Joshua 8:1-7

1 And the Lord said to Joshua, Neither dread thou, nor be thou afeared; take with thee all the multitude of fighting men, and rise thou, and go up into the city of Ai; lo, I have betaken into thine hand the king thereof, and the people, and the city, and the land.
2 And thou shalt do to the city of Ai, and to the king thereof, as thou didest to Jericho, and the king thereof; soothly ye shall take to you the prey (but this time ye can take the prey for yourselves), and all [the] living beasts; (and this time,) set thou ambushes, either ambushments, to the city behind it.
3 And Joshua rose, and all the host of fighting men with him, for to go up into Ai; and by night he sent (away) thirty chosen thousand of strong men; (And so Joshua, and all his army of fighters, rose up to go into Ai; and he chose thirty thousand strong men, and sent them away in the night;)
4 and he commanded to them, and said, Set ye ambushments behind the city, and go ye not further; and all ye shall be ready (and all of ye be ready to fight);
5 forsooth I, and the tother multitude which is with me, shall come on the contrary side against the city; and when they shall go out against us, as we did before, we shall flee, and turn the backs, (and I, and the other multitude who be with me, shall come on the opposite side toward the city; and when they shall go out against us, we shall turn our backs, and flee, as we did before,)
6 till they pursue us, and be drawn away further from the city; for they shall guess, that we shall flee them as we did before. Then while we shall flee, and while they pursue,
7 ye shall rise from the ambushments, and shall waste the city; and your Lord God shall betake it into your hands. (ye shall rise up from ambush, or from lying in wait, and shall destroy the city; and the Lord your God shall deliver it into your hands.)

Joshua 8:1-7 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.

Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.