The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 372

How mo.rvellously ingenious, if it he not I far to abandon the land, how suited to The circumsto.nce is mentioned o.g&in in their circumstances soever it migiit be, and Hosea, in the time ol Jotham or Hezekiah, come across the Jordan, a.nd dwell in the o.nd ago.in in Psa. cvi., which woulcl a.ppel\r mi,lst of their brethren, and under the protea. to hl\ve been written during the captivity. tion of the tabernacle of the Loni. Beside. 'l'hus we have a chain of testimony con- That is, sepa~ate from, suggesting the idea. cerning it which makes it difficult to o.ssign of an exclus10n of those who committed a. time !or the invenHon of the story, if it such an act from the worship of the Lor,l. be invented, since a.II references to it in Ver. 20.-Did not Achan the son of Scripture a.re perfectly cousistent with each Zera.h. Here again the reference t" the other, and display none ol the signs of past history of Israel is suited to the gradual growth which we invariably Jind in spea.ker and the circumstances, and this the case of legends. A plague. The original appeal, therefore, strengthens our conviction is noticeable, the plague ; o. natural mode ol that in the history of Achan we have fact speech for one who well remembered it. and not fiction. The case of Achan is even Ver. 18.-But that ye must turn. The more in point than that of Pear. In his original has the imperfect, of an action not case the Israelites had a clear proof that completed, "and ye are turning." There is "one man's sin,'' unless completely and no need to give the o.dversative sense to ). absolutely pnt away, brought God's dis- The ye also is emphatic. " Ye are turn- pleasure on "all the congregation" (Num. ing age.inst the Lord to-day, to-morrow ye xvi. 22). The repulse at Ai, fresh as it will involve the whole congregation in must have been in the memory of all, was calamity." That to-morrow he w1ll be sufficient evidence of this. How much wroth with the whole congTegation of more then would His displeasure fall upon Israel This passage also is quite con- Israel, if they condoned this act (e.s it sistent with the circumstances and with seemed) of gross and open rebellion against the position of the spea.ker. Not merely the Lord who had brought them out of a.nger but fear is visible throughout-fear of Egypt, and had put them in possession of His wrath who had manifested His power the land He had promised them? Commit eo signally of late. There was no loni;er a trespass (see note on ver. 16). In the any temptation to rebel a.g&inst Him. The accursed thing (see note on eh. vii. 1). Al!.d Israelites were no longer suffering the daily that man pertehed not alone in his Iniquity. pressure of comparative privation and dis- Literally, and he, one man, did not expire in tress, such as it was impossible to a.void in his iniquity. The Vulga.te has, "and he the wilderness. While, on the contrary, was one man, a.nd would that he had there was every rea.son to remember His perished alone in his iniquity." The sense power Who had driven the heathen out is the sa.me as in our version. Achan did before them and planted them in, Who had not perish alone, for not only did he not failed to punish them when they deserved involve his family in his ruin, but the loss it, and Who, by the fate of their enemies, of life at the first assault of Ai lay also had made it clear that His hands were not at his door (see eh. vii. 3)· waxen short. Thus the heads of the tribes, Ver. 21.-The thousands. See above, a.nd Phinchas especially, were alarm!:!d lest ver. 14. Israel should forfeit the prosperity they a.t Ver. 22.-The Lord God of gods. The present enjoyed, a.nd exchange it for those double repetition of this adjuration is suited terrible woes that God had shown He could to the greatness of the occasion. ;-; o words inflict when His people rebelled age.inst can suffice to express the horror and Him, detestation of the two and a half tribes at Ver. 19.-If the land of your possession the sin of which they hnve been supposed be unclean. Rath~r, be defiled, either by guilty. Nor does our version at all approach the idolatrous nations around, or by being the m&jesty of the original form of oath. cut off from the worship of the tme Goel at The Vulgate and Luther a.pproo.ch nenrer to Shiloh. The only satisfactory explanation it when they render the one, "fori1ss1mus of this somewhat difficult pagse.ge which Deus Dominus," a.nd the other, "der starke he.s yet been given is that of Masias, who Gott der Herr." But no tranelation can do explains it of a possible belief on the part justi~e to the ligour of the original. The of the two and 11 half tribes, that they were three names o! God, El, Elohim, and cut off by Jordon into another land, e. land Jehovah, are each twice repeated in their which had no title to the promises and order. El representing the earliest Hebrew privileges of Israel, no share in the worship idea of God, strength (as that of the Aryans of the one true God at Shiloh. If they wns splendour) comes first. Then Elohim. entertained such an idea., then, however with its pl11ralis e.~cellentia,, suiteu to 1, unfounded theii· conviction, it were bettet natio11 whose theologicaJ. horizon was C;\• 820 THE BOOK 01' .fOSHUA. [oB, XXII, 1-94.