For seizing the devoted plunder of Jericho, Achan was stoned to death and burned with fire, along with his children, livestock, and all his possessions. This judgment appears to contradict Deuteronomy 24:16, which forbids the punishment of children for the sins of their fathers.

It seems that the solution is architectural. Here’s an excerpt from the forthcoming Sweet Counsel:

. . . . .

Achan’s sin threatened the Covenant Oath taken by a new generation of Israelites and their possession of the promised inheritance. The golden tongue (Head) and Babylonian robe (Body) were false Word and stolen Government, with the rebellious Man unwilling to be the obedient Sacrament.

Tongue Lashing

The Lord’s intention in every case is that the Word from heaven might purify the Mediator (or priesthood), and that this Mediator/priesthood might then speak this Word to purify the nations.

WORD: angels, (Heaven) – Most Holy Place
SACRAMENT: Jews (Land) – Holy Place
GOVERNMENT: Gentiles (Sea) – Temple Courts

At the center of the Bible Matrix (Step 4), the fiery tongue of the Law executes the Sanctions upon Israel and purifies her, as we see in the book of Numbers.
At Step 6, it is the fiery tongues of the newly-purified, newly robed (baptized) members of Israel executing the Sanctions upon the nations, as we see in the book of Joshua. As with all prophets, all mediators, Israel gets tongue-lashed in the wilderness, then Israel becomes the tongue-lasher in the Land. [1]

This explains the apparent contradiction between the judicial stoning of Achan, his family and his livestock, and Deuteronomy 24:16, which prohibited the execution of Israel’s children for the sins of their fathers. Achan’s punishment was an echo of the ban upon the first city of the Gentiles rather than the Covenant Sanctions upon Israel. He was not being “tongue-lashed” as an Israelite but as a Gentile. He had not coveted his neighbor’s house and contents (Exodus 20:17), but that which belonged to God (Joshua 22:20). [2] He was condemned as a Canaanite, but also as part of Jericho, the “Firstfruits” of the Land, a whole burnt (ascension) offering in which “all flesh” was cut off.

ADAM
WORD: God (Father)
SACRAMENT: Man images God (Son)
GOVERNMENT: Animals submit to Man (Spirit)

ACHAN
WORD: Achan as his own “captain” (tongue and robe)
SACRAMENT: Achan’s offspring in the Land
GOVERNMENT: Achan’s livestock as wild beasts

Through unbelief, Achan put his entire house outside of Israel and under the ban. Through faith, Rahab saved everyone in her house, an event which resembled Israel’s Passover. The house of Achan bore the judgment of the house of Rahab, and was buried under a pile of stones.

These two houses represented two brothers, Perez and Zerah, the sons which Tamar bore to Judah. Rahab married into the Messianic line of Perez, and the cutting off of Achan’s family ended the line of Zerah.

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[1] See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, 195, for a diagram which demonstrates how the fivefold Torah relates to the sevenfold Dominion pattern.
[2] In the Ten Words, the commands against theft and false witness (the sins of Achan) are followed by the two commands against coveting (house and contents), which together align with the Feast of Booths (ministry to the Gentiles), and the Covenant Succession of Israel. See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, 63. and also The Guild of Thieves.
[3] This reversal resembles the twofold “blessing and cursing” of Jericho and Israel by Elisha, and also the reversal of the fates of Naaman and Gehazi.

ART: Joshua, Achan Stoned, Maciejowski Bible (illuminated manuscript).

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

This passage (or pericope?) retraces the Covenant pattern, which is also played out in the flow of the history of Israel. We’ll have a look at the structure of the passage and then I want to discuss the significance of the literary placement of “every tongue.”

WARNING: Weird ahead.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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Doug Wilson wrote something recently to correct our misunderstanding of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness:

When our Lord was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, He answered with Scripture, as we all know. Three times He was tested, and each time He replied in the words of Deuteronomy. But this is sometimes misunderstood. We tend to think that Jesus was quoting Scripture at the devil, as though the devil ought to start obeying it. But this was not His intent. When the Lord cited the words of Moses, each time it was because He would have been disobeying the text of Scripture if He had followed the suggestion of the tempter.

