Joshua 7:25

25. Why hast thou troubled us? The verb here used has, in the Hebrew, ( achar,) a sound much like Achan’s name. See note on Joshua 7:26.

And all Israel stoned him Here note the propriety of requiring the whole nation by their various representatives to participate in the execution of the law. The great principle embodied is this: The execution of civil law rests largely upon public opinion. When this becomes so corrupt that it will not uphold the law, it becomes a dead letter on the statute book. [

Stoned him… burned them… had stoned them This interchange of singular and plural pronouns does not show that only Achan was stoned, and not his children, but may indicate that he was the person most prominent in the punishment. To urge from this change of number that only Achan was stoned would oblige us to urge that the rest were burned alive without having first been stoned. Two different Hebrew words are here rendered stoned, רגם and סקל . The former seems to mean in this place to pelt with stones, the latter to cover with stones. So we may more accurately render, All Israel pelted him with stones, and burned them with fire, and covered them with stones. Per-haps here is an intimation, too, that they stoned Achan with a fiercer violence than they did his family and possessions.]