Joshua 8
New English Translation
Israel Conquers Ai
8 The Lord told Joshua, “Don’t be afraid and don’t panic![a] Take the whole army with you and march against Ai![b] See, I am handing over to you[c] the king of Ai, along with his people, city, and land. 2 Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho and its king, except you may plunder its goods and cattle. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3 Joshua and the whole army marched against Ai.[d] Joshua selected 30,000 brave warriors and sent them out at night. 4 He ordered them, “Look, set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from the city; all of you be ready! 5 I and all the troops[e] who are with me will approach the city. When they come out to fight us like before, we will retreat from them. 6 They will attack[f] us until we have lured them from the city, for they will say, ‘They are retreating from us like before.’ We will retreat from them. 7 Then you rise up from your hiding place[g] and seize[h] the city. The Lord your God will hand it over to you. 8 When you capture the city, set it[i] on fire in keeping with the Lord’s message. See, I have given you orders.”[j] 9 Joshua sent them away and they went to their hiding place[k] west of Ai, between Bethel and Ai.[l] Joshua spent that night with the army.[m]
10 Bright and early the next morning Joshua gathered[n] the army,[o] and he and the leaders[p] of Israel marched[q] at the head of it[r] to Ai. 11 All the troops that were with him marched up and drew near the city.[s] They camped north of Ai on the other side of the valley.[t] 12 He took 5,000 men and set an ambush west of the city between Bethel and Ai. 13 The army was in position—the main army north of the city and the rear guard west of the city. That night Joshua went into[u] the middle of the valley.
14 When the king of Ai and all his people saw Israel, they rushed to get up early. Then the king and the men of the city went out to meet Israel in battle, at the meeting place near the rift valley.[v] But he did not realize an ambush was waiting for him behind the city.[w] 15 Joshua and all Israel pretended to be defeated by them, and they retreated along the way to the wilderness. 16 All the reinforcements[x] in Ai[y] were ordered[z] to chase them; they chased Joshua and were lured away from the city. 17 No men were left in Ai or Bethel;[aa] they all went out after Israel.[ab] They left the city wide open and chased Israel.
18 The Lord told Joshua, “Hold out toward Ai the curved sword[ac] in your hand, for I am handing the city[ad] over to you.” So Joshua held out toward Ai the curved sword in his hand. 19 When he held out his hand, the men waiting in ambush rose up quickly from their place and attacked.[ae] They entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire. 20 When the men of Ai turned around, they saw[af] the smoke from the city ascending into the sky and were so shocked they were unable to flee in any direction.[ag] In the meantime the men who were retreating to the wilderness turned against their pursuers. 21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the city was going up in smoke,[ah] they turned around and struck down the men of Ai. 22 At the same time the men who had taken the city came out to fight, and the men of Ai were trapped in the middle.[ai] The Israelites struck them down, leaving no survivors or refugees. 23 But they captured the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the men[aj] of Ai who had chased them toward the wilderness[ak] (they all fell by the sword),[al] all Israel returned to Ai and put the sword to it. 25 So 12,000 men and women died[am] that day, including all the men of Ai. 26 Joshua kept holding out his curved sword until Israel had annihilated all who lived in Ai.[an] 27 But Israel did plunder the cattle and the goods of the city, in keeping with the Lord’s orders[ao] to Joshua. 28 Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanently uninhabited mound (it remains that way to this very day).[ap] 29 He hung the king of Ai on a tree, leaving him exposed until evening.[aq] At sunset Joshua ordered that his corpse be taken down from the tree.[ar] They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and erected over it a large pile of stones (it remains to this very day).[as]
Covenant Renewal
30 Then Joshua built an altar for the Lord God of Israel on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the Lord’s servant had commanded the Israelites. As described in the law scroll of Moses, it was made with uncut stones untouched by an iron tool.[at] On it they offered burnt sacrifices to the Lord and sacrificed tokens of peace.[au] 32 There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a duplicate of the law written by Moses.[av] 33 All the people,[aw] rulers,[ax] leaders, and judges were standing on either side of the ark, in front of the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Both resident foreigners and native Israelites were there.[ay] Half the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and the other half in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the Lord’s servant had previously instructed them to do for the formal blessing ceremony.[az] 34 Then[ba] Joshua read aloud all the words of the law, including the blessings and the curses, just as they are written in the law scroll. 35 Joshua read aloud every commandment Moses had given[bb] before the whole assembly of Israel, including the women, children, and resident foreigners who lived among them.[bc]
Footnotes
- Joshua 8:1 tn Or perhaps “and don’t get discouraged!”
