Today’s reading: Joshua 7; Luke 20
The story of Achan in Joshua 7 has bothered me in the past, mainly because Achan’s children get wrapped up in the punishment for his taking the devoted things and are killed for their father’s sin. But how is that good or fair for God to do to the innocent members of Achan’s family?
While this has bothered me, it has never been a faith-shaking kind of bother, mostly just the kind of thing that feels a little off from the rest of what I know about God.
But what we talked about a couple months ago about Korah’s sons in Numbers 16 has changed my assumptions about Joshua 7. By way of a very brief summary, when the earth opens up and swallows Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for their rebellion it specifically mentions Dathan and Abiram’s families being swallowed along with them while Korah’s family is not mentioned, but then in the Psalms we see a number of Psalms written by the sons of Korah about how the Lord has rescued them from a very similar sounding calamity. The implication seems to be that Dathan and Abiram’s families were with them in their rebellion but Korah’s family stood apart from him and stayed faithful to the Lord and so were spared their father’s calamity.
If we take Korah’s rebellion as the backdrop, and especially if we consider how public of an event that was such that everyone in Israel would very likely have known that Korah’s sons were spared for separating themselves from their father, that kind of changes the picture we get of Achan’s family getting caught up in his punishment.
When Achan is caught and Joshua confronts him he tells Joshua that the contraband he took is buried under the floor in his tent. This is probably an important detail because you can’t really dig up the floor of your home without your family knowing what you’re up to. Achan didn’t just stash the goods away in the corner behind his armor and hope his family didn’t find out, he dug a hole in the middle of their home, and buried his illicit treasures. This makes it very unlikely that his family didn’t know about the goods he took, and that makes them complicit in their silence. Even if they didn’t out him right away, once Israel is called out and they are looking for the man who did this by tribe and by family, any member of Achan’s family, at any point in that process, could have stepped forward and said what they knew before it was divinely revealed that it was Achan.
So that fact that God has already shown Himself plenty willing to spare the family of a rebellious man when they are willing to stand apart from his rebellion means God could have done the same thing here if his family truly was innocent. And the fact that Achan buried the treasure in his tent means his family was very likely aware of his actions and chose to remain silent, even as the search was clearly narrowing in on Achan, showing that they were aligning themselves with him rather than standing apart from his faithlessness.
All that together seems to point to Achan’s family having known about the treasure and conspiring together with him to keep it a secret and enjoy his spoils of war, and so they are caught up in his punishment because they allowed themselves to be caught up in his sin.
All that said, I do feel like I should also point out that if Achan’s family truly was innocent in the matter and merely got swept up in Achan’s judgement, that is still really not a moral issue for God. God is the creator and author of life and He can choose to prolong or shorten a life as He wills. Achan and his family being stoned to death for his sin is not the same as God condemning them all to Hell, and if his kids were all innocent and faithful to Yahweh, that means they were that much sooner in Abraham’s bosom waiting for their entrance into a glorious future in eternity with God. So whether they died of old age, died young of a disease or natural disaster, were struck down by divine judgement, or were stoned along with their father, God is in the unique position of being able to righteously call for or command a death of one of His creatures.
That may not be a way we like to think about God, but I do think it is an important reality to grapple with, especially if we are going to think well about and not be rocked by some gnarly seeming passages in the Bible.
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