Making a joyful noise to the Lord sounds good and right, doesn’t it? It’s a no-brainer—so much so that it’s easy not to engage our brains all that actively over a praise passage. We’re inspired and uplifted when we read such words. Our gait may even be livelier and our gaze focused higher for a while afterward.
The trouble is, our days are often characterized by an operative word other than praise. Despite our best intentions, that word too easily morphs into busyness. Author Cynthia Heald reflects on this issue:
One day when I was reading Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest, I was struck by his insight about a rather obscure and easily overlooked verse in Genesis: “[From there he (Abram) went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD.]” Chambers writes, “Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world.
Achan, Achar, Achor [Ā'chăn,Ā'chär, Ā'chôr]—trouble. The son of Carmi of the tribe of Judah (Josh. 7; 1 Chron. 2:7).
The Man Who Brought Trouble to a Nation
It did not take Joshua long to discover that his defeat at Ai, after a succession of victories, was due to some transgression of the divine covenant (Josh. 7:8-12). Thus, as the result of an inquiry, Achan was exposed as the transgressor, and confessing his sin in stealing and hiding part of the spoil taken at the destruction of Jericho, was put to death in consequence. In keeping with the custom of those days, Achan was probably stoned with his immediate relatives, and their dead bodies burned—the latter making punishment more terrible in the eyes of the Israelites. Achan was put to death in “the valley of Achor” meaning “the valley of trouble”—the valley being called atter Achan who had been the troubler of Israel (Josh. 7:25,26). Thus in 1 Chronicles 2:7 Achan is spelled as Achar. But “the valley of trouble” became a “door of hope” all of which is spiritually suggestive (Isa. 65:10; Hos. 2:15).
