Chapters from the Biblical Law. example of one was deemed sufficient, and Joshua no doubt felt satisfied that, if the lot fell upon one of those who had been guilty, a confession of guilt would eventually follow. It was therefore unnecessary for Joshua to compel Achan to confess by threat. His simple request for information was followed by a full confession, " And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against Jehovah, the God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonian cloak, and two hundred shekels of silver and an ingot of gold of five hundred shekels weight, then I coveted them and I took them, and behold they are now hid in the earth in the midst of my tent; and the silver under it." Joshua thereupon sent messengers to Achan's tent and dis covered the articles which he had described, and then there was meted out to Achan the punishment for his offence, in accordance with the law of the times which "visited the iniquities of the fathers upon the children." According to the old patriarchal notion, the family was a unit and its members were held responsible for the conduct of each other. Hence the children suffered for the crime of the parent and vice versa. Under this fierce law, a crime resulted in the blot ting out of an entire family, and it was not until late in the time of the Kings that a more modern notion of the nature of crime prevailed. The individual was made respon sible for his acts, and the family was no longer compelled to suffer for the crime committed by any one of its members. The old notion, however, of the solidarity of the family has not entirely died out, even in our own day.
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It expresses itself very often in social ostra cism of the innocent members of a criminal's household. Modern society unconsciously testifies to the old belief, that blood relation ship attainted all those who were connected with the real offender. Joshua then proceeded to execute the sen tence of the law and he took Achan and the silver and the cloak, and the ingot of gold and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep, and his tent and everything that he had, and brought them up to the Valley of Achor, and there Joshua said to Achan, " As thou hast troubled us, Jehovah shall trouble thee this day; and all Israel stoned him with stones and burnt them with fire, and stoned them with stones, and they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day." Although Joshua and the people of Israel were at that time conducting a great military campaign in the enemy's country, they never theless observed an old custom in the execu tion of criminals. No criminal was put to death within the boundaries of the town in which he lived; he always was taken outside of the town, into some deserted place, and there executed. Later on in the history of the Jewish peo ple, the larger towns had a regular place of execution outside the walls. The place was shunned by the people, just as the people in our days, shun the gallows tree. In this case, Achan was taken outside the camp to a neighboring valley, and there, to gether with his entire family and property, was destroyed.
