08. The Ark at Gilgal; or, God's Presence Detective of Sin

Chapter 8 - The Ark at Gilgal; or, God’s Presence Detective of Sin THE next section of the Israelites’ history brings the ark before us in a new aspect. For the first time we have a somewhat detailed account of its being used as an oracle. The scene is still in the old encampment, to the east, or rather south-east of Jericho. The silence which reigns around is broken only by the voice of lamentation. The gloom that is settled on every countenance tells of national sorrow. There is a group assembled at the tabernacle-gate. They are not of the favored tribe; they have no right to enter the sacred precincts; they have taken their station no nearer than the law permits. Their faces are turned toward that holy ark which they cannot behold; they are prostrate on the ground in the attitude of lowly reverence; they have rent their garments, and put dust on their heads, in sign of abasement and grief. Joshua himself is there, and with him the elders of Israel. Hour after hour passes, till "even-tide" has set in; but the mourning suppliants continue with their faces to the ground "before the ark of the Lord." The leader’s voice is heard, pleading, "Alas! Oh Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!" These words betoken a sadly ruffled spirit, a state of heart which has led to the momentary forgetfulness of the marvelous things God had wrought. Yet the very mention of Jordan seems to have awakened the recollection of Divine mercy, and to have superinduced a better state of feeling’. He desists from the strain of discontent, and proceeds to unfold the cause of his grief: "Oh Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!"

He breathes out his whole soul without restraint; and having alluded to failure in the past, he adverts to his fear for the future: "The Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth." Then he urges a short but effectual plea, "What wilt thou do unto Thy great name?" Prayer has already worked its first, its reflex benefit: it has banished his selfish murmurings, and swallowed up his personal dissatisfaction in earnest zeal for the honor of the Most High. But it has also penetrated within the veil; it has come into the ear of Him whose dwelling is between the cherubim; and a response is given from the Holiest of all. The Divine message is a rousing one: "Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?" The urgency of the case calls for immediate action, not, indeed, in the way of fighting, but in searching out the reason of the late defeat. If Israel has been vanquished, there was a cause for it, and that cause must be removed: "Up, sanctify the people!" Their transgres­sion is specified: they have taken of the pro­hibited spoil of Jericho, and concealed it among their own stuff: "therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed." A solemn denunciation follows: "neither will I be with you anymore, except ye destroy the accursed from among you." Measures must be taken to discover the delinquent. The Omniscient One could pronounce his name at once; but this would give him no space for repentance, no scope for voluntary confession. His own mind, and the minds of all the people, must be impressed with a conviction of the enormity which characterized his crime. With the morning light, Israel is summoned to be in attendance. Tribe after tribe comes forward; but when Judah passes the taberna­cle-door, it is marked out as guilty. The other eleven tribes are relieved of a burden of anxiety; but, over this one, the dark cloud lowers yet more portentously. Family after family of Judah’s tribe are presented for ac­quittal or condemnation; the sentence falls on that of the Zarhites, while the Shelanites, Hezronites, and Hamulites are free. The guilty family of Zerah is next divided into households, and the eldest branch is indicated as the transgressor. Zabdi brings his house forward by individuals, and his grandson Achan is revealed as the man who had been "the troubler of Israel."

We can hardly form to ourselves an adequate picture of the emotions with which the sinner’s heart must have been agitated, while this solemn scrutiny was made, and while the circle, of which he knew himself to be the center, was growing still narrower and more narrow. During the lone hours of the night his medi­tations had not been such as had led him to come forth and own his guilt. More probably he had revolved the possibilities of escaping detection, and had successfully buoyed himself up with the false hope of secrecy. He may have thought of the act, as unwitnessed by human eye; of the property, as concealed be­neath the earth-floor of his tent. He may have dreamed, that the search would prove futile; and hence, when the hour of investigation was come, he was able to stand in his wonted place, with an undaunted mien, and with a cheek un­blanched. Scarcely could he fail to experience a thrill of terror, when he found that the pre­sentation was to be before the tabernacle, before the ark, before the Lord. Though he looked not within the veil, he knew what was there concealed, and what that shrine imported. But sin has both a hardening and a blinding effect upon the soul.

Achan felt not toward the ark as once he had felt; else he could not have maintained his sullen and persevering silence. Again must a pang of conscience have been endured, when his own tribe was pointed out, and he knew it to be a truthful verdict; but he was resolved to brave it still. The unerring selection of his own family must have come with yet fiercer assault upon the fortress of his obstinacy; at the taking of his father’s house, he must have felt that the fabric, in which he had placed his trust, was hope­lessly demolished; and when at length he him­self had to stand forth before the thousands of Israel, as the man whose cupidity and dis­obedience had provoked the Lord to anger, and had brought disgrace upon the nation, he began to realize the hateful consequences of his guilt. Was his sin worth the intense tor­ture of that struggle between fading hope and growing fear? Was it worth what he had yet to endure?

