Joshua 8:2-12

2 You shall do to `Ai and her king as you did to Yericho and her king: only the spoil of it, and the cattle of it, shall you take for a prey to yourselves: set you an ambush for the city behind it.

3 So Yehoshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to `Ai: and Yehoshua chose out thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them forth 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 be all ready:

5 and I, and all the people who are with me, will approach to the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them;

6 and they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: so we will flee before them;

7 and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

8 It shall be, when you have seized on the city, that you shall set the city on fire; according to the word of the LORD shall you do: behold, I have commanded you.

9 Yehoshua sent them forth; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Beit-El and `Ai, on the west side of `Ai: but Yehoshua lodged that night among the people.

10 Yehoshua arose up early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up, he and the Zakenim of Yisra'el, before the people to `Ai.

11 All the people, [even] the [men of] war who were with him, went up, and drew 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 in ambush between Beit-El and `Ai, on the west side of the city.

Joshua 8:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

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.