And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 20:14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; a…
Joshua 6:21 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 swo…
2 Chronicles 20:22 And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come aga…
Proverbs 13:22 A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.
Deuteronomy 3:2 And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him…
Joshua 8:7 Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.
Joshua 8:9 Joshua therefore sent them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodge…
Joshua 8:12 And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of the city.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joshua 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 (Jos 5:1-15), or by the breastplate of judgment. Note, When we have faithfully put away sin, that accursed thing,…
Fear not - The iniquity being now purged away, because of which God had turned his hand against Israel, there was now no cause to dread any other disaster, and therefore Joshua is ordered to take courage.
Take all the people of war with thee - From the letter of this verse it appears that all that were capable of carrying arms were to march out of the camp on this occasion: thirty thousand chosen men formed an ambuscade in one place; five thousand he placed in another, who had all gained their positions in the night season: with the rest of the army he appeared the next morning before Ai, which the men of that city would naturally suppose were the whole of the Israelitish forces; and consequ…
And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst to Jericho and her king,.... Burn the one and slay the other:
only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves; which they were not allowed to do at Jericho:
lay thee an ambush for the city behind it; at the west side of it: some have called in question the lawfulness of the ambush, but, as this was appointed by the Lord, there is no room for it.
John Calvin on Joshua 8:1-29
The Church Fathers
Because of what God commands Joshua, telling him to ambush behind the city, that is, ambush warriors to stalk enemies, we deduce that those who wage a just war do not act unjustly. And for that reason, a righteous man should not think about these matters any more important than making a just war, if it is lawful for him to do it. Because not everyone is lawful. If war is fair, it matters little to justice if it wins in open combat or by ambush. Fair wars are usually called those that come insults, in the event that a nation or a city, which must be attacked in war, has neglected to avenge what their own have done wrongfully or to return what has been taken away by means of insults. But without a doubt it is also just that war that God commands to do, he who has no iniquity (Cf Rm 9,14) and knows what should be given to each one. In this kind of war, the head of the army or the people themselves are not so much the author of the war as the servant of the war.
Inasmuch as God ordered Joshua to plant an ambush in their rear, that is, to plant warriors in hiding to ambush the enemy, we can learn that such treachery is not unjustly carried out by those who wage a just war. Thus, a just man, if he wishes to undertake a just war, ought to think chiefly in these matters about nothing else than whether it is right for him to do so, for it is not lawful for everyone to wage war. However, once he has undertaken a just war, it makes no difference to the justice of the war whether he wins in open warfare or by treachery. However, those just wars ought to be defined as those which avenge injuries, if the tribe or state which is about to be sought in war, either neglected to punish a crime improperly committed by its own countrymen or neglected to repay what had been lost through those injuries. Moreover, without doubt that type of war is just which God commands, since there is no iniquity in him and he knows what ought to be done to each person. In this type of war the general of the army or the people themselves are not to be deemed so much the instigator of the war as much as its agent.Joshua sent thirty thousand warriors to vanquish Ai.… We must consider whether every attempt at deception ought to be reckoned as a lie and, if so, whether a lie can be just, when someone who should be deceived is deceived. And if not even this kind of a lie is found to be just, we must still relate what transpired with the ambush to the truth with some other meaning.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ai — Ruins. (1.) One of the royal cities of the Canaanites (Josh. 10:1; Gen. 12:8; 13:3). It was the scene of Joshua’s defeat, and afterwards of his victory. It was the second Canaanite city taken by…
Heap — When Joshua took the city of Ai (Josh. 8), he burned it and “made it an heap [Heb. tel] for ever” (8:28). The ruins of this city were for a long time sought for in vain. It has been at length,…
War — The Israelites had to take possession of the Promised Land by conquest. They had to engage in a long and bloody war before the Canaanitish tribes were finally subdued. Except in the case of Jericho…
Ambush · .At Ai — .At Ai
Armies · Often surprised their enemies — Often surprised their enemies
Armies Of Israel, The · Directed in their movements by God — Directed in their movements by God
Communion · .Joshua — .Joshua
Jews, The · Strengthened by God in war — Strengthened by God in war
Sieges · Mentioned in scripture: Ai — Mentioned in scripture: Ai
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Joshua 8:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Joshua 8:1-29
1. And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land:
1. Dixitque Jehova ad Josuam, Netimeas, nec formides, sume tecum omnem populum bellicosum, et surge, ascende in Hai. Vide, dedi in manu tua regem Hai, ac populum ejus, urbem ejus, et terram ejus.
2. And thou shall do to Ai and her king as thou did unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall you take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.
2. Faciesque Hai, et regi ejus, quemadmodum feci…
Conquest and Burning of Ai. - Jos 8:1, Jos 8:2. After the ban which rested upon the people had been wiped away, the Lord encouraged Joshua to make war upon Ai, promising him that the city should be taken, and giving him instructions what to do to ensure the success of his undertaking. With evident allusion to Joshua's despair after the failure of the first attack, the Lord commences with these words, "Fear not, neither be thou dismayed" (as in Deu 1:21; Deu 31:8), and then commands him to go against Ai with all the people of war. By "all the people of war" we are hardly to understand all the men out of the whole nation who were capable of bearing arms; but as only a third of these were contr…
Unlike other ancient nations, who went to war to gain wealth, Israel served as God’s agent of judgment upon the Canaanites; the plunder and the livestock were incidental. • The strategy for capturing Ai was to plan an ambush. Joshua executed God’s simple instructions well. • behind the town: On its west side (8:12).
Rashi on Joshua 8:2
Take for yourselves as booty. You shall no longer consecrate the spoils.
