What Does Joshua 7:24 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The destination is named Trouble: a concealed breach has drawn not only Achan but his children, animals, shelter, and every possession into its reach.
THE MEANING
A concealed breach can extend beyond the person who holds it, drawing family, shelter, livelihood, and possessions into its reach. The list stays concrete, sons and daughters beside animals, a tent, silver, clothing, and gold, and the destination gives the gathering its name: Trouble.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What I conceal can affect only me.
THE ROOT
עָכוֹר
ʿĀḵôr
GROWS FROM
עכר
To trouble, disturb, or bring distress.
Achor carries the root עכר, the same root Joshua uses in the next verse when he says, “Why hast thou troubled us?” Chronicles gives the name as Achar (עָכָר, ʿĀḵār) and calls him “the troubler of Israel”; Joshua’s spelling Achan (עָכָן) echoes that sound but is not the same spelling.
ALSO GROWS
ʿakhartānu: A form of עכר meaning “you have troubled us.”
עֲכַרְתָּנוּ
The next verse uses the root behind the valley’s name to describe the trouble reaching Israel.
ʿĀḵār: A name linked to “troubler”; the verse calls him “the troubler of Israel.”
עָכָר
This form makes explicit the name-and-trouble link that the valley of Achor carries in Joshua.
THE PATTERN
A breach held by one person can spread its cost through a whole community.
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?THE THREAD
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.Hosea names this same valley a “door of hope,” so the place called Trouble becomes a threshold rather than the last word. That hope does not erase the cost on display in Joshua; it opens a new possibility within the very name this verse gives.
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