Joshua 6:12-27 And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.… Great were their offences whose possessions were too polluted to retain any value or become of any service to the people of God, and who not only themselves became a curse, but all that they had. This not unfrequently discovers itself in the transfer of ill-gotten wealth — a curse comes with it, which a new possession does not wipe off, but consumes and withers as though cankered and moth-eaten. It was not to enrich His people with the spoils of conquest that the Captain of their salvation led the march of triumph, but to inspire them with a holy detestation of sin, and especially the corruptions and impurities of idolatry, as the just cause of His vengeance. Nothing so entirely unfits men to live in this world, and so soon hastens them to another, even to depriving them of the common pity and forbearance of God, as the corruptions of idolatry, the sanctified impurities of a false religion. This proves infinitely worse in its nature, and unspeakably more dangerous in its influence, than would the positive absence or total obliteration of all that bears the name of sanctity. In this view the admonition receives peculiar force as addressed by the apostle (1 Corinthians 10:20, 21). (W. Seaton.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.WEB: Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of Yahweh. |
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