Valley of Achor

In the language that God used when there was not much writing, signal events often took the place of books: Points of natural scenery were turned into historic ciphers, and geography into a chronicle. Give the story of Achan. That "day" was lengthened out till, seven centuries later, when another seer is lifting the curtain of Israel's still later future, he takes up the old name to signify the new sorrow, the greater sacrifice, and the sublimer deliverance to come. Every Jew would understand the historic allusion, "I will give her the valley of Achor for a door of hope." It is true of the first beginnings of the Christian life, and of its subsequent recovery from decline and coldness. There must be some suffering at the narrow door by which the imperilled and straitened soul passes through into liberty and rest. It is just as true of most of our richest gains, our noblest advancements, in all spiritual clear-sightedness and strength, that they are reached through pain and privation. It very rarely happens that we receive what we particularly need, without being obliged to give up what we particularly prize. If the sacrifice is not laid upon us voluntarily by ourselves, it has to be laid on by a hand more merciful than our own, and more concerned in our salvation. Trouble is the price of power. From one side of the globe to another, from the beginning to the end, the glory of the earth, the openings of its everlasting hope, are its valleys of trouble. The way to Christ's final majesty lies through the humiliations of pain. From Gethsemane to Calvary was the one true valley of Achor.

(F. D. Huntington, D. D.)