Joshua 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Joshua not to be afraid but to attack Ai again, this time with an ambush set behind the city, and says Israel may keep the plunder and livestock for themselves. Joshua's main force pretends to run away, the men of Ai chase them, and hidden troops take the empty city and burn it; the men of Ai are caught between the two forces and killed, and their king is hanged and buried under a pile of stones. Afterward Joshua builds an altar of uncut stones on Mount Ebal, writes a copy of the law of Moses on stones there, and reads the whole law, the blessings and the curses, to all the people.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • The LORD spoke to Joshua.
   • The LORD told Joshua not to fear.
   • The LORD told Joshua not to be dismayed.
   • The LORD told Joshua to take all the fighting men with him.
   • The LORD told Joshua to arise and go up to Ai.
   • The LORD said he had given the king of Ai into Joshua's hand.
   • The LORD said he had given the people of Ai into Joshua's hand.
   • The LORD said he had given the city of Ai into Joshua's hand.
   • The LORD said he had given the land of Ai into Joshua's hand.
2. 8:2
   • The LORD told Joshua to do to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king.
   • The LORD said that only the plunder and the livestock of Ai could be taken as spoil for themselves.
   • The LORD told Joshua to set an ambush behind the city.
3. 8:3
   • Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up against Ai.
   • Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor.
   • Joshua sent them out by night.
4. 8:4
   • Joshua commanded them.
   • Joshua told them they were to lie in ambush against the city, behind the city.
   • Joshua told them not to go very far from the city.
   • Joshua told them all to be ready.
5. 8:5
   • Joshua said that he and all the people with him would approach the city.
   • Joshua said the men of Ai would come out against them as they did the first time.
   • Joshua said that he and his people would then flee before them.
6. 8:6
   • Joshua said the men of Ai would come out after them.
   • Joshua said they would flee until they had drawn the men of Ai away from the city.
   • Joshua said the men of Ai would say that the Israelites were fleeing before them as at the first.
   • Joshua said that therefore they would flee before them.
7. 8:7
   • Joshua said the men in ambush were then to rise up from their place.
   • Joshua said they were to seize the city.
   • Joshua said the LORD their God would give the city into their hand.
8. 8:8
   • Joshua said that when they had taken the city they were to set it on fire.
   • Joshua told them to act according to the word of the LORD.
   • Joshua said that he had commanded them.
9. 8:9
   • Joshua sent the men out.
   • They went to the place of ambush.
   • They stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai.
   • Joshua spent that night among the people.
10. 8:10
    • Joshua rose early in the morning.
    • Joshua mustered the people.
    • Joshua and the elders of Israel went up before the people to Ai.
11. 8:11
    • All the fighting men who were with Joshua went up.
    • They drew near and came in front of the city.
    • They camped on the north side of Ai.
    • There was a valley between them and Ai.
12. 8:12
    • Joshua took about five thousand men.
    • Joshua set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13. 8:13
    • The people stationed the whole camp on the north of the city.
    • They stationed the rear force on the west of the city.
    • Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
14. 8:14
    • The king of Ai saw this.
    • The men of the city hurried and rose early.
    • The men of the city went out to meet Israel in battle.
    • The king and all his people went out.
    • They went out at the appointed meeting place facing the Arabah.
    • The king of Ai did not know that an ambush was set against him behind the city.
15. 8:15
    • Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten before the men of Ai.
    • Joshua and all Israel fled by the way of the wilderness.
16. 8:16
    • All the people who were in the city were summoned to pursue them.
    • They pursued after Joshua.
    • They were drawn away from the city.
17. 8:17
    • Not a man was left in Ai or in Bethel who did not go out after Israel.
    • They left the city open.
    • They pursued after Israel.
18. 8:18
    • The LORD spoke to Joshua.
    • The LORD told Joshua to stretch out toward Ai the javelin that was in his hand.
    • The LORD said he would give the city into Joshua's hand.
    • Joshua stretched out the javelin in his hand toward the city.
19. 8:19
    • The men in ambush rose quickly from their place.
    • They ran as soon as Joshua stretched out his hand.
    • They entered the city.
    • They captured the city.
    • They hurried and set the city on fire.
20. 8:20
    • The men of Ai turned and looked behind them.
    • They saw the smoke of the city going up to the sky.
    • They had no strength to flee in any direction.
    • The people who had fled toward the wilderness turned back against their pursuers.
21. 8:21
    • Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city.
    • Joshua and all Israel saw that the smoke of the city was going up.
    • They turned back and struck down the men of Ai.
22. 8:22
    • The men in ambush came out of the city against the men of Ai.
    • The men of Ai were caught in the middle, with Israelites on one side and on the other.
    • Israel struck them down so that no survivor or fugitive was left.
23. 8:23
    • They took the king of Ai alive.
    • They brought the king of Ai to Joshua.
24. 8:24
    • Israel finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open field and in the wilderness where they had pursued them.
    • All of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were finished off.
    • All Israel returned to Ai.
    • They struck Ai with the edge of the sword.
25. 8:25
    • All who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand.
    • That number was all the people of Ai.
26. 8:26
    • Joshua did not draw back the hand with which he had stretched out the javelin.
    • Joshua held it out until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai.
27. 8:27
    • Israel took only the livestock and the plunder of that city as spoil for themselves.
    • They did so according to the word of the LORD which he had commanded Joshua.
28. 8:28
    • Joshua burned Ai.
    • Joshua made Ai a permanent mound of ruins.
    • Ai remained a desolation to this day.
29. 8:29
    • Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening.
    • At sunset Joshua gave a command.
    • They took the corpse of the king down from the tree.
    • They threw the corpse at the entrance of the city gate.
    • They raised a great heap of stones over it.
    • That heap of stones remains to this day.
30. 8:30
    • Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel.
    • He built the altar on Mount Ebal.
31. 8:31
    • He built it as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the children of Israel.
    • He built it as it is written in the book of the law of Moses.
    • The altar was of whole, uncut stones.
    • No iron tool had been lifted over the stones.
    • They offered burnt offerings on the altar to the LORD.
    • They sacrificed peace offerings.
32. 8:32
    • Joshua wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses.
    • Moses had written that law in the presence of the children of Israel.
33. 8:33
    • All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark.
    • They stood facing the priests, the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
    • The foreigner stood there as well as the native-born.
    • Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim.
    • Half of them stood in front of Mount Ebal.
    • Moses the servant of the LORD had earlier commanded that they bless the people of Israel.
34. 8:34
    • Afterward Joshua read all the words of the law.
    • He read the blessing and the curse.
    • He read according to all that is written in the book of the law.
35. 8:35
    • There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua failed to read.
    • Joshua read it before the whole assembly of Israel.
    • The women were present.
    • The little ones were present.
    • The foreigners who traveled among them were present.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

