Joshua 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel is defeated at Ai after Achan of the tribe of Judah secretly takes goods from Jericho that had been set apart for destruction. Joshua mourns before the ark, and the LORD tells him the defeat came because Israel has broken the covenant, and that he will not stay with them unless the banned things are removed. Israel is brought forward tribe by tribe until Achan is singled out; he confesses to hiding a coat, silver, and gold in his tent. He and his family, animals, and possessions are taken to the Valley of Achor, where he is stoned and they are burned, and a heap of stones is raised over him.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • The children of Israel committed a trespass concerning the things devoted to destruction.
   • Achan took some of the devoted thing.
   • Achan was the son of Carmi.
   • Carmi was the son of Zabdi.
   • Zabdi was the son of Zerah.
   • Achan belonged to the tribe of Judah.
   • The anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.
2. 7:2
   • Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai.
   • Ai is beside Beth-aven.
   • Ai is east of Bethel.
   • Joshua told the men to go up and spy out the land.
   • The men went up.
   • The men spied out Ai.
3. 7:3
   • The men returned to Joshua.
   • They told Joshua not to send all the people up.
   • They said about two or three thousand men should go up and strike Ai.
   • They said not to make all the people toil there.
   • They said the people of Ai were few.
4. 7:4
   • About three thousand of the people went up there.
   • They fled before the men of Ai.
5. 7:5
   • The men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men of them.
   • The men of Ai chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim.
   • The men of Ai struck them down on the descent.
   • The heart of the people melted.
   • The heart of the people became like water.
6. 7:6
   • Joshua tore his clothes.
   • Joshua fell to the ground on his face before the ark of the LORD until evening.
   • The elders of Israel did so with him.
   • They put dust on their heads.
7. 7:7
   • Joshua cried out to the Lord GOD.
   • Joshua asked why God had brought this people over the Jordan.
   • Joshua said it was to give them into the hand of the Amorites to destroy them.
   • Joshua wished they had been content to dwell on the other side of the Jordan.
8. 7:8
   • Joshua addressed the Lord.
   • Joshua asked what he could say, since Israel had turned its back before its enemies.
9. 7:9
   • Joshua said the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land would hear of it.
   • Joshua said they would surround Israel.
   • Joshua said they would cut off Israel's name from the earth.
   • Joshua asked what God would do for his own great name.
10. 7:10
    • The LORD said to Joshua to get up.
    • The LORD asked Joshua why he was lying on his face.
11. 7:11
    • The LORD said Israel had sinned.
    • The LORD said they had transgressed his covenant which he commanded them.
    • The LORD said they had taken of the devoted thing.
    • The LORD said they had stolen.
    • The LORD said they had lied about it.
    • The LORD said they had put it among their own belongings.
12. 7:12
    • The children of Israel could not stand before their enemies.
    • They turned their backs before their enemies.
    • The reason was that they had become devoted to destruction.
    • The LORD said he would not be with them any more unless they destroyed the devoted thing from among them.
13. 7:13
    • The LORD told Joshua to get up and sanctify the people.
    • The LORD told Joshua to say to them to sanctify themselves for tomorrow.
    • The LORD God of Israel said there was a devoted thing in the midst of Israel.
    • The LORD said Israel could not stand before its enemies until they removed the devoted thing from among them.
14. 7:14
    • In the morning the people were to be brought forward by their tribes.
    • The tribe the LORD takes was to come forward by its families.
    • The family the LORD takes was to come forward by households.
    • The household the LORD takes was to come forward man by man.
15. 7:15
    • The one taken with the devoted thing was to be burned with fire.
    • All that he had was to be burned with him.
    • The reason was that he had transgressed the covenant of the LORD.
    • The reason was that he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel.
16. 7:16
    • Joshua rose early in the morning.
    • Joshua brought Israel forward by their tribes.
    • The tribe of Judah was taken.
17. 7:17
    • Joshua brought forward the family of Judah.
    • The family of the Zerahites was taken.
    • Joshua brought the family of the Zerahites forward man by man.
    • Zabdi was taken.
18. 7:18
    • Joshua brought Zabdi's household forward man by man.
    • Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
19. 7:19
    • Joshua addressed Achan as his son.
    • Joshua asked Achan to give glory to the LORD God of Israel.
    • Joshua asked Achan to make confession to him.
    • Joshua asked Achan to tell him what he had done.
    • Joshua told Achan not to hide it from him.
20. 7:20
    • Achan answered Joshua.
    • Achan said it was true that he had sinned against the LORD God of Israel.
    • Achan said he had done thus and thus.
21. 7:21
    • Achan said he saw among the spoil one fine garment from Shinar.
    • Achan said he saw two hundred shekels of silver.
    • Achan said he saw one bar of gold weighing fifty shekels.
    • Achan said he coveted them.
    • Achan said he took them.
    • Achan said they were hidden in the ground inside his tent.
    • Achan said the silver was underneath.
22. 7:22
    • Joshua sent messengers.
    • The messengers ran to the tent.
    • The thing was hidden in Achan's tent.
    • The silver was underneath it.
23. 7:23
    • They took the things from inside the tent.
    • They brought them to Joshua and to all the children of Israel.
    • They poured them out before the LORD.
24. 7:24
    • Joshua took Achan the son of Zerah.
    • Joshua took the silver, the garment, and the bar of gold.
    • Joshua took Achan's sons and daughters.
    • Joshua took Achan's ox, donkey, and flock.
    • Joshua took Achan's tent and all that he had.
    • All Israel was with Joshua.
    • They brought them up to the Valley of Achor.
25. 7:25
    • Joshua asked Achan why he had brought trouble on them.
    • Joshua said the LORD would bring trouble on Achan that day.
    • All Israel stoned him with stones.
    • They burned them with fire.
    • They stoned them with stones.
26. 7:26
    • They raised a great heap of stones over him.
    • The heap remains to this day.
    • The LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger.
    • The name of that place was called the Valley of Achor.
    • That name remains to this day.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

