Joshua 7:14

The tribe which the Lord taketh. — There is nothing in the language of the passage, when closely considered, which would lead us to suppose that the discovery of the criminal was by casting lots. The parallel passage — viz., the selection of King Saul from the tribes of Israel (1 Samuel 10:20) — shows that the oracle of God was consulted. “They inquired,” and “the Lord answered.” So it was, perhaps, in the case of Achan. We seem to see the High Priest of Israel “asking counsel for Joshua after the judgment of Urim before the Lord,” as it had been foretold in Numbers 27:21; and the elders of Israel standing by, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The representatives of the tribes enter the sacred enclosure in succession, and pass before the High Priest, in awful silence, broken only by the voice of Jehovah, who pronounces it intervals the names of Judah, Zarhite, Zabdi, Carmi, Achan. It must have been a terrible ordeal. But all present must have felt that no human partiality, or private animosity, was seeking its victim. The Judge of all the earth was doing judgment. And when the accusation of Jehovah was followed by the explicit confession of the criminal, and this again by the discovery of the stolen spoil of Jericho, which was brought in by the messengers, and “poured out before the Lord,” and when this discovery was followed by the execution of the awful sentence, all who were present must have received a lesson, which it was impossible to forget, as to the reality of the covenant of God. And if, as seems most probable, the voice of the oracle was uttered from the inner sanctuary, from between the cherubim, but “heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God, when He speaketh” (Ezekiel 10:5), we learn once more the majesty of the law given to Israel. The arrest of Jordan, the overthrow of Jericho, and the discovery of Achan, are all manifestations of power proceeding from the same source.