Joshua 7:14

14 And ye shall all be gathered together by your tribes in the morning, and it shall come to pass that the tribe which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring by families; and the family which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring by households; and the household which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring man by man.

Joshua 7:14 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 7:14

In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to
your tribes
One or more of every tribe, according to the number of them, were to be brought the next morning before Joshua and the elders of Israel, the sanhedrim and council of the nation, and very probably the tabernacle, where they assembled for this purpose:

and it shall be, [that] the tribe which the Lord taketh;
how a tribe and so a family or household were taken is differently understood; what some of the Jewish writers say deserves no regard, as the detention of persons by the ark, or of the dulness of the stones in the Urim and Thummim: it seems best to understand the whole affair as done by casting lots F24; so Josephus F25 and Ben Gersom; and they might in this way be said to be taken by the Lord, because the disposition of the lot is by him, ( Proverbs 16:33 ) ; now it is said, that the tribe that should be taken, as Judah was, from what follows,

shall come according to the families [thereof];
that is, the families in that tribe, meaning the heads of them, as Kimchi well observes; these were to come to the place where the lots were cast:

and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households;
on whatsoever family in the tribe the lot should fall, the heads of households in that family should appear and have lots cast on them: and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man; that household that should be taken by lot, the men thereof, the heads of the house, should come each of them and have lots east on them, that the particular man that sinned might be discovered.


FOOTNOTES:

F24 Pirke Eliezer, c. 38. Samaritan. Chronic. apud Hottinger. Smegma. Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 505. Jarchi in loc.
F25 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 1. sect. 10.

Joshua 7:14 In-Context

12 And the children of Israel will not be able to stand before their enemies; they will turn their back before their enemies, for they have become an accursed thing: I will not any longer be with you, unless ye remove the cursed thing from yourselves.
13 Rise, sanctify the people and tell them to sanctify themselves for the morrow: thus says the Lord God of Israel, The accursed thing is among you; ye shall not be able to stand before your enemies, until ye shall have removed the cursed thing from among you.
14 And ye shall all be gathered together by your tribes in the morning, and it shall come to pass that the tribe which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring by families; and the family which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring by households; and the household which the Lord shall shew, ye shall bring man by man.
15 And the man who shall be pointed out, shall be burnt with fire, and all that he has; because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and has wrought wickedness in Israel.
16 And Joshua rose up early, and brought the people by their tribes; and the tribe of Juda was pointed out.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.