7:1

"Set apart for destruction" translates the Hebrew word *herem*: goods or people placed permanently outside ordinary use by being devoted to God, which in a captured town meant they could not be kept, sold, or taken as plunder but had to be destroyed, with metal going into the sanctuary treasury. The King James "the accursed thing" is the same word. Jericho had been placed under this rule (Joshua 6:17-19), so taking anything from it was theft from God, not from the enemy. The word covers both the things devoted and the state of being devoted, which is why in verse 12 Israel itself can be described as having fallen under it.

7:2

Ai lies about ten miles inland and uphill from Jericho, in the central highlands. The names carry meanings a Hebrew reader would hear: Ai means roughly "the ruin," and Beth-aven means "house of nothing" or "house of wickedness." "Go up" is literal, the route climbs steeply from the Jordan valley.

7:3

"Make not all the people to labour thither" means do not make the whole army trek up there and wear itself out. It is a practical recommendation about a steep climb, not a comment on anyone's courage.

7:5

Shebarim is left untranslated because its sense is uncertain; the Hebrew word means "breaks" or "fractures" and may be a place name, or may mean the stone quarries, or the broken ground at the edge of the descent. "Their courage melted like water" is a standard Hebrew idiom for collapse of nerve, used earlier of the Canaanites hearing about Israel.

7:6

Tearing one's clothes, lying face down, and throwing dust or ashes on the head were the recognized public signs of grief and desperation in the ancient Near East, a visible, formal act rather than a private feeling. The ark of the LORD was the gold-covered chest holding the tablets of the covenant, carried by the Israelites as the place where God's presence met them; approaching it was how one brought a matter formally before God. The elders were the heads of families and clans who governed the community.

7:7

Where the King James prints "LORD" in capitals it stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; "Lord GOD" here marks a doubled form in the Hebrew, roughly "my Master, the LORD." "Amorites" is used in two ways in the Old Testament: sometimes for one particular people, and sometimes, as here, as a blanket term for the inhabitants of Canaan generally. "The other side of the Jordan" means the east bank, the territory Israel had already conquered before crossing.

