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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

  1. Joshua 8:1 tn Or perhaps “and don’t get discouraged!”
  2. Joshua 8:1 tn Heb “Take with you all the people of war and arise, go up against Ai!”
  3. 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.
  4. Joshua 8:3 tn “And Joshua and all the people of war arose to go up [against] Ai.”
  5. Joshua 8:5 tn Heb “the people.”
  6. Joshua 8:6 tn Heb “come out after.”
  7. Joshua 8:7 tn Heb “from the ambush.”
  8. Joshua 8:7 tn Heb “take possession of.”
  9. Joshua 8:8 tn Heb “the city.”
  10. Joshua 8:8 tn Heb “I have commanded you.”
  11. Joshua 8:9 tn Or “the place of ambush.”
  12. Joshua 8:9 tn Heb “and they stayed between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai.”
  13. Joshua 8:9 tn Heb “in the midst of the people.”
  14. Joshua 8:10 tn Or “summoned, mustered.”
  15. Joshua 8:10 tn Heb “the people.”
  16. Joshua 8:10 tn Or “elders.”
  17. Joshua 8:10 tn Heb “went up.”
  18. 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.
  19. Joshua 8:11 tn Heb “All the people of war who were with him went up and approached and came opposite the city.”
  20. Joshua 8:11 tn Heb “and the valley [was] between them and Ai.”
  21. Joshua 8:13 tn Some Hebrew mss read, “spent the night in.”
  22. 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.
  23. Joshua 8:14 tn Heb “did not know that an ambush for him was behind the city.”
  24. Joshua 8:16 tn Heb “All the people.”
  25. Joshua 8:16 tc Some textual witnesses read “the city.”
  26. Joshua 8:16 tn Or “were summoned”; or “were mustered.”
  27. Joshua 8:17 tc The LXX omits the words “or Bethel.”
  28. Joshua 8:17 tn Heb “who did not go out after Israel.”
  29. 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.
  30. Joshua 8:18 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the city of Ai) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  31. Joshua 8:19 tn Heb “and ran.”
  32. 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.
  33. 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.”
  34. Joshua 8:21 tn Heb “and that the smoke of the city ascended.”
  35. 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.”
  36. Joshua 8:24 tn Heb “residents.”
  37. Joshua 8:24 tn Heb “in the field, in the wilderness in which they chased them.”
  38. 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.
  39. Joshua 8:25 tn Heb “fell.”
  40. 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.”
  41. Joshua 8:27 tn Heb “message, word.”
  42. Joshua 8:28 tn Heb “and made it a permanent mound, a desolation, to this day.”
  43. Joshua 8:29 tn Heb “on a tree until evening.” The words “leaving him exposed” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
  44. Joshua 8:29 sn For the legal background of this action, see Deut 21:22-23.
  45. Joshua 8:29 tn Heb “to this day.”
  46. 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”).
  47. Joshua 8:31 tn Or “peace offerings.”
  48. 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.”
  49. Joshua 8:33 tn Heb “All Israel.”
  50. Joshua 8:33 tn Or “elders.”
  51. 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.
  52. 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.
  53. Joshua 8:34 tn Or “afterward.”
  54. Joshua 8:35 tn Heb “There was not a word from all which Moses commanded that Joshua did not read aloud.”
  55. Joshua 8:35 tn Heb “walked in their midst.”
Close LSB

Joshua 8
Legacy Standard Bible

Ai Given to Israel

8 Now Yahweh said to Joshua, “(A)Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, (B)I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. 2 So you shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king; you shall (C)take only its spoil and its cattle as plunder for yourselves. [a]Set an ambush for the city behind it.”

3 So Joshua rose with all the people of war to go up to Ai; and Joshua chose 30,000 men, valiant warriors, and sent them out at night. 4 And he commanded them, saying, “See, you are (D)going to ambush the city from behind [b]it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. 5 Then I and all the people who are with me will come near the city. And it will be that when they come out to meet us as at the first, (E)we will flee before them. 6 And they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before us as at the first.’ So we will flee before them. 7 And you shall rise from your ambush and take possession of the city, for Yahweh your God will give it into your hand. 8 Then it will be that when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do it (F)according to the word of Yahweh. See, I have commanded you.” 9 So Joshua sent them away, and they went to the place of ambush and remained between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua spent that night among the people.

10 Now Joshua (G)rose early in the morning and mustered the people, and he went up with the elders of Israel before the people to Ai. 11 Then all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and arrived in front of the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between him and Ai. 12 And he took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between (H)Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the [c]city. 13 So they set the people, all the army that was on the north side of the city, and its rear guard on the west side of the city, and Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. 14 Now it happened that when the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried and rose up early and went out to meet Israel in battle, he and all his people at the appointed place before the desert plain. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. 15 And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled (I)by the way of the wilderness. 16 And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and (J)were drawn away from the city. 17 So not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who had not gone out after Israel, and they forsook the city, leaving it open, and pursued Israel.

18 Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “(K)Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” So Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19 Then the men in ambush rose quickly from their place, and when he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it, and they quickly set the city on fire. 20 Then the men of Ai turned [d]back and looked, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended to the sky, and they had no place to flee this way or that, for the people who had been fleeing to the wilderness turned against the pursuers. 21 But Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city ascended. So they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. 22 [e]And the others came out from the city to meet them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, [f]some on this side and some on that side; and they struck them down until [g]there was (L)no one remaining for him who survived or escaped. 23 But they seized the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

24 Now it happened that when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were completely destroyed, then all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25 (M)So all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000—all the [h]people of Ai. 26 For Joshua (N)did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai. 27 (O)Israel took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which He had commanded Joshua. 28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it (P)a heap forever, a desolation until this day. 29 (Q)And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave a command, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day.

30 Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on (R)Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, (S)an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And he (T)wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which [i]he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel. 33 (U)And all Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, the sojourner as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of (V)Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had given a command at first to bless the people of Israel. 34 Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in (W)the book of the law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel (X)with the women and the little ones and the sojourners who were [j]going among them.

Footnotes

  1. Joshua 8:2 Lit Set for yourself
  2. Joshua 8:4 Lit the city
  3. Joshua 8:12 Ai
  4. Joshua 8:20 Lit behind them
  5. Joshua 8:22 Lit These came
  6. Joshua 8:22 Lit these...those
  7. Joshua 8:22 Lit he had no one
  8. Joshua 8:25 Lit men
  9. Joshua 8:32 Moses
  10. Joshua 8:35 Lit walking
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