And this, in its turn, shows us the Lord’s attitude toward Scripture—what He believed the authority of Scripture to be, with regard to Him. We know that Jesus was obedient to the will of God (as seen in His prayer at Gethsemane), but we sometimes miss the fact that Jesus obeyed the Bible. In the wilderness, Jesus was not relying on a hidden, mysterious hot line to the Father that only He had. No, He bowed His head and His heart and refused to do what was wrong, as wrong was determined and settled by the sacred text.

If this is what He did, what should we do? In a moment we will be confessing our sins, and we will also be keying off the words of Deuteronomy. As a people who have neglected to do what God required of us, we acknowledge that righteousness belongs to the Lord, while shame of face belongs to us. And this is entirely determined by our relationship to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Jesus Under The Word, www.dougwils.com

As Peter Leithart has discussed, Jesus is Israel.[1] The process is as it was in Joshua 7 concerning Achan. The cloud of nations is whittled down to one nation. The nation is whittled down to a tribe. The tribe is whittled down to one Man. And what does that one man do? He becomes a body-double for everyone else. In particular, in the wilderness, He is Israel. Like Achan, He suffers for the defeat of the whole nation, and takes His entire family with Him to the grave. Like Achan, His death results in a track-jump concerning the Messianic line [2]. But unlike Achan, He brings them back from the grave, too, and incorporates them into the new Messianic line.

Relating the wilderness situation to Eden, it is the Law of the ascended, invisible Moses in the place of Adam here, not Jesus. Eve was faced with two “Lampstands” – a false one (Satan) and a true one that sinfully remained silent (Adam). In one of those weird Old Testament Nazirite-type gender bendings [3], Jesus is in the place of Israel, the bride. Here, she is filled with the Law of Moses. Jesus is not only reversing Adam’s silence but also undertaking this test as Greater Eve, Israel. It is holy war. A Nazirite’s hair is the glory of the bride “filled” with Law at Pentecost — Adam and Eve united against the lie. As both Adam and Eve, Jesus in the wilderness puts the spear through the false union of the couple in the tent. He puts Adam, and Adam’s race, to death by proxy.

For a New Covenant to be made, the Covenant head goes through a “liturgical” death and resurrection as head, and the people of God goes through a historical death and resurrection as body. Among many others, we see this in Moses’ personal exodus, in that of King Manasseh, and of course in that of Christ.

This practice was prefigured in the Tabernacle. We see bridegroom and bride in both beams of the cruciform house. The bull on the altar (Moses) dies under the Law from the lion throne (Ark). The Man on the table (Christ) dies under the Law at Pentecost (Lampstand). In each case, the bridegroom steps in to die for the bride. And of course, as a complete Tabernacle man, the entire structure bears Greater Eve as gems on His bosom (the Altar of Incense). In this, the New Covenant church is now the stunt double for the nations of the world as the pattern is postmillennially reversed, or “un-whittled.” Achan’s death brought victory to the whole of Israel.

______________________________
[1] Peter J. Leithart, Jesus As Israel: The Typological Structure of Matthew’s Gospel [PDF].
[2] From Doug Wilson, The Whore Becomes A Virgin Bride: “Rahab did not just marry into Israel. She married into the line of Phares, which had become the royal line because of the apostasy ofAchan. Achan was not just a pillaging foot soldier in the back ranks of Israel. He was a royal prince, and because of his sin, that royal line came to an end. The scarlet cord of election was transferred—from Zerah’s wrist to a prostitute’s window. This is so that we might never forget that everything God gives us is always all of grace, nothing but grace, grace to the uttermost.” (Emphasis added)
[3] See Power on Her Head.

However I think he misunderstands the account of Achan’s sin, or misconstrues it support his argument:1

Sabbath means that there’s enough bread, that we don’t have to hustle every day of our lives. There’s no record that Pharaoh ever took a day off. People who think their lives consist of struggling to get more and more can never slow down because they won’t ever have enough.

When the people of Israel cross the Jordan River into the promised land the manna stops coming. Now they can and will have to grow their food. Very soon Israel suffers a terrible defeat in battle and Joshua conducts an investigation to find out who or what undermined the war effort. He finally traces their defeat to a man called A’chan, who stole some of the spoils of battle and withheld them from the community. Possessing land, property and wealth makes people covetous, the Bible warns.

