1And God said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid and do not cower. Take with you all the combat troops and rise, go up to Ai. See, I have given in your hand the king of Ai and his people and his town and his land. 2And you shall do to Ai as you did to Jericho and to its king. Only its booty and its cattle you may plunder. Set up for yourself an ambush against the town behind it.” 3And Joshua arose, and all the combat troops with him, to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose thirty thousand men, sturdy warriors, and sent them out at night. 4And Joshua charged them, saying, “See, you are to lie in ambush against the town behind the town. Do not keep very far away from the town, and all of you must be on the ready. 5And I and the troops that are with me, we shall draw near the town, and so, when they come out toward us as before, we shall flee from them, 6and they will come out after us till we draw them away from the town, for they will think, ‘They are fleeing from us as before,’ and we shall flee from them. 7And you will rise from the ambush and take hold of the town, and the LORD your God will give it into your hand. 8And so, when you seize the town, you will set fire to the town, according to the word of the LORD you will do. See, I have charged you.” 9And Joshua sent them off, and they went to the ambush, and they stayed between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai. And Joshua spent that night among the troops. 10And Joshua rose early in the morning and marshaled the troops, he and the elders of Israel, before the troops, to Ai. 11And all the combat troops who were with him went up and approached and came opposite the town, and they camped to the north, with the ravine between them and Ai. 12And he took about five thousand men and set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai to the west of the town. 13And they put the troops, the whole camp, to the north of the town, and its covert contingent, to the west of the town. And Joshua spent that night in the valley. 14And it happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the town hurried in the early morning and came out toward Israel to do battle, he and all his troops, at the set place opposite the Arabah. He did not know there was an ambush against him behind the town. 15And Joshua and all Israel were routed before them and fled on the road to the wilderness. 16And all the troops who were in the town were mustered to pursue Joshua, and were drawn away from the town. 17And not a man remained in the town, in Ai, who did not go out after Israel, and they left the town open and pursued Israel. 18And the LORD said to Joshua, “Reach out with the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for into your hand I shall give it,” and Joshua reached out with the javelin that was in his hand toward the town. 19And the ambushers rose quickly from their place and ran as his hand reached out, and they entered the town and took it, and they hurried and set the town on fire. 20And the men of Ai turned behind them and saw and, look, smoke was rising from the town toward the heavens, and they had no place in any direction to flee, while the troops who had fled to the wilderness became the pursuers. 21And Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambushers had taken the town and that the smoke from the town was rising, and they struck down the men of Ai. 22And these had come out of the town toward them so that they were in the midst of Israel, who were on both sides, and they struck them down till they left among them no remnant or survivor. 23And the king of Ai they caught alive and brought him forth to Joshua. 24And it happened, when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, all of them by the edge of the sword to the last of them, all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25And all who fell on that day, men and women, came to twelve thousand, all the people of Ai. 26And Joshua did not pull back his hand that he had reached out with the javelin until he had put all the inhabitants of Ai under the ban. 27Only the cattle and the booty of that town did the Israelites plunder, according to the word of the LORD that He charged to Joshua. 28And Joshua burned Ai and turned it into an everlasting heap, a devastation to this day. 29And the king of Ai he impaled on a pole till eventide, and when the sun was setting, Joshua gave orders, and they took his corpse down from the pole and flung it by the entrance of the town gate and put over it a pile of stones to this day. 30Then did Joshua build an altar to the LORD God of Israel on Mount Ebal, 31as Moses the servant of the LORD had charged the Israelites, as it is written in the book of the teaching of Moses, “an altar of whole stones, over which no iron has been brandished,” and they offered up on it burnt offerings to the LORD, and they sacrificed well-being sacrifices. 32And he wrote there on the stones the repetition of the teaching of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the Israelites. 33And all Israel and its elders and its overseers and its judges were standing on both sides of the Ark opposite the levitical priests, bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD, sojourner and native alike, over against Mount Gerizim, and its other half over against Mount Ebal, as Moses, servant of the LORD, had formerly charged to bless Israel. 34And afterward he read out all the words of the teaching, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the teaching. 35There was no word of all that Moses had charged that Joshua did not read out before the whole assembly of Israel and the women and the little ones and the sojourners who went in their midst.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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2. Only its booty and its cattle you may plunder. Ai, like Jericho, is to be put to the ban, its structures burned and all its inhabitants massacred, but an exception is made for booty, which the conquering Israelites are allowed to take.
3. the combat troops. Throughout this episode, ‘am, elsewhere “people,” clearly has this military sense.
thirty thousand men. The very large number here for men in an ambush is cited by proponents of the idea that ’elef must refer to a small contingent and does not mean a thousand. But highly exaggerated numbers are often used in ancient narrative, and the sense of “contingent” in the count of the deaths of the town’s inhabitants in verse 25 is problematic.
