Joshua 8:28

8:23-29 God, the righteous Judge, had sentenced the Canaanites for their wickedness; the Israelites only executed his doom. None of their conduct can be drawn into an example for others. Especial reason no doubt there was for this severity to the king of Ai; it is likely he had been notoriously wicked and vile, and a blasphemer of the God of Israel.

And Joshua burnt Ai,.... The whole city, fire being only set before to a few houses, to make a smoke as a signal; he did with it as he had done with Jericho, for so he was ordered, Joshua 8:2 , and made it an heap for ever; that is, for a long time, for it appears to have been rebuilt, and to have been inhabited by the Jews, after their return from their Babylonish captivity, Nehemiah 11:31, even a desolation unto this day; to the time of the writing of this book; and by what has been just observed, it appears that Ezra could not be the writer of it, since this city was inhabited in his time.

28 . a heap ] “an everlasting toumbe,” Wyclif. Heb. a “ Tel ,” always with the article, The Tel , or Heap . “For a long time modern explorers in vain sought for the site of Ai, where they knew it must have stood. “The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages,” writes Canon Williams, “declared repeatedly and emphatically that this was Tel and nothing else. I was satisfied that it should be so when, on subsequent reference to the original text of Joshua 8:28 , I found it written that ‘Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a Tel for ever, even a desolation unto this day.’ There are many Tels in modern Palestine, that land of Tels , even Tel with some other name attached to it to mark the former site. But the site of Ai has no other name ‘unto this day.’ It is simply et-Tel = the Heap , ‘par excellence’.”

No doubt Joshua had ascended the heights, most likely those to the north of the valley, so as to separate himself from the flying Israelites on the lower ground, and to be visible to the men in ambush behind the city. He now, at the command of God, gives the appointed signal to the ambush.

Verse 28. - And Joshua burnt Ai. He continued the work of destruction which the ambush had begun, until the city was entirely destroyed. The word in ver. 19 ( שׂרפ ) has rather the sense of kindling a fire; the word here ( יצת ), more the sense of destruction by fire. A heap forever. טֵל־עולָם a heap of eternity; i.e. , a heap forever, at least up to the time of our writer. But the Ai mentioned in Ezra 2:28 may have been a city built, not on precisely the same spot, but near enough to it to take its name. And if Ai signifies ruins, and Dean Stanley be right in regarding it as referring to ruins in the days of the Philistines, the name would be particularly suitable to this particular city. Travellers have identified the place with Tel-el. Hajar, immediately to the south of the Wady Mutyah. But see note on ch. 7:2 for Robinson's conclusion, which is confirmed by Canon Tristram, from the belief that Tel-el-Hajar does not answer to the description of Ai in the Scripture narrative. Hanged on a tree. Literally, "on the tree." Perhaps after his death, But see Genesis 40:22 ; Deuteronomy 21:22 . Until eventide. We find here a remarkable coincidence with the precept in Deuteronomy 21:23 . The fact that no notice is here taken of that passage is conclusive against its having been inserted with a view to that precept in later times, and this affords a strong presumption against the Elohist and Jehovist theory. Heap.

[Bible] 8:21. So Josue, and all Israel, seeing that the city was taken, and that the smoke of the city rose up, returned, and slew the men of Hai. 8:22. And they also that had taken and set the city on fire, issuing out of the city to meet their own men, began to cut off the enemies who were surrounded by them. So that the enemies being cut off on both sides, not one of so great a multitude was saved. 8:23. And they took the king of the city of Hai alive and brought him to Josue. 8:24. So all being slain that had pursued after Israel, in his flight to the wilderness, and falling by the sword in the same place, the children of Israel returned and laid waste the city. 8:25. And the number of them that fell that day, both of men and women, was twelve thousand persons, all of the city of Hai. 8:26. But Josue drew not back his hand, which he had stretched out on high, holding the shield, till all the inhabitants of Hai were slain. 8:27. And the children of Israel divided among them, the cattle and the prey of the city, as the Lord had commanded Josue. 8:28. And he burnt the city, and made it a heap forever: 8:29. And he hung the king thereof on a gibbet, until the evening and the going down of the sun. Then Josue commanded, and they took down his carcass from the gibbet: and threw it in the very entrance of the city, heaping upon it a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this present day. 8:30. Then Josue built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Hebal, 8:31. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, and it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of unhewn stones, which iron had not touched: and he offered upon it holocausts to the Lord, and immolated victims of peace offerings. 8:32. And he wrote upon stones, the Deuteronomy of the law of Moses, which he had ordered before the children of Israel.