- Joshua 8:1 tn Heb “Take with you all the people of war and arise, go up against Ai!”
- Joshua 8:1 tn Heb “I have given into our hand.” The verbal form, a perfect, is probably best understood as a perfect of certitude, indicating the certainty of the action.
- Joshua 8:3 tn “And Joshua and all the people of war arose to go up [against] Ai.”
- Joshua 8:5 tn Heb “the people.”
- Joshua 8:6 tn Heb “come out after.”
- Joshua 8:7 tn Heb “from the ambush.”
- Joshua 8:7 tn Heb “take possession of.”
- Joshua 8:8 tn Heb “the city.”
- Joshua 8:8 tn Heb “I have commanded you.”
- Joshua 8:9 tn Or “the place of ambush.”
- Joshua 8:9 tn Heb “and they stayed between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai.”
- Joshua 8:9 tn Heb “in the midst of the people.”
- Joshua 8:10 tn Or “summoned, mustered.”
- Joshua 8:10 tn Heb “the people.”
- Joshua 8:10 tn Or “elders.”
- Joshua 8:10 tn Heb “went up.”
- Joshua 8:10 tn Heb “them” (referring to “the people” in the previous clause, which requires a plural pronoun). Since the translation used “army” in the previous clause, a singular pronoun (“it”) is required in English.
- Joshua 8:11 tn Heb “All the people of war who were with him went up and approached and came opposite the city.”
- Joshua 8:11 tn Heb “and the valley [was] between them and Ai.”
- Joshua 8:13 tn Some Hebrew mss read, “spent the night in.”
- Joshua 8:14 sn This probably refers to the hill country at the edge of the rift valley between Ai and Jericho. This part of the battle was probably engaged where Israel would have come up to the hill country out of the rift valley from Jericho, an ascent of about 4000 feet (with ups and downs) over ten miles.
- Joshua 8:14 tn Heb “did not know that an ambush for him was behind the city.”
- Joshua 8:16 tn Heb “All the people.”
- Joshua 8:16 tc Some textual witnesses read “the city.”
- Joshua 8:16 tn Or “were summoned”; or “were mustered.”
- Joshua 8:17 tc The LXX omits the words “or Bethel.”
- Joshua 8:17 tn Heb “who did not go out after Israel.”
- Joshua 8:18 tn Traditionally “spear,” but see HALOT 472 s.v. כִּידוֹן, which argues based upon evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls that this term refers to a curved sword of some type; note the definition “scimitar” given there.
- Joshua 8:18 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the city of Ai) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Joshua 8:19 tn Heb “and ran.”
- Joshua 8:20 tn Heb “and they saw, and look.” The Hebrew term הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) draws attention to the scene and invites the audience to view the events from the perspective of the men of Ai.
- Joshua 8:20 tn Heb “and there was not in them hands to flee here or there.” The Hebrew term יָדַיִם (yadayim, “hands”) is idiomatic for “strength.”
- Joshua 8:21 tn Heb “and that the smoke of the city ascended.”
- Joshua 8:22 tn Heb “and these went out from the city to meet them and they were for Israel in the middle, some on this side, and others on the other side.”
- Joshua 8:24 tn Heb “residents.”
- Joshua 8:24 tn Heb “in the field, in the wilderness in which they chased them.”
- Joshua 8:24 tc Heb “and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed.” The LXX omits the words, “and all of them fell by the edge of the sword.” They may represent a later scribal addition.
- Joshua 8:25 tn Heb “fell.”
- Joshua 8:26 tn Heb “Joshua did not draw back his hand which held out the curved sword until he had annihilated all the residents of Ai.”
- Joshua 8:27 tn Heb “message, word.”
- Joshua 8:28 tn Heb “and made it a permanent mound, a desolation, to this day.”
- Joshua 8:29 tn Heb “on a tree until evening.” The words “leaving him exposed” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
- Joshua 8:29 sn For the legal background of this action, see Deut 21:22-23.
- Joshua 8:29 tn Heb “to this day.”
- Joshua 8:31 tn Heb “as it is written in the scroll of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones on which no one had wielded iron.” The expression “whole stones” refers to stones in their natural condition, i.e., not carved or shaped artificially with tools (“wielded iron”).
- Joshua 8:31 tn Or “peace offerings.”