His interpretation of Achan’s sin is incorrect, because they were allowed to plunder in later conquests. Jericho was ‘holy war’ – a firstfruits that was devoted entirely to God. This is more complex than just plain old greed. Achan wasn’t covetous. He was impatient like Adam, which put Israel on the wrong side of the angelic swords. Obedience comes before glory.

The goal of faithful service is dominion. Misunderstand this and we fall prey to the guilt manipulators who want to spread the poverty around.

_______

1 I think he treats the Egyptian famine in the same way. The dream was sent by God, and Pharaoh’s reaction to it was actually wise, not greedy. Jordan is right when he says that using the Old Testament to moralise results in a lot of misinterpretation. There’s a lot more going on in these narratives than is immediately apparent.

“And all Israel stoned [Achan and his family] with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.”

Questions from blogger Blue Ollie:

Many still claim to get their morals from the Bible. Well, what does the Bible actually say?

The following is a very incomplete list but is nevertheless a valid list.

1. How do you determine if someone is guilty? Answer: gamble.

We read from the Book of Joshua, Chapter 7 [Achan's family is eventually singled out by lot.]

“…Finally he had that family come forward one by one, and Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, was designated.”

“Designated”? This sounds a bit like The Lottery to me. Read from Exodus 28:

“In this breastpiece of decision you shall put the Urim and Thummim, that they may be over Aaron’s heart whenever he enters the presence of the LORD. Thus he shall always bear the decisions for the Israelites over his heart in the LORD’S presence.”

Wow! CSI would have been a boring show. But just think: we could do away with all of that DNA evidence and just throw “sacred dice”! So what happened?

2. You kill the whole family for the transgression of one.

“…Then Joshua and all Israel took Achan, son of Zerah, with the silver, the mantle, and the bar of gold, and with his sons and daughters, his ox, his ass and his sheep, his tent, and all his possessions, and led them off to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “The LORD bring upon you today the misery with which you have afflicted us!” And all Israel stoned him to death.”

“Him”? The KJV says “them”. A Jewish version has it:

And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the mantle, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; and they brought them up unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said: ‘Why hast thou troubled us? The LORD shall trouble thee this day.’ And all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones.

In short, the whole family was killed. We have better justice now-a-days. What happened next?

3. Murder a whole town if they are on land that you want.

Read on [Joshua, Chapter 8]

“…Joshua kept the javelin in his hand stretched out until he had fulfilled the doom on all the inhabitants of Ai.”

You can read about the routine ethnic cleansings in later chapters [such as] Chapter 11…

“They struck them all down, leaving no survivors. Joshua did to them as the LORD had commanded: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots. At that time Joshua, turning back, captured Hazor and slew its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the chief of all those kingdoms. ;He also fulfilled the doom by putting every person there to the sword, till none was left alive. Hazor itself he burned. Joshua thus captured all those kings with their cities and put them to the sword, fulfilling the doom on them, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded. However, Israel did not destroy by fire any of the cities built on raised sites, except Hazor, which Joshua burned. The Israelites took all the spoil and livestock of these cities as their booty; but the people they put to the sword, until they had exterminated the last of them, leaving none alive.”

So there you have it: guilt by dice throwing, execution of an entire family, and mass murder. But wait, there is more.

4. It is acceptable to offer your daughters up to be gang raped.

What happens when men come to your door and want to rape your male house guest? See Genesis 19:

“Before they went to bed, all the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old–all the people to the last man–closed in on the house. They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them.” Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, he said, “I beg you, my brothers, not to do this wicked thing. I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please. But don’t do anything to these men, for you know they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Offer to let the men rape your daughters! But wait, there is more: What happens when you make a bet that you can’t cover? Let’s see what the Biblical hero Samson does (chapter 14).

5. Murder and stealing are an acceptable way to settle up gambling debts.

I agree; those who were stumped threatened the wife. But what happened when Samson had to pay up? How did he do it?

