--- title: "Joshua 7 - Study King James Bible with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary" description: "Read Joshua 7 with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary commentary. 1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7" --- [ Read](/kjv/joshua/7)[ Commentary](/study/joshua/7)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/joshua/7) Audio 1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.** 2 And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which *is* beside Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai. 3 And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; *and* make not all the people to labour thither; for they *are but* few.* 4 So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai. 5 And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them *from* before the gate *even* unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.* 6 ¶ And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. 7 And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan! 8 O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!* 9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear *of it*, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name? 10 ¶ And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?* 11 Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put *it* even among their own stuff. 12 Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, *but* turned *their* backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you. 13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, *There is* an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you. 14 In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes: and it shall be, *that* the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come according to the families *thereof;* and the family which the LORD shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD shall take shall come man by man. 15 And it shall be, *that* he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath: because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel.* 16 ¶ So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken: 17 And he brought the family of Judah; and he took the family of the Zarhites: and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken: 18 And he brought his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. 19 And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide *it* not from me. 20 And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done: 21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they *are* hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.* 22 ¶ So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, *it was* hid in his tent, and the silver under it. 23 And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the LORD.* 24 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. 25 And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. 26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day.* [Joshua 6](/study/joshua/6) [Joshua 8](/study/joshua/8) ## Commentary To verse 1 At Jericho the Lord had made known to the Canaanites His great and holy name; but before Ai the Israelites were to learn that He would also sanctify Himself on them if they transgressed His covenant, and that the congregation of the Lord could only conquer the power of the world so long as it was faithful to His covenant. But notwithstanding the command which Joshua had enforced upon the people ([Joshua 6:18](/kjv/joshua/6/18)), Achan, a member of the tribe of Judah, laid hands upon the property in Jericho which had been banned, and thus brought the ban upon the children of Israel, the whole nation. His breach of trust is described as unfaithfulness (a trespass) on the part of the children of Israel in the ban, in consequence of which the anger of the Lord was kindled against the whole nation. מעל מעל , to commit a breach of trust (see at [Leviticus 5:15](/kjv/leviticus/5/15)), generally against Jehovah, by purloining or withholding what was sanctified to Him, here in the matter of the ban, by appropriating what had been banned to the Lord. This crime was imputed to the whole people, not as *imputatio moralis ,* i.e., as though the whole nation had shared in Achan's disposition, and cherished in their hearts the same sinful desire which Achan had carried out in action in the theft he had committed; but as *imputatio civilis ,* according to which Achan, a member of the nation, had robbed the whole nation of the purity and holiness which it ought to possess before God, through the sin that he had committed, just as the whole body is affected by the sin of a single member. (Note: In support of this I cannot do better than quote the most important of the remarks which I made in my former commentary (*Keil* on Joshua, pp. 177-8, Eng. trans.): “However truly the whole Scriptures speak of each man as individually an object of divine mercy and justice, they teach just as truly that a nation is one organic whole, in which the individuals are merely members of the same body, and are not atoms isolated from one another and the whole, since the state as a divine institution is founded upon family relationship, and intended to promote the love of all to one another and to the invisible Head of all. As all then are combined in a fellowship established by God, the good or evil deeds of an individual affect injuriously or beneficially the welfare of the whole society. And, therefore, when we regard the state as a divine organization and not merely as a civil institution, a compact into which men have entered by treaty, we fail to discover caprice and injustice in consequences which necessarily follow from the moral unity of the whole state; namely, that the good or evil deeds of one member are laid to the charge of the entire body. Caprice and injustice we shall always find if we leave out of sight this fundamental unity, and merely look at the fact that the many share the consequences of the sin of one.”) Instead of *Achan* (the reading here and in [Joshua 22:20](/kjv/joshua/22/20)) we find *Achar* in [1 Chronicles 2:7](/kjv/1-chronicles/2/7), the liquids *n* and *r* being interchanged to allow of a play upon the verb עכר in [Joshua 7:25](/kjv/joshua/7/25). Hence in *Josephus* the name is spelt *Acharos*, and in the *Cod. Vat.* of the lxx *Achar*, whereas the *Cod. Al.* has *Achan*. Instead of *Zabdi*, we find *Zimri* in [1 Chronicles 2:6](/kjv/1-chronicles/2/6), evidently a copyist's error. *Zerah* was the twin-brother of *Pharez* ([Genesis 38:29-30](/kjv/genesis/38/29-30)). *Matteh*, from נטה , to spread out, is used to denote the tribe according to its genealogical ramifications; whilst *shebet* (from an Arabic root signifying “uniform, not curled, but drawn out straight and long with any curvature at all”) was applied to the sceptre or straight staff of a magistrate or ruler (never to the stick upon which a person rested), and different from *matteh* not only in its primary and literal meaning, but also in the derivative meaning *tribe*, in which it was used to designate the division of the nation referred to, not according to its genealogical ramifications and development, but as a corporate body possessing authority and power. This difference in the ideas expressed by the two words will explain the variations in their use: for example, *matteh* is used here (in [Joshua 7:1](/kjv/joshua/7/1) and [Joshua 7:18](/kjv/joshua/7/18)), and in [Joshua 22:1-14](/kjv/joshua/22/1-14), and in fact is the term usually employed in the geographical sections; whereas *shebet* is used in [Joshua 7:14](/kjv/joshua/7/14), [Joshua 7:16](/kjv/joshua/7/16), in [Joshua 3:12](/kjv/joshua/3/12); [Joshua 4:2](/kjv/joshua/4/2), and on many other occasions, in those portions of the historical narratives in which the tribes of Israel are introduced as military powers. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7","name":"Joshua 7 - Study King James Bible with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Joshua 7 with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary commentary. 1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary","name":"keil and delitzsch old testament commentary"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua","name":"Joshua"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/joshua/7","name":"7"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```