Joshua 7:26
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And they heaped over Achan a large pile of rocks that remains to this day. So the LORD turned from His burning anger. Therefore that place is called the Valley of Achor to this day.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
More than once we have found the affairs of Israel, even when they were in the happiest posture and gave the most hopeful prospects, perplexed and embarrassed by sin, and a stop thereby put to the most promising proceedings. The golden calf, the murmuring at Kadesh, and the iniquity of Peor, had broken their measures and given them great disturbance; and in this chapter we have such another instance of the interruption given to the progress of their arms by sin. But it being only the sin of one person or family, and soon expiated, the consequences were not so mischievous as of those other sins; however it served to let them know that they were still upon their good behaviour. We have here, I. The sin of Achan in meddling with the accursed thing (Jos 7:1). II. The defeat of Israel before Ai thereupon (Jos 7:2-5). III. Joshua's humiliation and prayer on occasion of that sad disaster (v. 6-9). IV. The directions God gave him for the putting away of the guilt which had provoked God thus to contend with them (v. 10-15). V. The discovery, trial, conviction, condemnation, and execution, of the criminal, by which the anger of God was turned away (v. 16-26). And by this story it appears that, as the laws, so Canaan itself, "made nothing perfect," the perfection both of holiness and peace to God's Israel is to be expected in the heavenly Canaan only.
Open source ↗7:26 God had not been angry without basis. God’s people must be holy. To trifle with things belonging to God signifies rebellion against God, and such sin always brings trouble (‘akor) upon God’s people. Achan’s sin brought disaster on Israel, so the severe punishment he received was just.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for My people who seek Me.
Nothing devoted to destruction shall cling to your hands, so that the LORD will turn from His fierce anger, grant you mercy, show you compassion, and multiply you as He swore to your fathers,
He hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take down the body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And over it they raised a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day.
They dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me.
Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the cloak, the bar of gold, his sons and daughters, his oxen and donkeys and sheep, his tent, and everything else he owned, and brought them to the Valley of Achor.
They took Absalom, cast him into a large pit in the forest, and piled a huge mound of stones over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled, each to his home.
So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”
At sunset Joshua ordered that they be taken down from the trees and thrown into the cave in which they had hidden. Then large stones were placed against the mouth of the cave, and the stones are there to this day.