CONFESSION. JOSHUA VII. 19. My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me. ISRAEL was come out of Egypt, had ended his desert-sojourn, had crossed the Jordan, had taken Jericho. Thus far well. How is it that a comparatively insignificant enterprise now baffles him? that Ai, a city represented as not requiring all his strength, proves now more than a match for him? The answer is found in the history here open. A stern charge had been laid upon the invading army, not to touch the spoil of Jericho'. One part of the spoil was to be 1 Joshua vi. 18, 19, 24. brought into the treasury: the rest was to be burnt with fire. A nation which had been taken from the midst of another nation1 by a strong hand not its own, and which now was to be brought into the inheritance of another nation by the, outstretched arm of God, must be reminded, at the very outset, of its dependence and of its responsibility: there must be no forgetfulness of the source of its strength, of the condition of its success, of the high purposes of its mission: there must be no selfish grasping, and no mean lust of getting, to interfere with the grandeur and the sanctity of its election: on this first occasion of all, a lesson was to be taught for all time, as to the awfulness of privilege; as to the dreadful consequences of being brought very near to God, as His Church and His people, and forgetting or trifling with Him; as to the inseparable connection between knowledge and duty, between light and accountability, between trust and reckoning. But there was one man who determined 1 Deut. iv. 34. |