Joshua 7:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 7. And Joshua said, Alas! O Lord God, wherefore, &c.— The heart-felt emotion and humiliation in which Joshua appears, thus prostrate on the ground, with his face directed towards the sanctuary, and addressing God in the following prayer, are no way unbecoming of his high character. The greatest men are the most susceptible of the feelings of humanity and compassion. Without attempting to deny absolutely that Joshua testified some weakness, and too much dejection, in the prayer which he addresses to God, his sentiments seem capable of a very noble turn: his expressions are not the bursts of complaint; the Scriptures nowhere reproach him with any thing like it; they are an acknowledgment of his ignorance respecting the causes of that fatal blow which struck the whole camp of Israel with terror; as much as if he had said, that he knew not what to think of the event which astonished the people, and therefore instantly ventured to beg of God to discover to him the reason of it. Let us hear himself speak, and we shall better explain our idea on the subject. "O Lord, I am astonished, confounded, and dismayed at what I see; unable to comprehend why, after miraculously opening the passage of the Jordan to thy people, and giving them an entrance into this Promised Land, thou permittest them to be overpowered by the devoted Canaanites: better, as it seems, had we, contented with our former conquests, remained on the other side of the flood. What shall I say to the insults of the enemy? How henceforth shall I persuade the defeated Israelites to depend upon victory? Inflated by their success, the Canaanites will fall upon us from every quarter, will encompass us round, and hew us in pieces: still more deeply afflicting, the glory of thy great name will be obscured in the sight of these faithless nations, who will triumph to see our expectations deceived, and the miraculous displays of thy mighty power rendered useless." In all this discourse, as we see, it is a concern for God's glory that most nearly affects Joshua. He speaks as Moses had spoken on similar occasions; or, to express it more properly, he forms his own language on that of God himself. Deuteronomy 32:26-27. Note; A gracious soul is ever more solicitous about God's glory than his own interests; let them stand or fall, if God be exalted, he asks no more.