Joshua 8 · WEB
The Fall of Ai and Covenant Renewal at Mount Ebal
Listen — WEB narration 0:00 / 0:00 Narration: World English Bible (David Williams), public domain — AudioTreasure.
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Yahweh said to Joshua, "Don't be afraid, and don't be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.
2You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king, except its plunder and its livestock, you shall take for plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it."
3So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night.
4He commanded them, saying, "Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don't go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as before, that we will flee before them.
6They will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, 'They flee before us, as before.' So we will flee before them.
7Then you shall rise up from the ambush and take possession of the city; for Yahweh your God will deliver it into your hand.
8It shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do this according to Yahweh's word. Behold, I have commanded you."
9Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. Joshua lodged that night among the people.
10Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people, and went up with the elders of Israel before the people to Ai.
11All the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up and drew near, and came before the city, and camped on the north side of Ai. There was a valley between him and Ai.
12He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13So they set the people, all the army that was on the north of the city, and its rear guard on the west of the city. Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
14When the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried and rose up early, and went out to meet Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the appointed time, before the Arabah. But he didn't know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
16All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
17There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn't go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel.
18Yahweh said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand." Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
19The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand. They entered into the city and took it. They hurried and set the city on fire.
20When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back against the pursuers.
21When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned back and struck the men of Ai.
22The others came out of the city against them, so they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. They struck them, so that none of them remained or escaped.
23They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
24When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.
25All who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
26For Joshua didn't draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
27Only the livestock and the plunder of that city Israel took as plunder for themselves, according to Yahweh's word which he commanded Joshua.
28So Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.
29He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening. At sunset, Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised a great heap of stones over it that remains to this day.
30Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
31as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had wielded iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh, and sacrificed peace offerings.
32He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
33All Israel, their elders, officers, and judges stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, as well the foreigner as the native, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.
34Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
35There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn't read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them.
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Summary
With Achan's sin dealt with, God reassures Joshua and gives him a tactical plan for Ai involving an ambush. Israel feigns retreat to lure Ai's army out of the city, while a hidden force captures and burns it from behind. The double encirclement destroys Ai's entire population of twelve thousand. Unlike Jericho, the people are permitted to keep livestock and plunder. Following the victory, Joshua leads the entire nation — men, women, children, and resident foreigners — to Mount Ebal, where he builds an altar, offers sacrifices, writes the law on stones, and reads the entire law publicly in a solemn covenant renewal ceremony as Moses had commanded.
Themes
- Restoration after failure — God gives Israel a second chance at Ai
- Human strategy under divine direction — the ambush plan is tactical but God-sanctioned
- The word of God as the foundation of Israel's national life — the law read publicly for all
- Covenant renewal amid conquest — worship and obedience frame the military campaign
Key verses
- Josh 8:1 — “Yahweh said to Joshua, 'Don't be afraid, and don't be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai.' ”
- Josh 8:30-31 — “Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded.”
- Josh 8:35 — “There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn't read before all the assembly of Israel.”
Context & background
Ai is believed to be located near modern Bethel (Beitin) in the West Bank highlands, about 10 miles west of Jericho. The terrain of this region — hills and valleys — lends itself exactly to the ambush tactics described. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are twin mountains flanking the city of Shechem, located in what is today the northern West Bank near the modern Palestinian city of Nablus. Moses had specifically commanded this ceremony of covenant renewal upon entering the land (Deuteronomy 27). Mount Gerizim is still considered sacred by the Samaritan community today, and both mountains remain prominent landmarks in the West Bank.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 11:29 — Blessings pronounced from Gerizim, curses from Ebal, commanded by Moses
- Deuteronomy 27:2-8 — Moses commanded the writing of the law on stones and the altar on Mount Ebal
- Exodus 20:25 — Altar of uncut stones commanded in the law
- Joshua 7:10-12 — God's earlier refusal to be with Israel because of sin; now restored after judgment
- Nehemiah 8:1-3 — Ezra reads the law to all the people in a similar public reading ceremony