Urged by Joshua, but not stimulated by any promise of pardon, he made the tardy confes­sion of his guilt. If a lurking idea of possible forgiveness prompted the candid avowal and the minute detail, no such expectation had been warranted by the legislator’s words; "My son," said Joshua, "give, I pray thee, glory to the God of Israel, and make confes­sion unto Him." It was too late for penitence to obtain a reversal of his earthly doom; but words of acknowledgment were desirable, in order to vindicate before the congregation of Israel the perfect justice of their Divine Sove­reign. For the further satisfaction of the people, the stolen articles were produced in confirmation of Achan’s guilt, and laid "before the Lord," as though in token to Him who dwelt within the veil, that the people offered a national confes­sion for the sin which had been brought to light in their midst. The offender, with all that pertained to him, was stoned with stones, and committed to the destroying flame. Then was the face of the Lord turned again toward His people, and Ai with her king given into their hand.

We are reminded that the presence of God detects our every disobedience. We may for a while forget it, as Achan forgot the holy ark; but sooner or later we shall be made sensible of it. "Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand; . . . . and it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil." If we are cherishing a single known sin---if we are cleaving to any forbidden object---we shall be unwilling to think of the eye that rests upon us; we shall wrap ourselves up in a mantle of self-delusion, and fancy that it screens us from Omniscience; we shall close our eyes to the light, and then imagine ourselves hidden by the darkness. As Achan might possibly have deemed that the curtain which concealed the ark from him served also to conceal him from the God whose presence it accompanied; even so, because our eyes cannot pierce the blue veil above us, and peer into the heavenly realms, we are too apt to think, though we should blush to say, "How doth God know? can He judge through the dark cloud?" Willing or unwilling, we must one day awake to the full consciousness of our guilt; we must one day be made to feel the revealing power of God’s presence.

Some there are who, like the son of Carmi, harden themselves against it to the last; who determinately hold back the confession of their guilt, who stay themselves with false assurances of safety, and cry, "Peace, peace! where there is no peace." Yet, however skillfully they may have cloaked their sin, how­ever deeply they may have buried it out of the reach of man’s discovery, however unwilling they may have been to come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved, they will be brought before the Judge at the last day, to answer for their iniquities, in the view of their assembled fellow-creatures. A vaster throng will then be gathered than were convened in the vi­cinity of Achor. Men of divers races, nations, ranks, and pedigrees, will be there; yet all must appear" before the Lord," to be judged according to the deeds they have done. Nor shall a single guilty one escape. All who are under the condemnation of the law, shall endure the execution of its sentence. The Judge will have been the Witness; and the workers of iniquity shall be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." But all are sinners. Must such judgment, then, be pronounced against all? Nay; there will be a multitude whom no man can number, who will be received into the joy of their Lord. They have not been sinless, but they" have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." They have been taught to put away sin as "the abominable thing" which God hates; they have not con­tinued to "roll it as a sweet morsel under the tongue;" they have not been "treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath; " but they have been washed, and justified, and sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit of God. Their position at the last will resemble that of the tribes, and families, and households who were presented before the Lord, and accepted as innocent. These had not kept the Divine law perfectly; and it may be that many a tender conscience among them had been bowed down with the fear lest some "secret fault" should rise up in judgment against them. But they were not willfully harboring the accursed thing. All their known guilt had been penitently confessed over the head of the trespass-offering, and for their sins of ignorance had many a young bullock been laid on the sacrificial altar. Not against them, nor for their sakes, had the wrath of the Lord gone out. The presumptuous, im­penitent, unforgiven sinner was the one who had sole cause for alarm. All else might safely say, with a holy confidence, "Let my sentence come forth from thy presence." Would we wish to utter such a sentiment? Let us walk constantly in close communion with God. His presence, daily realized, will daily reveal to us more and more of the plague of our own heart; but will do so in order to the healing of the distemper. In the sanctuary, also, "are the secrets of the heart made mani­fest;" but it is well for us that it should be so. If we "walk in the light," we shall detect spots upon our robe; but" the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." If we walk in the darkness, we shall deceive ourselves, and may not awake until it shall be too late to seek and find the remedy. Achan, during the interval between his crime and his conviction, must either have absented himself from the cere­monies of the tabernacle, or have observed them as a mere form. Had he entered into their design, he would have confessed his guilt, renounced the ill-obtained treasure, and be­sought the cancelling of his sin. The choice lies open before us, whether we will follow his example, and cleave to our own ways, and keep aloof from God now, so as hereafter to be con­strained to lift an unavailing cry to the rocks and mountains to fall on us, and hide us from His face,---or whether we will welcome Jehovah’s inspection, and offer the prayer, " Search me, Oh God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting!"