Charles Ellicott Commentary Joshua 7:14

"In the morning therefore ye shall be brought near by your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which Jehovah taketh shall come near by families; and the family which Jehovah shall take shall come near by households; and the household which Jehovah shall take shall come near man by man." — Joshua 7:14 (ASV)

The tribe which the Lord taketh. —There is nothing in the language of the passage, when closely considered, which would lead us to suppose that the discovery of the criminal was by casting lots. The parallel passage—namely, the selection of King Saul from the tribes of Israel (1 Samuel 10:20–21)—shows that the oracle of God was consulted. They inquired, and the Lord answered. So it was, perhaps, in the case of Achan.

We seem to see the High Priest of Israel asking counsel for Joshua after the judgment of Urim before the Lord, as it had been foretold in Numbers 27:21; and the elders of Israel standing by, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The representatives of the tribes enter the sacred enclosure in succession, and pass before the High Priest, in awful silence, broken only by the voice of Jehovah, who pronounces at intervals the names of Judah, Zarhite, Zabdi, Carmi, Achan. It must have been a terrible ordeal.

But all present must have felt that no human partiality or private animosity was seeking its victim. The Judge of all the earth was doing judgment. Jehovah's accusation was followed by the criminal's explicit confession. This, in turn, was followed by the discovery of the stolen spoil from Jericho, which the messengers brought in and poured out before the Lord. When this discovery then led to the execution of the awful sentence, all who were present must have received an unforgettable lesson about the reality of God's covenant.

And if, as seems most probable, the voice of the oracle was uttered from the inner sanctuary, from between the cherubim, but heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God, when He speaketh (Ezekiel 10:5), we learn once more the majesty of the law given to Israel. The arrest of Jordan, the overthrow of Jericho, and the discovery of Achan are all manifestations of power proceeding from the same source.