Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 8-9.

I find the accounts of the two attacks on the city of Ai interesting.  The first attack, which was recounted in yesterday’s passage, only involved around 3,000 warriors and failed.  The Israelites were horrified by the defeat and investigated why God allowed it to happen, coming to the conclusion that it happened because Achan had taken for himself goods from Jericho which God had commanded them to destroy.  What makes this interesting is that, even after dealing with Achan, the Israelites not only sent a much larger force the second time, they also used a more complex strategy.  So, yesterday’s passage lays the blame for the Israelites initial defeat at Ai on Achan’s sin.  Yet when they went up against Ai a second time, after atoning for Achan’s sin, they used a different strategy.  This suggests that Achan’s sin was not the isolated sin of one man which brought the wrath of God on the entire people.  Rather Achan’s sin was the extreme expression of a sin which many of the people were guilty.  Or, perhaps to phrase that another way, Achan committed his sin, which was more extreme, because of a culture of sinfulness among the people.  In the same way, when we see what we perceive as extreme sins in others, we need to examine ourselves to see how sin in our lives may have led others to sin.  Then we need to change how we do things so that it doesn’t happen again.

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