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1 Chronicles 2:7

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

“Achan” Joshua 7:1 seems to have become “Achar,” in order to assimilate the word more closely to the Hebrew term for “troubler,” which was from the time of Achan‘s sin regarded as the true meaning of his name Joshua 7:25-26.

Ellen G. White
Patriarchs and Prophets, 495

Early in the morning, Joshua gathered the people together by their tribes, 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

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.” 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.” PP 495.2

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.” PP 495.3

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.” In the book of Chronicles his memorial is written—“Achar, the troubler of Israel.” 1 Chronicles 2:7. PP 495.4

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,” 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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