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(^79) In Joshua 12:7-24, no less than thirty-one such "kings" are enumerated, as vanquished
by Joshua. And it must be remembered that their territories did not by any means cover
the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan.
(^80) Joshua 12:16. From the position of the king of Bethel in the list of vanquished
"kings," we are led to infer that Bethel was taken somewhat later than Ai. But, from
Joshua 8:17, we learn that there was a league between the two cities. Their armies must
have either moved in accord, or have been at the disposal of the king of Ai. In either
case the men of Bethel may have made their way back to their own city when Israel
turned against Ai.
(^81) We are here indebted to a very interesting paper by Canon Williams, read before the
Church Congress at Dublin in 1868, and to Capt. Wilson's Notes upon it.
(^82) See the remarks on Exodus 6:3 in The Exodus, etc. Canaan.
(^83) The Divine sentence needs no justification. Achan's was a sin which involved its
peculiar punishment. But, as in the case of Esau, his history showed the fitness of the
Divine sentence which debarred him of the "inheritance" of the promise, so was it also
in the case of Achan. In studying the history of events we are too apt to overlook that of
person and characters.
(^84) It is a common mistake to suppose that Jericho was never to be rebuilt. This evidently
could not have been the meaning of Joshua, as among other cities he assigned Jericho to
the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21). Similarly, we read of "the city of palm-trees" in
Judges 3:13, and by its own name in 2 Samuel 10:5. The ban of Joshua referred not to
the rebuilding of Jericho, but to its restoration as a fortified city. This also appears from
the terms used by Joshua ("set up the gates of it," Joshua 6:26), and again reiterated
when the threatened judgment afterwards came upon the family of Hiel (1 Kings 16:34).
(^85) We infer that the guilty tribe, kindred, family, and individual household (being the
four divisions according to which all Israel was arranged) was designated by the lot,
from the fact that the expression rendered "taken" in Joshua 7 is exactly the same as that
word in 1 Samuel 10:20, and 14:41, 42. Again, the expressions "the lot came up"
(Joshua 18:11) or "came forth" (19:1), seems to indicate that the lot was drawn -
probably out an urn - in the manner described in the text.
(^86) Most commentators read Joshua 7:24, 25, as implying that the sons and daughters of
Achan were stoned with him, supposing that his family could not have been ignorant of
their father's sin. Of the latter there is, however, no indication in the text. It will also be
noticed that in ver. 25 the singular number is used: "All Israel stoned him;" "and they
(^)