Ai was a small Canaanite town in the hills a few miles west of Jericho. Like most of Canaan at this time, the land was not one kingdom but dozens of small city-states, each with its own walled town, its own farmland, and its own king, which is why a single town can be spoken of as having a king and a "land." The name Ai means roughly "the ruin" or "the heap."

8:2

At Jericho everything living and everything of value was "devoted", placed under a ban that meant it could not be kept, sold, or used, but had to be destroyed or handed over to the sanctuary. Taking such goods was treated as theft from God, and in the previous chapter a man named Achan did exactly that and was executed for it. The point of this verse is that the ban is being lifted on the property: the people may keep the livestock and goods this time.

8:3

Verse 12 gives five thousand men for the ambush party rather than thirty thousand, and readers have disagreed since antiquity about how the two numbers fit together, whether the smaller group was part of the larger, whether a second ambush was set, or whether the figures come from different tellings. The Hebrew word for "thousand" can also mean a military unit or contingent of unspecified size, which is another way the numbers have been read.

8:5

"The first time" refers to Israel's earlier attack on Ai in the previous chapter, when the men of Ai drove them back and killed about thirty-six of them. The men of Ai are expected to remember that easy victory and repeat their tactics.

8:9

Bethel was another town about two miles west of Ai; the ambush party is hiding in the broken ground between the two. Bethel's men join the fighting in verse 17, which suggests the two towns acted together.

8:10

"Numbered the people" means mustered them: counted the troops and put them in formation before marching, the way an army takes a roll call.

8:11

The valley is a wadi, a steep dry watercourse that only runs with water after rain. It made a natural barrier between the Israelite camp and the town, which is why the men of Ai would have felt safe enough to come out and fight.

