when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonian mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.
The Israelites punished Achan’s children with him (Joshua 7:24), evidently because they had participated in his sin (cf. Proverbs 15:27). [Note: Woudstra, p. 130.] It would have been difficult for Achan to hide the amount of spoil he took under his tent without his family’s knowledge. The people also destroyed all of Achan’s possessions (cf. Deuteronomy 13:16-17). Achan’s sin was high-handed defiance against God (cf. Numbers 15:30; Numbers 15:35).