Joshua 7:7
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“O, Lord GOD,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be destroyed? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!
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 ↗7:7 Joshua expressed his anger toward God; this explains the sharp tone of God’s reply (7:10-15). Though the battle had been lost because of Achan’s sin, Joshua and Israel’s elders had neglected to seek God’s guidance (7:3). • Joshua did not really believe that Israel should have stayed on the other side of the Jordan. Rather, he used hyperbole to show that he was at a loss over what to do next.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.
“Alas,” said the king of Israel, “for the LORD has summoned these three kings to deliver them into the hand of Moab!”
Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
In my alarm I said, “All men are liars!”
But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”
“O unbelieving and perverse generation!” Jesus replied. “How long must I remain with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to Me.”
“Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”