8:12

Verse 3 says thirty thousand men and this verse says five thousand. The five thousand were probably the smaller group placed closest to the city, part of the larger force.

8:13

"Liers in wait" is old English for the men lying in ambush. The King James verb "to lie in wait" simply means to hide and wait to attack.

8:14

The Arabah is the deep rift valley that runs the length of the country, holding the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. Ai stands in the hills above its western edge, so the battle line faces down toward it. The Hebrew phrase behind "the agreed place" is uncertain and can also be read as "at the appointed time" or as a place-name; translators differ.

8:15

"Made as if they were beaten" means pretended to be beaten. The fake retreat drawing defenders out of a walled town was a standard ancient tactic, and it worked here because the men of Ai had genuinely routed Israel once before.

8:17

Leaving the city "open" means the gates were left standing open and unguarded. A walled town's whole defense was its gate, so this is the detail that decides the battle.

8:18

The Hebrew word for the weapon Joshua holds out is not the ordinary word for a spear. It refers to some kind of hand weapon (a javelin, a curved sword, or a scimitar) and its exact meaning is disputed. The gesture is a signal to the men in hiding and, as the verse presents it, a sign of the outcome; a held-out hand or weapon is a standard image of a commander's authority in the field.

8:22

"The other" means the other Israelite force, the men who had just taken the city. The men of Ai were now caught between the returning runaways in front and the ambush party behind, a maneuver armies call a double envelopment.

8:24

"The edge of the sword" is a Hebrew idiom, literally "the mouth of the sword," and it is the standard phrase for killing in battle rather than a description of the weapon.

8:26

"Completely destroyed" translates the same term used of Jericho in verse 2: to place people or things under an irrevocable ban, so that nothing living is spared and nothing is kept back. Here it applies to the people while, by the LORD's permission, the property is exempt.

8:28

An abandoned mound of ruins was a familiar sight in this landscape: towns were rebuilt on top of their own rubble for centuries, so a destroyed site left a distinctive flat-topped hill. The Hebrew word used here is the ordinary term for such a mound, and the name Ai itself means "the ruin."

8:29

Hanging a body on a tree or post was not the method of execution but the public display of the corpse afterward, a way of advertising the defeat. The law of Moses required such a body to be taken down before nightfall rather than left hanging overnight. The heap of stones over the corpse marks the spot permanently; the same thing was done over Achan in the previous chapter.

8:30

Mount Ebal stands beside the town of Shechem, roughly thirty miles north of Ai, a long march from the battle just described, which is one reason readers have long debated whether this ceremony belongs here in the sequence of events. An altar is a raised stone structure on which animals and other offerings were burned.

8:31

The rule about uncut stones comes from the law given at Sinai: an altar was to be built of natural stone, untouched by an iron tool, since dressing the stone was thought to profane it. A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar, with nothing kept back for the worshipers. A peace offering (also called a fellowship offering) was different: part was burned, part went to the priests, and the rest was eaten by the worshipers in a shared meal.

8:32

Writing a text on large stones coated with plaster was a known way of publishing a decree or treaty in the ancient Near East, and the law of Moses instructs Israel to do exactly this on entering the land. How much was written is not stated and has been argued over, the whole law, the core commandments, or the blessings and curses read out in the next verses.

8:33

The ark of the covenant was a wooden chest overlaid with gold, carried on poles, holding the stone tablets of the law; it was the most sacred object Israel possessed and traveled at the center of the nation. The Levites were the tribe set apart to carry it and to handle worship. The "foreigners living among them" translates a term for a resident outsider, someone not born an Israelite who had settled permanently with them, as opposed to a passing traveler; such people had defined legal standing. Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are two facing mountains with a narrow valley between them, forming a natural amphitheatre where a large crowd can be divided in two and still hear.

8:34

The blessings and curses are the formal lists set out in the law of Moses: the good outcomes promised if Israel keeps the agreement and the disasters that follow if it does not. Ancient treaties between a ruler and his subjects were regularly sealed by reading out such paired lists in public, and this ceremony follows that pattern.

8:35

"Conversant among them" is old English for "living among them," with no sense of conversation. The list of who was present matters because women, young children and foreign residents were not part of the army and had no legal standing in the assembly, yet the text insists they all heard the whole text read out.