Sunday, July 21, 2019

maseches sanhedrin - Didn't the lottery of Achan make G-d an informant?



In Sanhedrin 43b God says he will not tell Yehoshua who took of the cherem of Yericho because God is not an informer



אמר לפניו רבש"ע מי חטא אמר ליה וכי דילטור אני


Joshua said to G-d: Master of the Universe, who is the one who has sinned? God said to him: Am I an informer [deilator]?



So in order to ascertain who the sinner is Yehoshua makes use of a lottery. However it would seem to me that this does not solve the God-as-informer problem. If the veracity of the lots is assumed because the outcome is guided by God then God is essentially still an informant (albeit without explicitly 'saying' who did it). If the outcome is pure chance then Achan's retort is correct and the lots are random and have no true meaning.


How can we understand why the use of lots does not constitute God being an informant?




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