Joshua 8:9

8:3-22 Observe Joshua's conduct and prudence. Those that would maintain their spiritual conflicts must not love their ease. Probably he went into the valley alone, to pray to God for a blessing, and he did not seek in vain. He never drew back till the work was done. Those that have stretched out their hands against their spiritual enemies, must never draw them back.

Joshua therefore sent them forth,.... The thirty thousand chosen men: and they went to lie in ambush; as they were ordered, Joshua 8:2, and abode between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; for as Ai was on the east of Bethel, Joshua 7:2. Bethel must be on the west of Ai, as Jarchi notes: but Joshua lodged that night among the people; the main body of the army, to direct them in the affair of war, how they should behave the next day, when they came to fight; and to inspire them with courage and confidence, that they might not be afraid, because of their having been smitten before by this people, so Ben Gersom; or rather that he and they might be ready in the morning to march towards Ai, as Jarchi and Kimchi.

(9) They went to lie in ambush. —Or, they went to the lurking-place; and remained between Bethel and Ai. The ambush itself ( Joshua 8:2 ; Joshua 8:7 ; Joshua 8:19 ; Joshua 8:21 ) is described by a slightly different word. Among the people—i.e., at Gilgal. 10) Joshua . . . numbered.—Or, rather, mustered the people. He then went up with the elders of Israel at the head of the main body, and made an imposing demonstration with a large force in front of the town.

9. between Beth-el and Ai—Beth-el, though lying quite near in the direction of west by north, cannot be seen from Tell-el-hajar; two rocky heights rise between both places, in the wady El-Murogede, just as the laying of an ambush to the west of Ai would require [Van De Velde; Robinson].

Thirty thousand men - comparing Joshua 8:3 and Joshua 8:12 ("five thousand men"), there is probably a mistake in the numbers of this verse, where an early copyist may have written the sign for 30,000 instead of that for 5,000. Sent them away by night - The selected 5,000 would accordingly post themselves in the main ravine between Ai and Bethel in the night and early morning. The neighhorhood in which Ai was situated is described as "a wild entanglement of hill and valley;" and amidst its recesses the detachment could easily shelter itself from observation until Joshua's other measures were taken.

Accordingly Joshua set out with all the people of war against Ai, and selected 30,000 brave men, and sent them out in the night, with instructions to station themselves as an ambuscade behind the town, and at no great distance from it. As the distance from Gilgal to Ai was about fifteen miles, and the road runs pretty straight in a north-westerly direction from Jericho through the Wady Faran, the detachment sent forward might easily accomplish the distance in a night, so as to arrive on the western side of Ai before the break of day. They were then to hold themselves in readiness to fight. He (Joshua) himself would approach the town with the people of war that remained with him; and if the inhabitants of Ai should come out against him as they did before, they would flee before them till they had drawn them quite away from their town ( Joshua 8:5 ). This was to be expected; "for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: and we will flee before them" ( Joshua 8:6 ). When this was done, the warriors were to come forth from their ambush, fall upon the town, and set it on fire ( Joshua 8:7 , Joshua 8:8 ).

Having been sent away with these instructions, the 30,000 men went into ambush, and posted themselves "between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai" ( Joshua 8:9 ), i.e., according to Strauss, in the Wady es Suweinit, to the north-west of Ai, where it forms almost a perpendicular wall, near to which the ruins of Chai are to be found, though "not near enough to the rocky wady for it to be possible to look down its almost perpendicular wall" (Ritter, Erdk. xvi. p. 528). Joshua remained for the night in the midst of the people, i.e., in the camp of that portion of the army that had gone with him towards Ai; not in Gilgal, as Knobel supposes.

3 . The Covenant : esp., and probably first, in Dt. and Deuteronomic writers (cf. above, p. 175): Exodus 34:28 (?; see the note); Deuteronomy 4:13 ‘his covenant’ (cf. 23, Exodus 5:2-3 ); and in the expressions, ‘the tables of the covenant ,’ Deuteronomy 9:9 ; Deuteronomy 9:11 ; Deuteronomy 9:15 , 1 Kings 8:9 LXX. (see Skinner); and ‘the ark of the covenant (of Jehovah),’ Deuteronomy 10:8 ; Deuteronomy 31:9 ; Deuteronomy 31:25-26 ; Joshua 3:3 ; Joshua 3:6 ; Joshua 3:8 ; Joshua 3:11 ; Joshua 3:14 ; Joshua 3:17 ; Joshua 4:7 ; Joshua 4:9 ; Joshua 4:18 ; Joshua 6:6 ; Joshua 6:8 ; Joshua 8:33 (all JE or D2[173]); Numbers 10:33 ; Numbers 14:44 (both JE); Jdg 20:27 ; 1 Samuel 4:3-5 , 2 Samuel 15:14 ; 1 Kings 3:15 ; 1 Kings 6:19 ; 1 Kings 8:1 ; 1 Kings 8:6 ; and several times in Chr. (In the occurrences in JE and other pre-Deuteronomic writers, ‘the covenant of’ is probably the addition of a redactor or scribe familiar with the Deut. expression1[174].) [173] Deuteronomic passages in Josh., Jud., Kings. [174] This supposition is not arbitrary: because—at least as far as we know—until Dt. was written, the conditions for calling the ark the ‘ark of the Covenant’ did not exist: no covenant is concluded on the basis of the Decalogue in Ex.; this is first and to have been done in Dt. (cf. Chapman, Introd. to the Pent. p. 113 f.). 3 . The first commandment, against polytheism.

31 . The effects of the great deliverance thus wrought for Israel: an increased fear of God, and belief in God, and also in Moses’ Divine commission. work ] Heb. hand , fig. for act or work ; cf. Deuteronomy 34:12 , Psalm 78:42 . believed in ] ‘The idiom rendered “he believed in” ( האמין ב ) is a very striking one: the belief intended is, not merely a crediting of a testimony concerning a person or a thing (this would be האמין ל ), but a laying firm hold morally on a person or a thing, without the help of any intermediate agency’ (Cheyne, s.v. Faith in EB. ). Cf. Genesis 15:6 . The root idea of האמין is to shew firmness or steadiness towards ( ל ) or on ( ב ) a person or a word: cf. Job 39:24 RVm., and the cognate subst. in ch. Exodus 17:12 ( Lex. ‘Moses’ hands were firmness ’). his servant ] A title applied to Moses elsewhere in the Pent. only Numbers 12:7-8 , Deuteronomy 34:5 (both JE). It is very common in the book of Joshua (mostly in parts which are the work of the Deuteronomic editor): Joshua 1:1-2 ; Joshua 1:7 ; Joshua 1:13 ; Joshua 1:15 , Joshua 8:31; Jos 8:33 , Joshua 9:24 , Joshua 11:12; Jos 11:15 , Joshua 12:6 , Joshua 13:8 , Joshua 14:7 , Joshua 18:7 , Joshua 22:2 ; Joshua 22:4-5 .