“They gathered,” says our text (v. 26), “upon him a great heap of stones, which remains unto the present day.” By which words three [things] are signified. First: That this was done to Achan alone, but not to his sons, daughters, and things. And therefore Vatablus renders inconsiderately, “They raised upon them a heap of great stones.” For the Hebrew clearly says, in the singular, “upon him,” and [it is] noted also by Ralbag; and the Greek [has] ἐπέστησαν αὐτῷ σωρὸν λίθων μέγαν [epestēsan autō sōron lithōn megan, “they set upon him a great heap of stones”]. Nor did Masius necessarily say that [there] is [here] an enallage of numbers [a grammatical change of number]. For since the context had put the plural number so accurately, why would it suddenly have changed [it]? Why, without necessity, is a trope feigned? Second: The same [was] done deliberately and of set purpose, but not by a fortuitous and rash heaping of the people. For the Hebrew verb “of raising,” the Latin “of gathering,” [and] the Greek τῷ ἐφιστάναι [tō ephistanai, “the setting-upon”], indicate care and solicitude. And this is confirmed from [the fact] that Josephus says this heap was heaped up not at that same time when Achan was burned and stoned, but the following night. Whence Masius also calls [it] “a tomb.” Third: That this heap was great and long-lasting. For that [it was great] is expressly stated; but this [that it was long-lasting] is signified by that [phrase], “which remains unto the present day.” And to this clause is subjoined the same force which [is subjoined] to other similar [clauses] above (ch. 4, v. 9; ch. 5, v. 9). Josephus says [the tomb] was τάφον ἀτίμητον καὶ καταδίκῳ προσήκουσαν [taphon atimēton kai katadikō prosēkousan, “a dishonored tomb, and one befitting a condemned [man]”], that is, a dishonored sepulchre, and [such] as would befit a condemned guilty [man]. But why for Achan such a sepulchre was raised, the reason is at hand: that not only at the very time of the execution, or [for] a few days afterward, but always, as it were fresh, Achan’s punishment might be before the eyes of all; and so more and more they might flee from everything which stirs up the wrath of the Divinity, and especially from sacrilege — [that sacrilege for] which [Achan] had, with so great a heap of stones, [been] overwhelmed in that place. Someone once wrote, concerning a notorious robber:
“Under this mountain of stones lies buried Balista; / by night, by day, traveler, take thy way in safety.”
And that heap cried out, both to those who then lived and to all who followed, that a sacrilege lay buried beneath it: [and] that therefore they should flee sacrilege as diligently as possible. And that heap seems to have been built up and piled from all those stones which had been hurled both at him and at all his other [things], so that he who had been the author and prince of so great an evil to all might always in a manner bear the punishment of all: and so [that] he who had not before allowed the [things] to be burned that were to be burned, might himself be burned; and he who had covered, and as it were buried, the [things] which were not to be covered with earth, might himself, unburied, be covered by a mass of stones.