Joshua 8:22

22 The men who had captured the city also came out and attacked them. The men of Ai were caught between the battle lines of Israel. So Israel attacked them on both sides. None of them survived or escaped.

Joshua 8:22 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 8:22

And the other issued out of the city against them
That is, the ambush, or at least a part of them:

so that they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some
on that side;
or, as we commonly say, they were between two fires, the ambush on one side, the army of Israel on the other:

and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape;
not one was saved alive, excepting their king, as in ( Joshua 8:23 ) ; no quarter was given them, nor any suffered to make their escape.

Joshua 8:22 In-Context

20 When the men of Ai looked back, they could see the city going up in smoke. They had no place to go, since the Israelites, who had been running toward the desert, had now turned back on them.

21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men who had been hiding had captured the city and that it was going up in smoke, they turned and attacked the men of Ai.

22 The men who had captured the city also came out and attacked them. The men of Ai were caught between the battle lines of Israel. So Israel attacked them on both sides. None of them survived or escaped.

23 But they captured the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

24 Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had been pursued. They put them all to death; not one person survived. Then the Israelites went back to Ai and killed everyone left there.