Joshua 8

Destruction of Ai

And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, arise and go up to Ai. See, I have given the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land into your hand. 2 And you will do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. But you may take its plunder and its livestock as prey for yourselves. Place an ambush for the city behind it”.

8:2 If Achan had waited, he would have received his part in this plunder. God gives us what He wants us to have in His own time (Matt 6:33) – if we trust and obey Him.⚜

3 So Joshua arose, and all the warriors, to go up against Ai. And Joshua picked out thirty thousand brave fighting men and sent them away at night. 4 And he commanded them, saying, “Look, you are to lie in wait against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready. 5 And I, and all the people who are with me, will approach the city. And it will come about that, when they come out against us, as at the first, we will run away from them 6 (For they will come out after us) until we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say, ‘They are running away from us, as at the first.’ So we will run away from them. 7 Then you must rise up from the ambush, and capture the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hands. 8 And when you have taken the city, it is to be like this: set the city on fire. You must act in accordance with the command of the LORD. See, I have commanded you”.

9 So Joshua sent them away; and they went to lie in ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. But Joshua stayed that night among the people.

10 And Joshua rose up early in the morning and counted the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. 11 And all the people, the warriors who were with him, went up and drew near and came in front of the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai. 12 And he took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.

8:12 There were apparently two ambushes, the one mentioned in vs 3,4 which was “behind the city”, and the one mentioned here “between Bethel and Ai”, possibly to deal with any attack that might come from Bethel. Ai and Bethel were very close together (Josh 12:9). There is no independent account of the conquest of Bethel, though the city was overcome in the taking of Canaan (Josh 12:16). It appears from v 17 that Bethel was an ally of Ai in this battle.⚜

13 And that night when they had placed the people, all the army that was on the north of the city and their people in ambush on the west of the city, Joshua went out into the middle of the valley.

14 Then this happened: when the king of Ai saw it, they hurriedly got up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a set time, before the plain. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. 15 And Joshua and all Israel acted as if they were beaten before them, and ran away on the wilderness road. 16 And all the people who were in Ai were called together to pursue them, and pursuing Joshua they were drawn away from the city. 17 And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, who did not go out after Israel. And they left the city open and pursued Israel.

18 And the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the spear that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hands”. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city. 19 And the ambush got up quickly out of their place, and as soon as he stretched out his hand they ran, entered the city, and took it, and hurriedly set the city on fire.

20 And when the men of Ai turned and looked behind them, they saw the smoke of the city rising up to the sky, and they were powerless to flee this way or that. And the people who had run toward the wilderness turned back on their pursuers. 21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city was rising up, they turned back and killed the men of Ai. 22 And the other men came out of the city against them, so they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side, and some on that. And they struck them down, not letting any of them remain or escape. 23 But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

24 And when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed, it came about that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25 And so it was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand. All the men of Ai fell. 26 For Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he had stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. 27 Only the livestock and the plunder of that city Israel took as a prey for themselves, according to the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.

28 And Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. 29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening, but as soon as the sun had set, Joshua commanded them to take his carcass down from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the gate of the city, and pile on it a great heap of stones. It remains to this day.

The covenant renewed

30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel (as it is written in the book of the law of Moses), an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had used any iron tool. And on it they offered burnt offerings to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And there on the stones Joshua wrote a copy of the law of Moses. He wrote it in the presence of the children of Israel. 33 And all Israel and their elders and officers and their judges stood on both this side and that side of the ark before the priests the Levites, the carriers of the ark of the covenant of the LORD, also the foreigners, just as those who had been born among them. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had previously commanded, so that they might bless the people of Israel.

34 And afterwards Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings and curses, just as everything was written in the book of the law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua did not read before all the congregation of Israel with the women and the little ones and the foreigners who were living among them.

8:30-35 Deut 11:26-30; 27:1-8, 14-26; 29 chapter Here Israel renews their covenant with God. They acknowledge that He is their God, they are His people.⚜

8:32-35 At the beginning of their life in Canaan the people were called to renew their acceptance of God’s covenant. God wanted them to know clearly their responsibilities and privileges.⚜