Joshua 8

Joshua 8:1

8:1-29 On the second attempt, Joshua and his army captured Ai by the strategy of ambush. Although the details of the ambush are difficult to understand clearly, the general plan seems to have been as follows: A company of Israelites went past Ai under cover of darkness and hid on the west side of the city. In the morning, the rest of the soldiers attacked the city from the north. When the men of Ai counterattacked, Joshua and his men purposely retreated, drawing the inhabitants away from their city. Then Joshua stretched out his spear; that was the signal for the men lying in ambush to enter the city and set it on fire. Seeing their city on fire, the men of Ai panicked. It was then easy for the Israelites to trap the Ai soldiers on both sides, and destroy them. Verse 3 says that thirty thousand . . . men were sent to ambush . . . the city, while verse 12 speaks of five thousand. There may have been two ambushes. But thirty thousand seems an unnecessarily large number for an ambush. Some believe that thirty thousand should read thirty captains, since the Hebrew word for thousand can also be translated chief. Others believe that thirty thousand is a copyist’s error for five thousand. The five thousand men (v. 12) may have been sent to repel any possible attack by the men of Bethel, two miles west of Ai. The Jews were allowed to keep the livestock and the spoil . . . for themselves in this particular engagement. If Achan had only waited, he might have gotten his booty without losing his life over it! Israel lost thirty-six men in the first battle; this time they lost none as far as the biblical record mentions. Having purged themselves of defilement, they were once again safe in the midst of war. Victory in the Christian life is not the absence of conflict but the presence and protection of God in the midst of conflict.

Joshua 8:30

G. The Confirmation of the Covenant at Shechem (8:30-35) 8:30-35 In obedience to the Word of God (Deu_27:2-6), Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal and inscribed upon stones a copy of the Law of Moses. The tribes were assembled, half . . . in front of Mount Gerizim, and half . . . in front of Mount Ebal. Joshua stood in the valley between them, and he either read . . . the blessings and the cursings that are found written in the Book of the Law of Moses or else instructed the Levites to read them (Deu_27:14). “Persons are often said in Scripture to do that which they only command to be done.”