“On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, “What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?” He replied to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, ;you would not have solved my riddle.” The spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty of their men and despoiled them; he gave their garments to those who had answered the riddle. Then he went off to his own family in anger…”

So murder some people, steal their stuff, and pay off your debts!

Finally, what do you do with people who have “wrong” conceptions of God?

6. Kill people who worship other gods.

Let’s let Elijah answer… [Kings 18]

“… Then Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Let none of them escape!” They were seized, and Elijah had them brought down to the brook Kishon and there he slit their throats.”

Note: in this account, “God” was causing a drought because Israel was worshiping this other God.

Now what do you do with indolent kids who make fun of older people? You send bears to tear them limb from limb!

7. Death is appropriate for someone who makes fun of a religious figure.

See 2 Kings, Chapter 2:

“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

Update: So, is it a surprise when this happens:

I’ve been hiding from the horrible news in the Middle East, but this story induced me to poke my head out of my tortoise shell…so I can puke. A rabbi consulted his holy books to see what God had to say about the vicious violence going on right now, and you can guess what God’s word might be:

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

My comment:

These are good questions, and most Christians can’t give you good answers. Very briefly, we need to do more study. A little look further would show that these killings were judicial, ie. a judgment that would stop a spreading evil in its tracks.

If we’re going to criticise a religion, the least we can do is understand it. According to the Bible, we are made in God’s image, and we are all mediators for those under our authority, particularly as parents. The consequences for judgments upon our families – our children – can be laid squarely at our own feet.

But God is merciful. These people were given, in most cases, hundreds of years of warnings. Read the account of God’s promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham. The Canaanites were given more time.

We also overlook the Covenant context of these passages. See my comments on 2 Kings 2 for instance, here.

I do understand where you are coming from, having had many of these questions myself. But it stems from the victim mentality that misunderstands the gravity of sin.

Interestingly, many of these judgments were typological prequels of the destruction of Judaism in AD70. Revelation presents the destruction of Jerusalem as a victory over Jericho (and Babylon) for the fledgling Christian church. Like Ezekiel, it alludes to previous scriptures as symbols for near events. Jesus came in judgment as He said He would, and was vindicated. God has a long fuse, but it is a fuse nonetheless.

The slaughter of the innocent is always dealt with eventually. And God’s law is perfectly just: eye-for-eye. The Canaanites who sacrificed their children forconvenience (good crops, etc.) were cut off as a nation. When Israel began committing the same sins, God brought in the Babylonians to bring her death and resurrection – a new Israel. When first century Judah slaughtered Christians, God brought in the Romans – and again there was a new Israel, the Christian church.

We are prone to thinking of justice as individuals, but the Bible also deals with nations, corporately.

I find this fascinating and would be pleased to answer any sincere questions (to the best of my ability). But this short-sighted questioning above is not only ignorant of the Bible, but usually based on a worldview that has no objective basis for moral standards whatsoever. If you believe in natural selection, these events are merely a religious interpretation of the survival of the fittest. Historically, athiests who are consistent with their view on origins and get to ‘operate’ on their assumptions are often mass murderers – a law unto themselves. So any charge against the Bible and Christianity cuts both ways. You are obviously a thinker and should not find this challenge offensive.

Finally, two points: Regarding ‘gambling’, the idea was that God acted through the lot (or the Urim and Thummim), which were a ‘miniature Ark’ worn by the High Priest). The best example would be the goat chosen by lot on the Day of Covering. The last supper follows the same pattern, only it is Jesus who “chooses” Judas (Judah) and send him to destruction. Judas’s replacement was also chosen by lot. The practice was ‘internalised’ after Pentecost with the arrival of the Spirit. The law was written on “tablets of flesh” with all God’s people as priests.

Lot’s failure to protect his daughters is not commended in the Bible. He also failed to protect them from the ‘thinking’ of Sodom, which was demonstrated in their later actions. The structure of the passage (and we are also ignorant of Hebrew literary structure – including most Christians) aligns them with the ‘daughters of men’ in Genesis 6.

I have found that nothing is in the Bible for no reason, whether or not we agree with it. It is the most highly integrated literature ever written, and every passage must be read in the context of what has gone before. Sadly, this also results in some misinterpretation of the New Testament by Christians.

Kind regards, Mike Bull