I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Joshua 5-7.

    I am not sure I have written about this in the past, but every time I read this passage it strikes me that none of the males had been circumcised during the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. We are given no explanation as to why they were not circumcised. We are just told that they were not. So, after crossing the Jordan, but before launching the attack on Jericho, Joshua had all of the males circumcised using flint knives. I believe that flint knives were used because they are inherently sharper than metal knives. While metal knives can be made as sharp as flint knives it requires careful forging of the metal of the blade and then continuous effort to keep them sharp.

    I am going to skip over the attack on Jericho, although I find the strategy used fascinating, and discuss the attack on Ai. More precisely, I am going to discuss the sin of Achan. Achan surely thought that his sin would have no impact on any one other than himself. How could it hurt anyone else? How would they even know? Certainly, I can come up with no explanation, other than an act of God, for why his sin would have caused the Israelite defeat when they attacked the city of Ai. The lesson we learn from this is that our private sins can have an impact far beyond what we can imagine. We are not the only ones who suffer as a consequence of our sins, even if we cannot imagine how our sin might effect anyone else.