Matthew Henry on Joshua 8:23-29
We have here an account of the improvement which the Israelites made of their victory over Ai. 1. They put all to the sword, not only in the field, but in the city, man, woman, and child, none of them remained, Jos 8:24. God, the righteous Judge, had passed this sentence upon them for their wickedness, so that the Israelites were only the ministers of his justice and the executioners of his doom. Once in this story, and but once, mention is made of the men of Beth-el, as confederates with the men of Ai, Jos 8:17. Though they had a king of their own, and were not subjects to the king of Ai (for the king of Beth-el is reckoned among the thirty-one kings that Joshua destroyed, Jos 12:16), yet A…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Joshua 8:24
all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword--the women, children, and old persons left behind, amounting, in all, to twelve thousand people [Jos 8:25].
Adam Clarke on Joshua 8:24
Returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. - This must refer to the women, children, and old persons, left behind; for it is likely that all the effective men had sallied out when they imagined the Israelites had fled. See Jos 8:16.
John Gill on Joshua 8:24
And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai,.... That came out against them:
in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them; both in the arable lands that were sown with corn, and now clothed with it, the wheat especially, not being gathered in, as not yet ripe, and in the pasture ground, designed by the wilderness, see Joshua 8:15; so Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it:
and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword; and were slain by it:
until they were consumed; and not one left:
that all the Israelites returned unto Ai; both the ambush that came out of it, and the army that came against it:
and smote it with the edge of the…
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