TEXT [Commentary]

2.   Joshua’s success at Ai (8:14-29)

14 When the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his army hurried out early in the morning and attacked the Israelites at a place overlooking the Jordan Valley.[*] But he didn’t realize there was an ambush behind the town. 15 Joshua and the Israelite army fled toward the wilderness as though they were badly beaten. 16 Then all the men in the town were called out to chase after them. In this way, they were lured away from the town. 17 There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel[*] who did not chase after the Israelites, and the town was left wide open.

18 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Point the spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will hand the town over to you.” Joshua did as he was commanded. 19 As soon as Joshua gave this signal, all the men in ambush jumped up from their position and poured into the town. They quickly captured it and set it on fire.

20 When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the town was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. For the Israelites who had fled in the direction of the wilderness now turned on their pursuers. 21 When Joshua and all the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the town, they turned and attacked the men of Ai. 22 Meanwhile, the Israelites who were inside the town came out and attacked the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in the middle, with Israelite fighters on both sides. Israel attacked them, and not a single person survived or escaped. 23 Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.

24 When the Israelite army finished chasing and killing all the men of Ai in the open fields, they went back and finished off everyone inside. 25 So the entire population of Ai, including men and women, was wiped out that day—12,000 in all. 26 For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.[*] 27 Only the livestock and the treasures of the town were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these as plunder for themselves, as the LORD had commanded Joshua. 28 So Joshua burned the town of Ai,[*] and it became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.

29 Joshua impaled the king of Ai on a sharpened pole and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body, as Joshua commanded, and threw it in front of the town gate. They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.

NOTES

8:14 overlooking the Jordan Valley. Lit., “before the Arabah,” the desert plain north of the Dead Sea.

8:15 toward the wilderness. This was eastward, back the way they had come just the day before, and the same direction they had fled the first time they had attacked Ai.

8:17 or Bethel. LXX omits “or Bethel” (see NLT mg). Boling (1982:240) suggests that beth ’el here may refer, not to the nearby city of Bethel, but to the beth ’el [TH410A/1004, ZH446/1074] (sanctuary, house of [the] god) in Ai itself. The suggestion is plausible, inasmuch as a sanctuary usually would have been defended, and the more difficult reading is preserved and explained. If Bethel is not mentioned in this account, except as a directional referent (8:9, 12), it could mean Bethel did not challenge Israel, so Israel left Bethel alone (but cf. also 12:16). Some have suggested Ai in this period was essentially a small fortified outpost of Bethel; the two were, in effect, one town. Yet, the movements of the two opposing forces fit the topography of Ai well. Therefore, there is every reason to suppose this is a real account of a real ambush used to dislodge a strong enemy, a tactic also used later in the civil war between Benjamin and the rest of Israel (Judg 20:29-48).

8:20 the wilderness. See note on 8:15.

8:24 in the open fields. Lit., “in the fields, in the wilderness.”

8:25 12,000 in all. If Ai’s population was 12,000 men and women, it was one of the largest cities of Canaan at this time—its conquest a topic worthy of record. Yet Joshua’s scouts had reported Ai as small and insignificant (7:3); if this number should be reduced, it is unclear by what principle that should be done.

8:26 completely destroyed. See NLT mg and the discussion “Theological Concerns” in the Introduction.

8:27 were not destroyed. This is added for clarity. The Hebrew text reads, “Only the livestock and [other] treasure of this town Israel took as a spoil for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which he had instructed Joshua.”

8:28 burned . . . ruins. “Ai” means “ruin.” Such a story regarding the naming of a place is termed etiological. That one of the functions of a given story is to explain a place name does not mean, however, that the story must be regarded as fictional, as some have maintained.

to this very day. This is one of many indicators in Joshua that the final editing of the book occurred at least several generations after the events recorded.

8:29 impaled. The verb (talah [TH8518, ZH9434]) allows for, but does not require, impalement as the means of execution of Ai’s king. Joshua 10:26 suggests Joshua may have killed him by the sword, hanged him on a tree until evening, and then buried him in accordance with Moses’s instructions (Deut 21:22-23).

heap of stones. This is a second memorial to Ai’s destruction, the first being the ruin of the city itself.

today. See note on 8:28.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Early the following morning, the army of Ai stormed out of the city gate to engage Israel in battle, just as they had done the first time (7:5). The Hebrew of 8:14 depicts the men of Ai as recklessly eager to repeat the heroics of the previous battle. Before identifying “the men of the city” as the subject, the narrator used three vivid and forceful verbs in succession, literally, “Then they hurried, and rose early in the morning, and went out.”

We can learn from all the characters in a biblical story, God’s people or not. The king of Ai and his people reinforce for us a lesson that Joshua and Israel learned in their first attack on Ai: Reckless overconfidence is dangerous. What we don’t know can kill. Joshua and Israel did not know Achan had sinned; 36 Israelite soldiers died. The king of Ai and his people did not know Joshua had set an ambush; all of them died. Through the word of God and other means of grace, God makes available the knowledge to keep his people from being ambushed by the enemy of our souls. But we must take the time and effort to learn and assimilate this knowledge for it to be an effective safeguard for us.

Joshua and Israel fell back before the onslaught, as the small army Joshua had sent the first time had done. The king of Ai pursued the “fleeing” Israelites, as before, and left the city open (8:17). One reason the king gave little thought to leaving the city open while pursuing the Israelites was likely his overconfidence at seeing Israel flee as they had fled before. But another important factor was Ai’s soldiers’ desire for booty. Much of the gain the individual soldier received from ancient warfare was his share of the spoils of battle taken from a defeated enemy. Often, too, a king would reward his soldiers for each enemy killed in battle.

The narrator’s notice (8:18) that God told Joshua to “point the spear in your hand toward Ai” is another reminder that Israel succeeded in this second attack because God directed the battle this time. Because of the recklessness and greed of Ai’s king and his men, the Israelite men in ambush west of the city faced no opposition as they rose from their hiding place, rushed into the city, and set it on fire (8:19). In an account notable for vivid detail, this description of Joshua closing the trap on Ai’s fighters stands out. The narrator’s double mention of the smoke of the burning town (8:20-21) is a large part of that. So much smoke lingers over the whole scene, the reader can almost smell it.

Ai’s king was taken alive (8:23). As leaders of their individual city-states, he and the other Canaanite kings ought to have led their people in righteousness. Instead, they led them in continuing wickedness so that now the sin of the Amorites had reached its full measure (Gen 15:16). The execution of the king (8:29) showed that Israel was God’s agent in the judgment of the people of Canaan for their wickedness.