Joshua 8: Ai is taken, and the law is read at Mount Ebal

In plain English: Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid, and do not lose heart (this Bible: be dismayed). Take all the fighting men with you, and get up and go up to Ai. See, I have given the king of Ai into your hand, with his people, his city, and his land.

In plain English: Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may take its goods (literally: its plunder) and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city."

Good to know: At Jericho everything was devoted, and the silver and gold went into the treasury of Yahweh's house (6:19 and 6:24). Here Yahweh lets Israel keep the goods and the livestock of Ai (see also verse 27).

In plain English: So Joshua and all the fighting men got up to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, brave warriors (this Bible: mighty men of valor), and sent them out by night.

In plain English: He commanded them, "Listen. You are to lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.

In plain English: I and all the people with me will come near the city. When they come out against us, as they did the first time, we will run from them.

In plain English: They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, because they will say, 'They are running from us, as they did the first time.' So we will run from them,

In plain English: and you are to rise up out of the ambush and take the city, because Yahweh your God will give it into your hand.

In plain English: When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do as Yahweh has said (literally: by the word of Yahweh). See, I have commanded you."

In plain English: Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people.

In plain English: Joshua got up early in the morning and called up (this Bible: mustered) the people. He and the elders of Israel went up ahead of the people to Ai.

In plain English: All the fighting men who were with him went up and came near, arrived in front of the city, and camped on the north side of Ai. There was a valley between him and Ai.

In plain English: He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.

Good to know: Verse 3 says Joshua chose thirty thousand men and sent them out by night to lie in ambush, and here he sets about five thousand men in ambush in the same place, between Bethel and Ai. The text does not say how the two numbers fit together. Some readers take them as two groups, and others as the same ambush told twice.

In plain English: So they set the people in place: the whole army (literally: the whole camp) on the north of the city, and its rear (this Bible: their ambush) on the west of the city. That night Joshua went into the middle of the valley.

In plain English: When the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried, got up early, and went out to meet Israel in battle, he and all his people, at the set place (this Bible: at the time appointed) facing the Arabah. But he did not know there was an ambush against him behind the city.

The Hebrew word: "At the time appointed" is mo'ed, which the dictionary gives as "properly, an appointment, i.e. a fixed time or season", and also "the place of meeting". So the verse can be read as a set time or a set place.

In plain English: Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten (this Bible: made as if they were beaten) before them, and ran away by the road to the wilderness.

In plain English: All the people in Ai (this Bible: in the city) were called together to chase them. They chased Joshua and were drawn away from the city.

In plain English: Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and chased Israel.

In plain English: Yahweh said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin in your hand toward Ai, because I will give it into your hand." Joshua stretched out the javelin in his hand toward the city.

In plain English: As soon as he stretched out his hand, the men in ambush got up quickly from their place and ran. They went into the city, took it, and quickly set it on fire.

In plain English: When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw the smoke of the city going up to the sky. They had no power (literally: no hands) to run this way or that way, and the people who had been running toward the wilderness turned back on those chasing them.

In plain English: When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the city's smoke was going up, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai.

In plain English: The others came out of the city against them, so the men of Ai were caught in the middle of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. Israel struck them down until not one of them was left alive or got away.

In plain English: They caught the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

In plain English: When Israel had finished killing all the people of Ai in the open field and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and all of them had fallen by the sword (literally: by the mouth of the sword) until they were wiped out, all Israel went back to Ai and struck it with the sword.

In plain English: All who fell that day, men and women, were twelve thousand: all the people of Ai.

In plain English: Joshua did not pull back the hand in which he held out the javelin until he had completely destroyed (this Bible: utterly destroyed) all the people of Ai.

Good to know: "Utterly destroyed" is charam, the word explained in the note on Deuteronomy 2:34; it was used of Jericho in 6:21. Verses 24 to 26 say plainly what was done at Ai: twelve thousand men and women were killed. It is the war law of that time as the text records it (Deuteronomy 20:16 and 20:17), and Jewish and Christian readers differ on how to read it now.

In plain English: Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, by the word Yahweh had commanded Joshua.

In plain English: So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap (a mound) forever, a ruin (this Bible: a desolation), as it is to this day.

The Hebrew word: "Heap" is tel, which the dictionary gives as "a mound". This Bible says "heap" or a longer form in 3 of the 5 verses that use it. "A heap forever" is the same Hebrew as in Deuteronomy 13:16, said of a city that is never to be built again.

In plain English: He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. At sunset Joshua gave the order, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate. They piled a great heap of stones over it, which is there to this day.

Good to know: Deuteronomy 21:22 and 21:23 say that the body of a man hanged on a tree must not stay there all night, "for he who is hanged is accursed of God". Here Joshua has the body taken down at sunset. Galatians 3:13 takes up this law when it speaks of Christ: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."

In plain English: Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,

Good to know: Moses had commanded this in Deuteronomy 27:2 to 8: once over the Jordan, Israel was to set up great stones coated with plaster on Mount Ebal and write all the words of the law on them, and to build there an altar of uncut stones with no iron tool. Exodus 20:25 also forbids an altar of cut stones. The blessing and the curse on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal were first commanded in Deuteronomy 11:29.

In plain English: as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the Israelites, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of whole (this Bible: uncut) stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron. On it they offered burnt offerings to Yahweh and sacrificed peace offerings.

In plain English: There, on the stones, he wrote a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote (or: which Moses had written) in front of the Israelites.

The Hebrew word: "A copy" is mishneh, the word in "a copy of this law" for the king in Deuteronomy 17:18 (see the note there).

Good to know: The verse says only "on the stones". The text does not say whether these are the stones of the altar or the great plastered stones of Deuteronomy 27:2 to 4. "Which he wrote" can be read of Joshua writing it there, or of Moses, who first wrote the law.

In plain English: All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark, facing the Levite priests who carried the ark of Yahweh's covenant, the foreigner as well as the one born in Israel. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel (or: had commanded, that they should bless the people of Israel first).

Good to know: Deuteronomy 27:12 and 27:13 name the six tribes that were to stand on Mount Gerizim to bless and the six on Mount Ebal for the curse. Deuteronomy 31:12 names the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners as those who are to hear the law read, as here in verses 33 and 35.

In plain English: After that he read out all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, just as it is all written in the book of the law.

In plain English: There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read out before the whole assembly of Israel, with the women, the little children, and the foreigners who lived (literally: walked) among them.