Achan's Sin And Punishment

The victory over the city of Jericho was not to involve any personal plundering of its wealth.  The items of gold and silver were to be put in God's treasury, and Joshua had warned against taking them, lest a person bring about their own destruction (Joshua 6:16-19).  Articles of these metals or of bronze and iron were put into the treasury of Yahweh's house (6:24).  A man named Achan nonetheless takes several items for himself, a robe, silver, and gold, which he buries under his tent (7:1, 19-22).  God subsequently refuses to grant the Israelites military victory until the devoted items are destroyed or removed (7:2-15).  Achan is brought along with the illicit items, his sons and daughters, and his animals to the Valley of Achor, and there he is stoned (7:24-25).  Verse 25 also says that once the people of Israel had stoned Achan, they stoned the rest, and then burned them.  This could mean that it is only the animals of Achan that are killed by stoning after him (see Exodus 21:29 for this sort of act getting prescribed elsewhere), not that his sons and daughters are stoned too.

However, if it refers to the children and the animals alike being stoned afterward, the Bible clarifies enough elsewhere to establish that the sons and daughters would have likewise been guilty, but because of their own participation instead of their familial affiliation with Achan.  The story of Joshua 7 already hints at this.  First, however, what do other parts of the Bible say regarding this, particularly Mosaic Law, where the Bible's only universal, clear moral doctrines are put forth?  Plainly, on the level of criminal justice, miscellaneous dealings of God, and the eschatological judgment, each person is judged and punished according to what his or her own deeds deserved:

Exodus 23:7—"'Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.'"

Deuteronomy 24:16—"Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin."

2 Kings 14:5-6—"After the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed the officials who had murdered his father the king.  Yet he did not put the children of the assassins to death, in accordance with what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses where the Lord commanded: 'Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.'"

Ezekiel 14:19-20—"'Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out my wrath on it through bloodshed, killing its people and their animals, as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could save neither son nor daughter.  They would save only themselves by their own righteousness.'"

Ezekiel 18:19-20—"'Yet you ask, "Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?"  Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live.  The one who sins is the one who will die.  The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child.'"

Ezekiel 33:20—"'Yet you Israelites say, "The way of the Lord is not just."  But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.'"

Revelation 20:12—"And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books."

The individual nature of moral guilt and the justice of punishing the wicked person, not their relative, would be true not just of capital punishment, but of corporal punishment and monetary damages/restitution as well, which the individual laws always independently say to impose on the offender only (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, Exodus 21:18-19, Numbers 5:5-7, and so on).  Also, the capital punishment prescriptions even in isolation from Deuteronomy 24 say to only kill the guilty person, which Exodus 23:7 already encompasses as shown above.  A kidnapper's family is not to be executed, only the kidnapper (Exodus 21:16).  A murderer deserves to be killed, not any sons, daughters, husband/wife, or extended family of theirs (Numbers 35:31).  If Achan alone committed the sin of stealing items devoted to destruction/God, then he himself, not his wife or children, would deserve whatever penalty corresponds to God's nature.  Joshua 7 does not mention a wife of his, but it does say that his sons and daughters were brought to the place where he is stoned to death.

In light of all this, what would be the level of complicity in Achan's sin on the part of his family?  It would very difficult for Achan to take the prohibited items for himself and bury them under his tent without his children observing, helping, or being informed and then doing nothing.  Thus, they would likely at best be negligent in exposing his sin and at worst direct accomplices.  Since the Bible is clear that children should not be legally punished and will not be soteriologically punished strictly for the actions of their parents and vice versa, if the text does indeed mean that the children were stoned to death and then burned, as opposed to Achan and his animals (the "them" could refer to either or both), then it would have to be true if the Bible is correct that the children participated in the sin.  In either case, the logical distinction between a guilty person and their offspring is not denied and Joshua 7 does not contradict Exodus 23:7, Deuteronomy 24:16, or any of the concepts behind other similar statements in the Bible.  An example of a story where someone is more likely to have violated these obligations of justice is found in Daniel 6, though the execution method is already contrary to Yahweh's prescribed methods.  Royal administrators convince the King Darius to execute anyone who prays to a god or person other than the king, Daniel disobeys and survives a night in a den of lions, and the administrators and their wives and children are thrown to the beasts to die (6:24).

The king himself already deserves to be stoned to death for enticing people to worship anything other than Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13:6-10), so even aside from whatever illicit torture and executions he is guilty of, all of Daniel's positive words towards the king (Daniel 6:21) would have to be insincere flattery or pragmatic manipulation in order to not be erroneous.  In having the families executed along with the advisors, Darius then commits a second capital sin (Exodus 20:13, 21:12-14) stated in the text.  Yes, the families of the administrators would also deserve to die if they themselves enticed anyone to worship other gods or actually carried this out (Deuteronomy 17:2-5).  However, this story is not one of someone having the family members killed at the explicit command of God, which would necessitate that they were deserving of death even if their capital sin is not mentioned.  It is an account of someone amazed about a miraculous event to the point of seemingly reacting very irrationally, adding to his stupidity and guilt.  If the families of these men were not actually worshipping other gods or outwardly supportive of such things, in this case, they would deserve to be spared, because they are not the same person as their husbands or fathers.

In the story of Achan's demise, it is made clear that he sinned by coveting what did not belong to him and then acting on it in such a way as to deserve death.  The way that God relents from his anger after Achan dies acknowledges this is what his sin deserves (Joshua 7:26).  For the aforementioned reasons, if his sons and daughters are punished as well, they one way or another would have joined in his immorality.  Even so, a legitimate logical error in the moral doctrines of Joshua or a case of it contradicting the Torah would not render the Torah's moral philosophy and stories logically impossible, as it would only at most mean that Joshua contradicts them.  If there is such a thing as moral right and wrong, then it could not be the case that a child deserves to die just because their father or mother has done something, and Deuteronomy and Ezekiel affirm this.  If Joshua denied any of this, then the book of Joshua would be wrong, but not necessarily the moral ideas of the Pentateuch.  Joshua does not actually say anything contrary to it.