2 And thou shalt do to Ai and to its king as thou didst to Jericho and to its king; only, the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall ye take as prey for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city behind it.
only the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that shall be in the city, all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take as booty for thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children; but the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous [man].
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city; both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; and they were before Judah, and the ambush behind them.
Lift up a banner towards the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Jehovah hath both devised and done that which he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
[As] the partridge sitteth on [eggs] it hath not laid, [so] is he that getteth riches and not by right: in the midst of his days shall he leave them, and at his end shall be a fool.
Verily, man walketh in a vain show; verily they are disquieted in vain; he heapeth up [riches], and knoweth not who shall gather them.
Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay; He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on; and the innocent shall divide the silver.
So Israel set men in ambush round about Gib'e-ah. And the people of Israel went up against the Benjaminites on the third day, and set themselves in array against Gib'e-ah, as at other times. And the Benjaminites went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and as at other times they began to smite and kill some of the people, in the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gib'e-ah, and in the open country, about thirty men of Israel. And the Benjaminites said, "They are routed before us, as at the first." But the men of Israel said, "Let us flee, and draw them away from the city to the highways." And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Ba'al-ta'mar; and the men of Israel who were in ambush rushed out of their place west of Geba.
And Joshua took Makkedah on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, him and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed; he let none remain; and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
And it came to pass when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it, that he had done to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them,
Only, the cattle and the spoil of the city Israel took as prey to themselves, according to the word of Jehovah which he had commanded Joshua. And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an everlasting heap of desolation to this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the evening; and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his carcase down from the tree, and threw it down at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised upon it a great heap of stones, [which remains] to this day.
And it came to pass when Israel had ended slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they had chased them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.
And it came to pass when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hasted and rose early, and went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the appointed place before the plain. But he knew not that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
Now he had taken about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west of the city.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joshua 8
Commentary on Joshua 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
The embarrassment which Achan's sin gave to the affairs of Israel being over, we have them here in a very good posture again, the affairs both of war and religion. Here is,
Jos 8:1-2
Israel were very happy in having such a commander as Joshua, but Joshua was more happy in having such a director as God himself; when any difficulty occurred, he needed not to call a council of war who had God so nigh unto him, not only to answer, but even to anticipate, his enquiries. It should seem, Joshua was now at a stand, had scarcely recovered the discomposure he was put into by the trouble Achan gave them, and could not think, without fear and trembling, of pushing forward, lest there should be in the camp another Achan; then God spoke to him, either by vision, as before (ch. 5), or by the breastplate of judgment. Note, When we have faithfully put away sin, that accursed thing, which separates between us and God, then, and not till then, we may expect to hear from God to our comfort; and God's directing us how to go on in our Christian work and warfare is a good evidence of his being reconciled to us. Observe here,
Jos 8:3-22
We have here an account of the taking of Ai by stratagem. The stratagem here used, we are sure, was lawful and good; God himself appointed it, and we have no reason to think but that the like is lawful and good in other wars. Here was no league broken, no treaty of peace, that the advantage was gained; no, these are sacred things, and not to be jested with, nor used to serve a turn; truth, when once it is plighted, becomes a debt even to the enemy. But in this stratagem here was no untruth told; nothing was concealed but their own counsels, which no enemy ever pretended a right to be entrusted with; nothing was dissembled, nothing counterfeited but a retreat, which was no natural or necessary indication at all of their inability to maintain their onset, or of any design not to renew it. The enemy ought to have been upon their guard, and to have kept within the defence of their own walls. Common prudence, had they been governed by it, would have directed them not to venture on the pursuit of an army which they saw was so far superior to them in numbers, and leave their city unguarded; but (si populus vult decipi, decipiatur-if the people will be deceived, let them) if the Canaanites will be so easily imposed upon, and in pursuit of God's Israel will break through all the laws of policy and good management, the Israelites are not at all to be blamed for taking advantage of their fury and thoughtlessness; nor is it any way inconsistent with the character God is pleased to give of them, that they are children that will not lie. Now in the account here given of this matter,
Jos 8:23-29
We have here an account of the improvement which the Israelites made of their victory over Ai.
Jos 8:30-35
This religious solemnity of which we have here an account comes in somewhat surprisingly in the midst of the history of the wars of Canaan. After the taking of Jericho and Ai, we should have expected that the next news would be of their taking possession of the country, the pushing on of their victories in other cities, and the carrying of the war into the bowels of the nation, now that they had made themselves masters of these frontier towns. But here a scene opens of quite another nature; the camp of Israel is drawn out into the field, not to engage the enemy, but to offer sacrifice, to hear the law read, and to say Amen to the blessings and the curses. Some think this was not done till after some of the following victories were obtained which were read of, ch. 10 and 11. But it should seem by the maps that Shechem (near to which these two mountains Gerizim and Ebal were) was not so far off from Ai but that when they had taken that they might penetrate into the country as far as those two mountains, and therefore I would not willingly admit a transposition of the story; and the rather because, as it comes in here, it is a remarkable instance,
Twice Moses had given express orders for this solemnity; once Deu. 11:29, 30, where he seems to have pointed to the very place where it was to be performed; and again Deu. 27:2, etc. It was a federal transaction: the covenant was now renewed between God and Israel upon their taking possession of the land of promise, that they might be encouraged in the conquest of it, and might know upon what terms they held it, and come under fresh obligations to obedience. In token of the covenant,