- Joshua 8:32 tn Heb “and he wrote there on the stones a duplicate of the law of Moses which he wrote before the sons of Israel.”
- Joshua 8:33 tn Heb “All Israel.”
- Joshua 8:33 tn Or “elders.”
- Joshua 8:33 tn Heb “like the resident foreigner, like the citizen.” The language is idiomatic, meaning that both groups were treated the same, at least in this instance.
- Joshua 8:33 tn Heb “as Moses, the Lord’s servant, commanded to bless the people, Israel, formerly.”sn Moses’ earlier instructions are found in Deut 11:29.
- Joshua 8:34 tn Or “afterward.”
- Joshua 8:35 tn Heb “There was not a word from all which Moses commanded that Joshua did not read aloud.”
- Joshua 8:35 tn Heb “walked in their midst.”
Joshua 8
Living Bible
8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid or discouraged; take the entire army and go to Ai, for it is now yours to conquer. I have given the king of Ai and all of his people to you. 2 You shall do to them as you did to Jericho and her king; but this time you may keep the loot and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3-4 Before the main army left for Ai, Joshua sent thirty thousand of his bravest troops to hide in ambush close behind the city, alert for action.
5 “This is the plan,” he explained to them. “When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away. 6 We will let them chase us until they have all left the city; for they will say, ‘The Israelis are running away again just as they did before!’ 7 Then you will jump up from your ambush and enter the city, for the Lord will give it to you. 8 Set the city on fire, as the Lord has commanded. You now have your instructions.”
9 So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai; but Joshua and the rest of the army remained in the camp at Jericho. 10 Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the elders of Israel, 11-13 and stopped at the edge of a valley north of the city. That night Joshua sent another five thousand men[a] to join the troops in ambush on the west side of the city. He himself spent the night in the valley.
14 The king of Ai, seeing the Israelis across the valley, went out early the next morning and attacked at the plain of the Arabah. But of course he didn’t realize that there was an ambush behind the city. 15 Joshua and the Israeli army fled across the wilderness as though badly beaten, 16 and all the soldiers in the city were called out to chase after them; so the city was left defenseless; 17 there was not a soldier left in Ai or Bethel, and the city gates were left wide open.
18 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Point your spear toward Ai, for I will give you the city.” Joshua did. 19 And when the men in ambush saw his signal, they jumped up and poured into the city and set it on fire. 20-21 When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the city was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. When Joshua and the troops who were with him saw the smoke, they knew that their men who had been in ambush were inside the city, so they turned upon their pursuers and began killing them. 22 Then the Israelis who were inside the city came out and began destroying the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in a trap and all of them died; not one man survived or escaped, 23 except for the king of Ai, who was captured and brought to Joshua.
24 When the army of Israel had finished slaughtering all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone left inside. 25 So the entire population of Ai, twelve thousand in all, was wiped out that day. 26 For Joshua kept his spear pointed toward Ai until the last person was dead. 27 Only the cattle and the loot were not destroyed, for the armies of Israel kept these for themselves. (The Lord had told Joshua they could.) 28 So Ai became a desolate mound of refuse, as it still is today.
29 Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening, but as the sun was going down, he took down the body and threw it in front of the city gate. There he piled a great heap of stones over it, which can still be seen.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel at Mount Ebal, 31 as Moses had commanded[b] in the book of his laws: “Make me an altar of boulders that have neither been broken nor carved,” the Lord had said concerning Mount Ebal. Then the priests offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings to the Lord on the altar. 32 And as the people of Israel watched, Joshua carved upon the stones of the altar each of the Ten Commandments.[c]
33 Then all the people of Israel—including the elders, officers, judges, and the foreigners living among them—divided into two groups, half of them standing at the foot of Mount Gerizim and half at the foot of Mount Ebal. Between them stood the priests with the Ark, ready to pronounce their blessing. (This was all done in accordance with the instructions given long before by Moses.) 34 Joshua then read to them all of the statements of blessing and curses that Moses had written in the book of God’s laws. 35 Every commandment Moses had ever given was read before the entire assembly, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among the Israelis.
Footnotes
- Joshua 8:11 another five thousand men. These were evidently additional to the thirty thousand men already hiding there. Perhaps the additional five thousand were to intercept the forces expected from Bethel (v. 17).
- Joshua 8:31 as Moses had commanded, see Deuteronomy 27:2-8.
- Joshua 8:32 each of the Ten Commandments, literally, “the law of Moses.”
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