Joshua 7:7 and 21 …would to God we had been content…I coveted
If you had three wishes, what would you most wish for? Maybe you would wish for more time in a day than you have now. Maybe you would wish for more money than you had now. Maybe you would wish for people to whom you no longer have access. What would you wish for?
In Joshua 7 we have two men and what they wished for. What they wished for is an indication of who they were. The two men are Joshua, the leader of Israel, and Achan, a warrior in Israel who took silver, gold, and a garment when God said those things were to be dedicated to Him and not to be taken. Achan stole, lied, and took from God. God judged him rather harshly. What is interesting is you have insight into each of these men and what they actually wanted.
Verse 7 says, “And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.” Joshua was saying this because they had gone against a city state called Ai that should have been an easy victory, but instead they were roundly defeated. Joshua was discouraged. He thought, “God, why are you leading us into this land if only to be defeated. Would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other side of Jordan.” Joshua is literally saying, “God, I wish we had just stayed over where we were. It was better than the mess we are in now.” So, Joshua wished he had been content to stay on the other side of Jordan.
What does this indicate? Well, he was discouraged. Oftentimes we are discouraged by the things we see and it is largely because of the things we cannot see. In this case, Joshua was ignorant of the issue. He had no idea that Israel had sinned when Achan stole of the accursed thing. He didn’t know that and because he only had partial knowledge, he wished for things that were not what he would have wanted if he had been thinking clearly.
The second example is Achan, this man who lied and stole. Verse 21 gives us the progression of Achan’s sin. His own testimony is, “When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and the wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.” Notice the progression: I saw, I wanted, I took, I hid, except it wasn’t hidden because God knew.
Achan said, “I coveted and I took.” Achan said, “I wished for the accursed things in Canaan.” This indicates that Achan was rebellious. He rebelled against the explicit command of God which was more loaded than he realized. God’s Word always means more than we are going to know, so it takes a little bit of faith, trusting God, to know that God knows what I do not and that if I do what I should, then I can understand what I don’t. Achan was rebellious.
Achan was ungrateful. Achan had been given freedom, victory, provision, and he was ungrateful. He was also naïve. He was naïve to think this was a way to get ahead when God had told him no.
When you look at these two men and what they wished, you realize a measure of a man is what he thinks it would take to satisfy him. Some people want to go back. That is what Joshua did. They want to go back in time. Someone might say, “If I could just go back to five years ago, then everything would be okay.” Well, you can only go forward. The Jordan had parted, receded again, and all that was behind was gone. Time only marches on. The provision of God is always in the future. The providence of God literally means God is taking care of things ahead of time. God is not going to provide retroactively. He is going to provide for the future. So, going back is not the way to satisfaction.
Some people think they can go back from God. Joshua was a good man, but essentially what he would have done is he would have been on one side of Jordan while God was moving across the river and into the land of Canaan. That is not a way to be happy. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen to us is to get what we wish. Sometimes we wish to go back in time or from God.
As in Achan’s case, sometimes we wish to get ahead and even by our own ambitions. We think if we can have our way and accomplish our goals, then we will be happy. What an irony. The thing that was accursed in Joshua 7 was blessed in Joshua 8. That which is cursed when we take is blessed when we receive. In Joshua 8, God’s command was, “Fear not. Don’t be dismayed. I have given this land to you.” Verse 2 says, “And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for prey unto yourselves.” If Achan had just waited, God would have given in blessing what Achan took as a curse.
Today, what is it that you wish? You can tell a lot about a person by the way they wish. A measure of a man is what he thinks it would take to satisfy him. The satisfaction in life comes from accepting who you are, who God is, taking what God gives, and doing it with gratitude.