4–8. Although God had said he would deliver Ai to Joshua, it is Joshua’s shrewdness as a strategist that brings about the fall of the town. The elaboration of the details of military strategy is untypical of biblical narrative. Scholars have pointed out a similarity not only in strategy but also in wording between this story and the account of the siege of Gibeah in the civil war reported in Judges 20, and it is generally thought that this story draws on the one in Judges. Joshua shrewdly capitalizes on the previous defeat of the Israelites at Ai by seeming to repeat the same tactical error, positioning his troops in front of the town gate and then retreating. This time, however, he hides an attack unit behind the town that will move forward against it once the armed men of the town have been drawn out in pursuit of the main body of Israelites.
4. behind the town. This would be west of the town. The main gates of the town are evidently on the eastern side, and the main Israelite camp is northeast of the city.
10. before the troops. This phrase looks odd and may reflect a scribal error.
12. And he took about five thousand men. This verse seems to replicate verses 3–4 using a different (somewhat more plausible) number—5,000 instead of 30,000. It also puts the sending out of the ambush troops after the general encampment, not before it. Two different versions may have been awkwardly spliced together.
13. And they put the troops, the whole camp. Like the translation, the wording of the Hebrew is a bit clumsy and the syntax ambiguous.
its covert contingent. The Hebrew ʿaqev usually means “heel.” There is no evidence that it means “rear guard,” as some claim, and an ambush is not a rear guard. It is equally questionable that it could mean “far edge,” again an inappropriate term for ambush. The translation follows the Targum of Jonathan, Rashi, and Kimchi, in relating ʿaqev to ʿoqbah, a term that suggests deviousness and that might apply to an ambush.
Joshua spent that night. The Masoretic Text reads wayelekh, “walked,” but a few manuscripts show wayalen, “spent the night,” which seems more plausible.
14. the Arabah. This is the north-south rift of the Jordan Valley and is equivalent to the wilderness several times mentioned in this episode.
15. were routed. The obvious implication in context is: pretended to be routed. The verb used wayinagʿu (literally, “were smitten/plagued”) comes instead of the expected wayinagfu, and may be influenced by the parallel passage in Judges 20, where the same verbal stem is employed in a different sense.
18. Reach out with the javelin that is in your hand. The exact nature of the weapon, kidon, is in dispute. (Modern Hebrew has adopted it as the term for bayonet.) Some scholars think it is a kind of scimitar. In any case, the outstretched kidon is both a signal for the men in the ambush to move against the town and a magical act pointedly reminiscent of Moses’s upraised staff in the battle against Amalek reported in Exodus 17.
21. the ambushers. The Hebrew term haʾorev can refer either to the ambush or, as a collective noun, to the combatants carrying out the ambush.
22. And these had come out of the town toward them. These are the ambushers, who, having put the town to the torch, now attack its troops outside, who are caught in a pincer movement between the main Israelite force and the ambushers (whether 5,000 or 30,000). The reference to no place to flee in verse 20 may be out of chronological order because it makes good sense here, when the men of Ai are attacked from both sides.
24. turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. The gruesome reality of this report is as follows: the ambushing force, after setting fire to the town and then coming out to join in the attack on the troops of Ai, now comes back with the main Israelite camp to the town to slaughter the women and elders and children left there.
29. impaled on a pole. This is the form of execution that many modern scholars think likely. But the traditional rendering of “hanged on a tree” remains a distinct possibility.
they took his corpse down from the pole and flung it by the entrance of the town gate. The use of the verb “flung” is a clear indication that this is not an honorable burial, though the biblical prohibition against leaving a body hanging overnight is preserved. The place of burial may point toward the area in front of the gates of the town where the Israelites were killed in their earlier attack.
30. Then did Joshua build an altar. This textual unit invokes the two mountains of blessing and curse mentioned in Deuteronomy 11:26–32, and is a direct implementation of the command in Deuteronomy 27:2–3, “on the day that you cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD your God is about to give you, you shall set up for yourself great stones and coat them with plaster. And you shall write on them the words of this teaching. . . .” But the placement of the episode has puzzled both ancient and modern commentators. Temporally, it does not happen right after the crossing of the Jordan as it should, and geographically, the Israelites at Ai are not opposite Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.
31. an altar of whole stones, over which no iron has been brandished. This is an approximate quotation of Exodus 20:25.
32. the repetition of the teaching of Moses. The Hebrew mishneh torat mosheh refers to Deuteronomy (that Greek name itself being a rendering of the Hebrew mishneh torah). The Deuteronomist behind this story is clearly promoting the interests of his own privileged text.