10 God said to Joshua, "Get up. Why are you groveling? 11 Israel has sinned: They've broken the covenant I commanded them; they've taken forbidden plunder - stolen and then covered up the theft, squirreling it away with their own stuff. 12 The People of Israel can no longer look their enemies in the eye - they themselves are plunder. I can't continue with you if you don't rid yourselves of the cursed things. 13 "So get started. Purify the people. Tell them: Get ready for tomorrow by purifying yourselves. For this is what God, the God of Israel, says: There are cursed things in the camp. You won't be able to face your enemies until you have gotten rid of these cursed things. 14 "First thing in the morning you will be called up by tribes. The tribe God names will come up clan by clan; the clan God names will come up family by family; and the family God names will come up man by man. 15 The person found with the cursed things will be burned, he and everything he has, because he broke God's covenant and did this despicable thing in Israel."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joshua 7:10-15
Commentary on Joshua 7:10-15
(Read Joshua 7:10-15)
God awakens Joshua to inquiry, by telling him that when this accursed thing was put away, all would be well. Times of danger and trouble should be times of reformation. We should look at home, into our own hearts, into our own houses, and make diligent search to find out if there be not some accursed thing there, which God sees and abhors; some secret lust, some unlawful gain, some undue withholding from God or from others. We cannot prosper, until the accursed thing be destroyed out of our hearts, and put out of our habitations and our families, and forsaken in our lives. When the sin of sinners finds them out, God is to be acknowledged. With a certain and unerring judgment, the righteous God does and will distinguish between the innocent and the guilty; so that though the righteous are of the same tribe, and family, and household with the wicked, yet they never shall be treated as the wicked.