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Joshua 8

Israel takes Ai under YHWH’s command, then gathers to hear the law that governs its life before him.

YHWH commands Joshua to return to Ai with all Israel’s warriors and promises to give the city into his hand. Joshua sets an ambush, drawing Ai’s defenders away before Israel captures and burns the city. Its inhabitants are killed, and its king is hanged. After the battle, Joshua builds an altar on Mount Ebal, writes a copy of Moses’ law on stones, and reads its blessings and curses before the whole assembly, including children and foreigners.

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1The LORD said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid, and don’t be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, with his people, his city, and his land.
2You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king, except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.”
3So Joshua arose, with all the warriors, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night.
4He commanded them, saying, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don’t go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them.
6They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They flee before us, like the first time.’ So we will flee before them,
7and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.
8It shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do this according to the LORD’s word. Behold, I have commanded you.”
9Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai; but Joshua stayed among the people that night.
10Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
12He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
15Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
16All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
17There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel.
18The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
20When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.
22The others came out of the city against them, so they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. They struck them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.
23They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
24When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.
27Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he commanded Joshua.
28So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.
29He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening. At sundown, Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day.
30Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
31as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings.
32He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
33All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.
34Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
35There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them.
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Key verses
Joshua 8:1YHWH addresses Joshua’s fear and grounds the renewed attack on Ai in his promise to give Israel the city.
Joshua 8:2God specifies both the ambush and the permitted plunder, distinguishing this conquest from Jericho while retaining its sentence of destruction.
Joshua 8:29The king’s death and burial beneath stones mark Ai’s defeat, while the removal of his body at sundown follows covenant law.
Where this chapter reaches

Deuteronomy supplies the commands for the ceremony at Ebal and Gerizim and for removing a hanged body before nightfall; Exodus shares the requirement for an altar of uncut stones. Nehemiah also records a public reading of Moses’ law before a gathered assembly.

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After reading the whole chapter

What questions arise as you read the destruction of Ai alongside the public reading of the law?

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What stands out about the children and foreigners hearing every word alongside Israel’s leaders?

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Questions people ask about Joshua 8

Why did Joshua destroy Ai and kill its inhabitants?

The chapter presents Ai’s destruction as the execution of YHWH’s command, with the same treatment prescribed for Jericho. It records the deaths of twelve thousand men and women without describing their individual conduct. This is a specific conquest command to Israel; it provides no general authorization for religious violence.

Why was the king of Ai taken down from the tree at sunset?

Joshua orders the king’s body removed at sundown and placed beneath a heap of stones at the city gate. This follows the rule in Deuteronomy that a body hung on a tree must not remain there overnight. The chapter does not specify whether hanging caused the king’s death or displayed his corpse.

Why did Joshua build an altar on Mount Ebal?

Joshua builds the altar there because Moses had commanded this covenant ceremony, as recorded in Deuteronomy. The altar uses uncut stones, and Israel offers burnt offerings and peace offerings. Joshua then writes Moses’ law on stones and reads its blessings and curses before the whole assembly, including children and foreigners.

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Joshua · 24 chapters
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).