7:9

In Hebrew usage a person's or nation's "name" means their standing and continued existence; to have your name cut off from the earth is to be wiped out with no descendants to remember you. Joshua's last question turns the same idea on God: if Israel is destroyed, the reputation God gained by bringing them out of Egypt goes with them.

7:11

A covenant was a formal binding agreement with stated obligations on both sides, of the kind kings made with subject peoples, not a mood or a promise in the loose modern sense. Breaking it was a legal offense with stated consequences, which is why the rest of the chapter proceeds as a judicial investigation.

7:12

The logic is that the banned goods act like a contamination: because they are sitting inside the camp, Israel as a whole now stands under the same sentence that was pronounced on Jericho. That is why defeat, not just guilt, is the immediate result.

7:13

To "set yourselves apart" (the King James "sanctify") describes a set of concrete preparations for coming into God's presence: washing, washing clothes, abstaining from sex, and staying clear of anything that made a person ritually unclean. It is a matter of ritual readiness rather than moral improvement.

7:14

Israel's social structure ran in nested layers (tribe, then clan, then extended household, then individual men) and the search works down through them one level at a time. "The LORD picks out" describes selection by lot: physical objects were cast or drawn, and the result was taken as God's answer rather than chance. The same method is used elsewhere to identify a guilty party or divide land.

7:15

"A disgraceful thing in Israel" renders a Hebrew phrase ("folly in Israel") used for a small class of outrages (sexual crimes, betrayals of hospitality, breaches of sacred obligation) that were felt to damage the whole community, not just the victim. It is a legal label for the gravest category of offense, not simply a word for stupidity.

7:17

The Hebrew text here says the Zerahite clan came forward "man by man," but the ancient Greek and some Hebrew manuscripts read "household by household," which fits the four-stage procedure laid out in verse 14. Zabdi is Achan's grandfather and the head of the household. Zerah, from whom the Zerahites descend, was a son of Judah, so the genealogy in verses 1 and 18 is what places Achan precisely within the layers being searched.

7:19

"Give glory to the LORD" was a set formula addressed to someone under examination, meaning roughly "tell the truth and acknowledge God's verdict." It is a demand for a full statement, not encouragement to worship. "My son" is a form of address from an elder to a younger man, not a claim of kinship.

7:21

The coat is literally "a robe of Shinar," Shinar being the old name for Babylonia; imported Mesopotamian textiles were luxury goods. A shekel was a weight, not a coin, coined money did not yet exist, of roughly 11.5 grams, so two hundred shekels of silver is about five pounds, and the gold bar (King James "wedge," literally "tongue") about a pound and a quarter. Together this is a very large sum, several years' wages. "I wanted them" translates the same verb as the tenth commandment's "covet."

7:23

Spreading the goods out "before the LORD" means laying them at the sanctuary in front of the assembled people. The items were dedicated property, so this is formally handing them back to their owner as well as displaying the evidence.

7:24

Under this legal procedure the household was treated as a single unit: a man's family, animals, tent, and goods shared his status, so everything associated with what had been devoted to destruction was brought out with him. The valley of Achor is thought to lie between Jericho and the highlands, though its exact location is uncertain.

7:25

Joshua's words turn on the name: the Hebrew verb for "bring trouble on" is *akar*, which sounds like both Achan and Achor. The Hebrew shifts between singular and plural here, "stoned him" then "burned them", and does not say plainly whether only Achan was executed or his household with him; the ambiguity is in the original text and translators divide on it. Burning followed the stoning, so it disposed of the bodies rather than causing death.

7:26

A heap of stones over a body marked the grave of someone who died in disgrace, serving as a permanent public reminder rather than an honor. "To this day" is a narrator's aside to readers of his own time, telling them the landmark and the place name could still be seen and used when the account was written.