Joshua 8

Ai Destroyed

1 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.
2 You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3 So Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out at night
4 with these orders: “Listen carefully. You are to set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from it. All of you be on the alert.
5 I and all those with me will advance on the city, and when the men come out against us, as they did before, we will flee from them.
6 They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them,
7 you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The LORD your God will give it into your hand.
8 When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the LORD has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.”
9 Then Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place of ambush and lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai—but Joshua spent that night with the people.
10 Early the next morning Joshua mustered his army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched before them to Ai.
11 The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city.
12 Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.
13 So the soldiers took up their positions—with the main camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley.
14 When the king of Ai saw this, he and all the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle at a certain place overlooking the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush had been set against him behind the city.
15 Joshua and all Israel let themselves be driven back before them, and they fled toward the wilderness.
16 All the men of Ai were called to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were lured away from the city.
17 Not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go after Israel. They left the city open and went in pursuit of Israel.
18 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out toward the city the javelin that was in his hand.
19 As soon as he did this, the men in the ambush rose quickly from their position and rushed forward. They entered the city and captured it and quickly set it on fire.
20 The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising up into the sky, but they had no chance to escape in any direction; the Israelites who had been fleeing toward the wilderness had turned back against their pursuers.
21 For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that smoke was going up from it, they turned around and attacked the men of Ai.
22 Those in the ambush also came out of the city against them, so that they were caught in the middle, with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down, leaving them neither survivors nor fugitives.
23 But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it.
25 Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.
26 For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed[a] all who lived in Ai.
27 But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the LORD had instructed Joshua.
28 So Joshua burned Ai[b] and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day.
29 He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

The Covenant Renewed at Mount Ebal

30 Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel,
31 as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses—an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the LORD burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings.
32 There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses.
33 All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the LORD, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native-born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.
34 Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—just as it is written in the Book of the Law.
35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the foreigners who lived among them.

Joshua 8 Commentary

Chapter 8

God encourages Joshua. (1,2) The taking of Ai. (3-22) The destruction of Ai and its king. (23-29) The law read on Ebal and Gerizim. (30-35)

Verses 1-2 When we have faithfully put away sin, that accursed thing which separates between us and God, then, and not till then, we may look to hear from God to our comfort; and God's directing us how to go on in our Christian work and warfare, is a good evidence of his being reconciled to us. God encouraged Joshua to proceed. At Ai the spoil was not to be destroyed as at Jericho, therefore there was no danger of the people's committing such a trespass. Achan, who caught at forbidden spoil, lost that, and life, and all; but the rest of the people, who kept themselves from the accursed thing, were quickly rewarded for their obedience. The way to have the comfort of what God allows us, is, to keep from what he forbids us. No man shall lose by self-denial.

Verses 3-22 Observe Joshua's conduct and prudence. Those that would maintain their spiritual conflicts must not love their ease. Probably he went into the valley alone, to pray to God for a blessing, and he did not seek in vain. He never drew back till the work was done. Those that have stretched out their hands against their spiritual enemies, must never draw them back.

Verses 23-29 God, the righteous Judge, had sentenced the Canaanites for their wickedness; the Israelites only executed his doom. None of their conduct can be drawn into an example for others. Especial reason no doubt there was for this severity to the king of Ai; it is likely he had been notoriously wicked and vile, and a blasphemer of the God of Israel.

Verses 30-35 As soon as Joshua got to the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, without delay, and without caring for the unsettled state of Israel, or their enemies, he confirmed the covenant of the Lord with his people, as appointed, ( Deuteronomy 11 , Deuteronomy 27 ) . We must not think to defer covenanting with God till we are settled in the world; nor must any business put us from minding and pursuing the one thing needful. The way to prosper is to begin with God, ( Matthew 6:33 ) . They built an altar, and offered sacrifice to God, in token of their dedicating themselves to God, as living sacrifices to his honour, in and by a Mediator. By Christ's sacrifice of himself for us, we have peace with God. It is a great mercy to any people to have the law of God in writing, and it is fit that the written law should be in a known tongue, that it may be seen and read of all men.

Cross References 49

  • 1. Genesis 26:24; Deuteronomy 31:6
  • 2. S Numbers 14:9; S Deuteronomy 1:21; Deuteronomy 7:18; Joshua 1:9
  • 3. Joshua 10:7
  • 4. Joshua 7:2; Joshua 9:3; Joshua 10:1; Joshua 12:9
  • 5. S Joshua 6:2
  • 6. S Genesis 49:27
  • 7. ver 27; Deuteronomy 20:14
  • 8. ver 4,12; Judges 9:43; Judges 20:29
  • 9. Judges 7:7; 1 Samuel 23:4
  • 10. Judges 20:29-38
  • 11. ver 19
  • 12. 2 Chronicles 13:13
  • 13. Genesis 22:3
  • 14. S Joshua 7:6
  • 15. S Deuteronomy 1:1
  • 16. Judges 20:34
  • 17. Judges 20:36
  • 18. Joshua 15:61; Joshua 16:1; Joshua 18:12
  • 19. Judges 20:31
  • 20. Job 41:26; Psalms 35:3
  • 21. S Exodus 4:2; Exodus 14:16; Exodus 17:9-12
  • 22. ver 26
  • 23. Judges 20:33
  • 24. S ver 8
  • 25. Judges 20:40
  • 26. Judges 20:41
  • 27. Deuteronomy 7:2; Joshua 10:1
  • 28. 1 Samuel 15:8
  • 29. Deuteronomy 20:16-18
  • 30. ver 18
  • 31. S Numbers 21:2
  • 32. Exodus 17:12
  • 33. S ver 2
  • 34. S Numbers 31:10
  • 35. Joshua 7:2; Jeremiah 49:3
  • 36. S Deuteronomy 13:16; Joshua 10:1
  • 37. S Genesis 35:20
  • 38. S Deuteronomy 21:23; John 19:31
  • 39. 2 Samuel 18:17
  • 40. ver 33; S Deuteronomy 11:29
  • 41. S Exodus 20:24
  • 42. S Exodus 20:25
  • 43. Deuteronomy 27:6-7
  • 44. Deuteronomy 27:8
  • 45. S Leviticus 16:29
  • 46. Deuteronomy 31:12
  • 47. Deuteronomy 11:29; Deuteronomy 27:11-14; John 4:20
  • 48. S Deuteronomy 28:61; Deuteronomy 31:11; Joshua 1:8
  • 49. S Exodus 12:38; Deuteronomy 31:12

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.
  • [b]. "Ai" means "the ruin" .

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO JOSHUA 8

Joshua is encouraged to go up and take Ai, and is directed what method to make use of, Jos 8:1,2; accordingly he set an ambush on the west side of it, and, he and the rest of the army went up before it, Jos 8:3-13; which, when the king of Ai saw, he and all his forces came cut against them, and the Israelites making a feint as if they were beaten, drew on the men of Ai to pursue them, upon which the ambush arose and entered the city and set fire to it, Jos 8:14-19; the smoke of which being observed by Joshua and Israel, they turned back upon the pursuers, and the ambush sallying out of the city behind them, made an entire destruction of them, then slew all the inhabitants, took the spoil, burnt the city, and hanged the king of it, Jos 8:20-29; after this Joshua built an altar at Ebal, wrote the law on stones, and read the blessings and curses in it before all Israel, Jos 8:30-35.

Joshua 8 Commentaries

Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.