by J. Randal Matheny

At Jericho, Achan's eyes were filled with the spoils of war. Instead of total destruction, this son of Judah hid a beautiful Shinar mantle with shekels of gold and silver in his tent. Because of his sin, the small city of Ai defeated Israel and brought death and mourning upon God's blessed people.

Once Achan was discovered, Israel took him and his family with the banned goods and all he owned to the Valley of Trouble (Achor). Joshua said to him, "Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day" (Josh. 7:25).

With that, they stoned Achan and, for good measure, burned them. They raised over him a great heap of stones as a memorial. By Israel's action, "the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the valley of Achor to this day" (v. 26).

Centuries later, Hosea delivers his messages of repentance to wayward Israel, as God passes the divine sentence upon her,

"'I will punish her for the days of the Baals When she used to offer sacrifices to them And adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry, And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,' declares the Lord." Hosea 2:13

This very punishment would be Israel's opportunity for restoration. Using the memory of the terrible experience with Achan, Hosea mentions the Valley of Achor as the place of punishment, but also as the place of a new beginning.

"Then I will give her ... the valley of Achor as a door of hope" (Hosea 2:15a, NASU).

Israel's Valley of Trouble would be exile at the hands of the Assyrians. In fact, the northern kingdom would cease to exist, except for a remnant which would join itself to Judah. By that experience, the spiritual adultery of idolatry would be purged from the people.

Hosea says God will reverse Israel's fortunes. He will turn his people around. It will be a painful, "troubling" process, but it will also be where the Lord's anger will be turned away. The Valley of Trouble becomes the Door of Opportunity.

Many of us have been to the Valley of Trouble.

God uncovers in our lives some banned goods, some unclean thing, some filthy pratice. And he brings us defeat because of it, as Israel experienced at Ai.

He will let us go no further until we have dealt with it. Until we have expelled it from our lives, stoned it, burned it.

But when we recognize the trouble it has brought us and rid ourselves of it, we will find his anger turned away, and his blessing returned.

Our Valley of Trouble becomes the Door of Opportunity.

And Achor becomes the metaphor by which we learn to respect the holiness of God, to enter into the sacred mission of his people, and to return to our first and only Love.

"And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt." Hosea 2:15b