At this time the rite of circumcision was given to Abraham as “a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.”Romans 4:11. It was to be observed by the patriarch and his descendants as a token that they were devoted to the service of God and thus separated from idolaters, and that God accepted them as His peculiar treasure. By this rite they were pledged to fulfill, on their part, the conditions of the covenant made with Abraham. They were not to contract marriages with the heathen; for by so doing they would lose their reverence for God and His holy law; they would be tempted to engage in the sinful practices of other nations, and would be seduced into idolatry.
(PP 138.1)
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God conferred great honor upon Abraham. Angels of heaven walked and talked with him as friend with friend. When judgments were about to be visited upon Sodom, the fact was not hidden from him, and he became an intercessor with God for sinners. His interview with the angels presents also a beautiful example of hospitality.
(PP 138.2)
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In the hot summer noontide the patriarch was sitting in his tent door, looking out over the quiet landscape, when he saw in the distance three travelers approaching. Before reaching his tent, the strangers halted, as if consulting as to their course. Without waiting for them to solicit favors, Abraham rose quickly, and as they were apparently turning in another direction, he hastened after them, and with the utmost courtesy urged them to honor him by tarrying for refreshment. With his own hands he brought water that they might wash the dust of travel from their feet. He himself selected their food, and while they were at rest under the cooling shade, an entertainment was made ready, and he stood respectfully beside them while they partook of his hospitality. This act of courtesy God regarded of sufficient importance to record in His word; and a thousand years later it was referred to by an inspired apostle: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”Hebrews 13:2.
(PP 138.3)
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Abraham had seen in his guests only three tired wayfarers, little thinking that among them was One whom he might worship without sin. But the true character of the heavenly messengers was now revealed. Though they were on their way as ministers of wrath, yet to Abraham, the man of faith, they spoke first of blessings. Though God is strict to mark iniquity and to punish transgression, He takes no delight in vengeance. The work of destruction is a “strange work” to Him who is infinite in love.
(PP 138.4)
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Early in the morning, Joshua gathered the people together “by their tribes”(Joshua 7:16), and the solemn and impressive ceremony began. Step by step the investigation went on. Closer and still closer came the fearful test. First the tribe, then the family, then the household, then the man was taken, and Achan the son of Carmi, of the tribe of Judah, was pointed out by the finger of God as the troubler of Israel.
(PP 495.1)
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To establish his guilt beyond all question, leaving no ground for the charge that he had been unjustly condemned, Joshua solemnly adjured Achan to acknowledge the truth. The wretched man made full confession of his crime: “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel.... When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekel’s weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent.”Joshua 7:20, 21. Messengers were immediately dispatched to the tent, where they removed the earth at the place specified, and “behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it. And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, ... and laid them out before the Lord.”Joshua 7:21, 22, 23.
(PP 495.2)
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Sentence was pronounced and immediately executed. “Why hast thou troubled us?” said Joshua, “the Lord shall trouble thee this day.” As the people had been held responsible for Achan’s sin, and had suffered from its consequences, they were, through their representatives, to take part in its punishment. “All Israel stoned him with stones.”Joshua 7:25.
(PP 495.3)
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Then there was raised over him a great pile of stones—a witness to the sin and its punishment. “Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor,” that is, “trouble.”Joshua 7:26. In the book of Chronicles his memorial is written—“Achar, the troubler of Israel.”1 Chronicles 2:7.
(PP 495.4)
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Achan’s sin was committed in defiance of the most direct and solemn warnings and the most mighty manifestations of God’s power. “Keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed,”(Joshua 6:18) had been the proclamation to all Israel. The command was given immediately after the miraculous passage of the Jordan, and the recognition of God’s covenant by the circumcision of the people—after the observance of the Passover, and the appearance of the Angel of the covenant, the Captain of the Lord’s host. It had been followed by the overthrow of Jericho, giving evidence of the destruction which will surely overtake all transgressors of God’s law. The fact that divine power alone had given the victory to Israel, that they had not come into possession of Jericho by their own strength, gave solemn weight to the command prohibiting them from partaking of the spoils. God, by the might of His own word, had overthrown this stronghold; the conquest was His, and to Him alone the city with all that it contained was to be devoted.
(PP 495.5)
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Of the millions of Israel there was but one man who, in that solemn hour of triumph and of judgment, had dared to transgress the command of God. Achan’s covetousness was excited by the sight of that costly robe of Shinar; even when it had brought him face to face with death he called it “a goodly Babylonish garment.”Joshua 7:21. One sin had led to another, and he appropriated the gold and silver devoted to the treasury of the Lord—he robbed God of the first fruits of the land of Canaan.
(PP 496.1)
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The deadly sin that led to Achan’s ruin had its root in covetousness, of all sins one of the most common and the most lightly regarded. While other offenses meet with detection and punishment, how rarely does the violation of the tenth commandment so much as call forth censure. The enormity of this sin, and its terrible results, are the lessons of Achan’s history.
(PP 496.2)
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Covetousness is an evil of gradual development. Achan had cherished greed of gain until it became a habit, binding him in fetters well-nigh impossible to break. While fostering this evil, he would have been filled with horror at the thought of bringing disaster upon Israel; but his perceptions were deadened by sin, and when temptation came, he fell an easy prey.
(PP 496.3)
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Are not similar sins still committed, in the face of warnings as solemn and explicit? We are as directly forbidden to indulge covetousness as was Achan to appropriate the spoils of Jericho. God has declared it to be idolatry. We are warned, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”Matthew 6:24. “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.”Luke 12:15. “Let it not be once named among you.”Ephesians 5:3. We have before us the fearful doom of Achan, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira. Back of all these we have that of Lucifer, the “son of the morning,”(Isaiah 14:12) who, coveting a higher state, forfeited forever the brightness and bliss of heaven. And yet, notwithstanding all these warnings, covetousness abounds.
(PP 496.4)
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