The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Joshua 08
1 Yahwehsaid to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid,
and don’t be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king
of Ai, with his people, his city, and his land.
2 You shall do to Ai and her king as you
did to Jericho and her king, except you
shall take its goods and its livestock for
yourselves. Set an ambush for the city
behind it.”
3 So Joshua arose, with all the warriors,
to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and
sent them out by night.
4 He commanded them, saying, “Behold,
you shall lie in ambush against the city,
behind the city. Don’t go very far from the
city, but all of you be ready.
5 I and all the people who are with me
will approach the city. It shall happen,
when they come out against us, as at the
first, that we will flee before them.
6 They will come out after us until we
have drawn them away from the city; for
they will say, ‘They flee before us, like the
first time.’ So we will flee before them,
7 and you shall rise up from the ambush,
and take possession ofthe city; for Yahweh
your God will deliver it into your hand.
8 It shall be, when you have seized the
city, that you shall set the city on fire. You
shall do this according to Yahweh’s word.
Behold, I have commanded you.”
9 Joshua sent them out; and they went
to set up the ambush, and stayed between
Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai; but
Joshua stayed among the people that night.
10 Joshua rose up early in the morning,
mustered the people, and went up, he and
the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
11 All the people, even the men of war
who were with him, went up and came
near, and came before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai. Now there
was a valley between him and Ai.
12 He took about five thousand men, and
set them inambush between Bethel and Ai,
on the west side of the city.
13 So they set the people, even all the
army who was on the north of the city, and
their ambush on the west of the city; and
Joshua went that night into the middle of
the valley.
14 When the king of Ai saw it, they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the
city went out against Israel to battle, he
and all his people, at the time appointed,
before the Arabah; but he didn’t know that
there was an ambush against him behind
the city.
15 Joshua and all Israel made as if they
were beaten before them, and fled by the
way of the wilderness.
16 All the people who were in the city
were called together to pursue after them.
They pursued Joshua, and were drawn
away from the city.
17 There wasnot amanleftin Ai orBethel
who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the
city open, and pursued Israel.
18 Yahweh said to Joshua, “Stretch out
the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai,
for I will give it into your hand.”
Joshua stretched out the javelin that was
in his hand toward the city.
19 The ambush arose quickly out of their
place, and they ran as soon as he had
stretched outhishand and entered into the
city and took it. They hurried and set the
city on fire.
20 When the men of Ai looked behind
them, they saw, and behold, the smoke
of the city ascended up to heaven, and
they had no power to flee this way or that
way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.
21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that
the ambush had taken the city, and that
the smoke of the city ascended, then they
turned back and killed the men of Ai.
22 The others came out of the city against
them, so they were in the middle of Israel,
some on this side, and some on that side.
They struck them, so that they let none of
them remain or escape.
23 They captured the king of Ai alive, and
brought him to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all
the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the
wilderness in which they pursued them,
and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, all Israel
returned to Ai and struck it with the edge
of the sword.
25 All that fell that day, both of men and
women, were twelve thousand, even all
the people of Ai.
26 For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand,
with which he stretched out the javelin,
until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
27 Israel took for themselves only the
livestock and the goods of that city, according to Yahweh’s word which he commanded Joshua.
28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a
heap forever, even a desolation, to this
day.
29 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree
until the evening. At sundown, Joshua
commanded, and they took his body down
from the tree and threw it at the entrance
of the gate of the city, and raised a great
heap of stones on it that remains to this
day.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh,
the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
31 as Moses the servant of Yahweh 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 lifted up any iron. They offered burnt
offerings on it to Yahweh and sacrificed
peace offerings.
32 He wrote there on the stones a copy
of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
33 All Israel, with their elders, officers,
and judges, stood on both sides of the ark
before the Levitical priests, who carried
the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in
front ofMount Gerizim, andhalf ofthemin
front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant
of Yahweh had commanded at the first,
that they should bless the people of Israel.
34 Afterward he read all the words of the
law, the blessing and the curse, according
to all that is written in the book of the law.
35There was not a word of all that Moses
commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel, with the
women, the little ones, and the foreigners
who were among them.