In Joshua Ch. 7 we have a very interesting narrative. I’m not quite ready to call it the most important passage in Joshua yet, but I do think it is very important to look at a little further than usual. I recently did an article review for this class on “Jewish Sin” which I presented today in class, the actual article is called “Sin, Sinner (Old Testament)” by Robin C. Cover in the Volume 6 of the Anchor Bible Dictionary, very interesting article you should look it up if you get the time and the desire to do so. Anyway in this article Cover discusses this idea that not all sins are punished individually. That is to say sometimes a punishment from just one person or a minority group can effect the entire community as a whole even if they did not actually partake in the sin. I was just lucky enough to be reading this article and Joshua at the same time and I found that Joshua Ch. 7 is a perfect example of this. Here you have God telling the Hebrews that when they go into conquer people that they should not loot “devoted things” the command not to do such a thing is found just prior to Ch. 7 in 6:18-19 and then lo and behold the text says that one man, Achan, did just this unbeknownst to everyone else. So they go into conquer the land of Ai and lose and they can’t figure out why especially when God has sent his blessing on them to win and God let’s them know that because of Achan’s sin that that is the reason that they lost. One man’s sin has the punishment put on all of the people. In our Western American minds we automatically want to de-rail against this. Those who believe in responsibility believe that the sole individual should take sole responsibility to any and all sins that they might commit and that is all well and fine, I am of that mind for the most part as well. But I have to take careful notice that God warned them not to take these devoted items and what would happen if they did, so that the fact that only one man did it seems to be beyond God’s point and his if/then statement applies no matter the case. It just seems if the Hebrews would really listen to all of God’s many if/then statements then they could avoid personal and communal punishment (hind-sight, I admit). I strongly dislike that we all have to suffer for someone’s individual screw up, but I often recall in team sports when one of us messed up we all had to suffer the consequences and at the time I hated that beyond reason, but as I grew older I saw that in that we were really taught to continually not mess up so that we would not only avoid doing wrong, but we also avoided the chastisement of the rest of the group. There is some weird sense of unity that is formed in the masses suffering for the individual. Maybe that whole thought of “you’re only as strong as your weakest link” starts to take on a new meaning . . .
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