The men of Ai, so disastrous to attack, were invincible in all the panoply of the Almighty so long as Achan was amongst the people of Israel. For God had given a commandment that they were not to enrich themselves with the spoils of the wicked Canaanites upon whom their swords were executing judgment; and at the very first battle Achan had wantonly disobeyed and hidden away spoil for himself. At another time this would have been simply a case of petty larceny or looting; but now it was a flat defiance of God's authority; and if allowed to go without stern punishment, the evil would no doubt develop until the conquering Israelites, instead of having the character of a solemn mission of divine judgment, would become a horde of vile marauders, and all discipline being relaxed, would certainly be finally defeated with terrible disaster.
Achan's offence then checks the triumphant march of Israel, and throws the whole nation into calamity and confusion. Of so much importance is discipline and fellowship: of such far reaching malignant influence are the consequences of one sin. Time and circumstance make in these things so much difference: when a work is being done by a great collective force, every man cannot have liberty to do what he chooses. There is a general responsibility to a certain amount of restraint; and what inconvenience is felt in the restraint is more than compensated for by gain in solidity and power. Any musician can play C for D as often as he likes on his own instrument at home; but if he do so in the midst of a great orchestra, he spoils them all, and fills a thousand breasts with rage and indignation. Thus no man lives to himself, nor even dies to himself: everything he does affects more or less remotely those that surround him, for good or evil. How cautious the consideration of that should make us as to the allowance of innocent sins and white lies in our lives.
His sin was that which in most ages, certainly in this, has been regarded as of a most respectable type, — cupidity. It was entirely according to the gospel of gentility and getting on in life: "get money; honestly if you can, but get it." Yet after all, the twenty or thirty pounds' worth of material which he took was a poor price to sell his conscience and happiness for. Some of these covetous natures that usually make such sharp bargains in buying and selling, make terribly bad bargains when they go to sell their own souls. There is no evidence of repentance; only of remorse. He is not sorry for the sin, but for being found out; he stood quietly concealing his guilt whilst the whole nation was blamed and punished; but when there was no further use in concealment, he confesses in a sort of way. There was no object in keeping silent any longer, and acknowledgment perhaps may mitigate the punishment, but it does not. The calm inexorable face of Joshua is turned toward him and condemns him to be stoned to death. But Midas perishing of his gold, Croesus wailing for Solon, and Crassus with his dead mouth stuffed with the molten metal, were amongst his spiritual descendants.
The event occurring immediately on their entrance to Canaan, the disasters and the fearful judgment resulting from such an apparently small sin seem to have made so strong an impression on the mind of the nation that hundreds of years afterwards the prophets refer to it; but strange to say they refer to it not in the way of condemnation, but as a ground of hopefulness. The judgment of evil, where evil exists, is the only means through which anyone can enter into the forgiveness and favour of God. Therefore Hosea says, that the valley of Achan (Achor) shall be a "door of hope," and she (Israel) shall sing there. And Isaiah says, "The valley of Achor shall be a place for the herds to lie down in"; for there is no place where hope shines so brightly as it shines on the spot where sin has been judged, nor is there any place for a sinner to rest, like the foot of the cross.