The Achan Story - Addendum

In my rush to finish up last night before bed time I forgot a couple important details in the conclusion.

In Chapter 8 Joshua goes against Ai again. You would think that since it was Achan's fault that the first attack failed on Ai Joshua wouldn't really need to change strategy. It wasn't the strategy that caused the defeat it was Achan stealing the loot, but that's not how Joshua sees things. He knows it was a strategic failure and that he violated God's commandments re leading all of Israel into battle. So this time Joshua does in fact lead all the newly reunited Israel into battle, he doesn't sit back and let just a small contingent do the dirty work.

The second interesting thing is that in 8:2 he immediately rescinds the ban, now it ain't so bad to have privatized loot.

The first attack ended with the human sacrifice of Achan, the second attack ended with subdued animal sacrifice.

Achan Redux

I think I’m going to hold off on anymore discussion regarding Achan because I would be heading off into territory entirely too broad for me to handle intelligently right now. I’m learning a lot about the context of the Deuteronomistic History and King Josiah. The New Interpreter’s Bible/Commentary, the section on Joshua, does a good job of explaining some of the theories regarding the composition of the Book of Joshua and the rest of the Deuteronomistic History.

A couple of notes though, in case some of you aren’t aware of these things.

1. In Hebrew the names Joshua and Jesus are the same.


2. The sacred lots, the Urim and the Thummim were kept in the breastplate of the high priest. Were these oracles used by the High Priest/Joshua to determine the guilty party?

Old Testament study, really Biblical study in general, is very interesting right now. There is so much to learn about the formation of Biblical literature. The more we learn about the formation and composition of Biblical and ancient Jewish literature, the more we’ll learn about the meaning of stories such as Achan’s.