Joshua 8, 9
8 THE LORD SAID TO JOSHUA, 'Do not be fearful or dismayed; take the
whole army and attack Ai. I deliver the king of Ai into your hands, him
and his people, his city and his country. Deal with Ai and her king as you
dealt with Jericho and her king; but you may keep for yourself the cattle
and any other spoil that you may take. Set an ambush for the city to the
west of it.' So Joshua and all the army prepared for the assault on Ai. He
chose thirty thousand fighting men and dispatched them by night, with
these orders: 'Lie in ambush to the west of the city, not far from it, and all
of you hold yourselves in readiness. I myself will approach the city with
the rest of the army, and when the enemy comes out to meet us as they did
last time, we shall take to flight before them. Then they will come out and
pursue us until we have drawn them away from the city, not far from it, and all
have taken flight as we did last time. While we are in flight, come out
from your ambush and occupy the city; the Lord your God will deliver it
into your hands. When you have taken it, set it on fire. Thus you will do
what the Lord commands. These are your orders.' So Joshua sent them
off, and they went to the place of ambush and waited between Bethel and
Ai to the west of Ai, while Joshua spent the night with the army.
Early in the morning Joshua rose, mustered the army and marched
against Ai, he himself and the elders of Israel at its head. All the armed
forces with him marched on until they came within sight of the city. They
encamped north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city; but
Joshua took some five hundred men and set them in ambush between
Bethel and Ai to the west of the city. When the king of Ai saw them, he
and the citizens rose with all speed that morning and marched out to do
battle against Israel; he did not know that there was an ambush set for him
to the west of the city. Joshua and all the Israelites made as if they were
routed by them and fled towards the wilderness, and all the people in the
city were called out in pursuit. So they pursued Joshua and were drawn
away from the city. Not a man was left in Ai; they had all gone out
in pursuit of the Israelites and during the pursuit had left the city
undefended.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'Point towards Ai with the dagger you
are holding, for I will deliver the city into your hands.' So Joshua pointed
with his dagger towards Ai. At his signal, the men in ambush rose quickly
from their places and, entering the city at a run, took it and promptly set fire
to it. The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke from the city already
going up to the sky; they were powerless to make their escape in any direc-
tion, and the Israelites who had feigned flight towards the wilderness turned
on their pursuers. For when Joshua and all the Israelites saw that the
ambush had seized the city and that smoke was already going up from it,
they turned and fell upon the men of Ai. Those who had come out to meet
the Israelites were now hemmed in with Israelites on both sides of them,
and the Israelites cut them down until there was not a single survivor, nor
had any escaped. The king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.
When the Israelites had cut down to the last man all the citizens of Ai who
were in the open country or in the wilderness to which they had pursued
them, and the massacre was complete, they turned back to Ai and put it
to the sword. The number who were killed that day, men and women, was
twelve thousand, the whole population of Ai. Joshua held out his dagger
and did not draw back his hand until he had put to death all who lived in
Ai; but the Israelites kept for themselves the cattle and any other spoils that
they took, following the word of the Lord spoken to Joshua. So Joshua
burnt Ai to the ground, and left it the desolate ruined mound it remains to
this day. He hanged the king of Ai on a tree and left him there till sunset;
and when the sun had set, he gave the order and they cut him down and
flung down his body at the entrance of the city gate. Over the body they
raised a great pile of stones, which is there to this day.
At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord the God of Israel on Mount
Ebal. The altar was of blocks of undressed stone on which no tool of iron
had been used, following the commands given to the Israelites by Moses the
servant of the Lord, as is described in the book of the law of Moses. At the
altar they offered whole-offerings to the Lord, and slaughtered shared-
offerings. There in the presence of the Israelites he engraved on blocks of
stone a copy of the law of Moses. And all Israel, elders, officials, and judges,
took their stand on either side of the Ark, facing the levitical priests who
carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord — all Israel, native and alien
alike. Half of them stood facing Mount Gerizim and half facing Mount
Ebal, to fulfill the command of Moses the servant of the Lord that the
blessing should be pronounced first. Then Joshua recited the whole of the
blessing and the cursing word by word, as they are written in the book of
the law. There was not a single word of all that Moses had commanded
which he did not read aloud before the whole congregation of Israel,
including the women and dependants and the aliens resident in their
company.
9 When the news of these happenings reached all the kings west of the
Jordan, in the hill-country, the Shephelah, and all the coast of the Great
Sea running up to the Lebanon, the kings of the Hittites, Amorites,
Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites agreed to join forces and
fight against Joshua and Israel.
When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard how Joshua had dealt with
Jericho and Ai, they adopted a ruse of their own. They went and disguised
themselves, with old sacking for their asses, old wine-skins split and
mended, old and patched sandals for their feet, old clothing to wear, and by
way of provision nothing but dry and mouldy bread. They came to Joshua
in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the Israelites, 'We have come from
a distant country to ask you now to grant us a treaty.' The Israelites said to
the Hivites, 'But maybe you live in our neighbourhood: if so, how can we
grant you a treaty?' They said to Joshua, 'We are your slaves.' Joshua asked
them who they were and where they came from. 'Sir,' they replied, 'our
country is very far away, and we have come because of the renown of the
Lord your God. We have heard of his fame, of all that he did to Egypt,
and to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon king of Heshbon
and Og king of Bashan who live in Ashtaroth. Our elders and all the
people of our country told us to take provisions for the journey and come
to meet you, and say, 'We are your slaves; please grant us a treaty." Look
at our bread; it was hot from the oven when we packed it at home on the
day we came away. Now it is dry and mouldy. Look at the wine-skins; they
were new when we filled them, and now they are all split; look at our clothes
and our sandals, worn out by the long journey.' The chief men of the com-
munity accepted some of their provisions, and did not at first seek guidance
from the Lord. So Joshua received them peaceably and granted them a
treaty, promising to spare their lives, and the chiefs pledged their faith to
them on oath.
Within three days of granting the treaty, the Israelites learnt that
they were in fact neighbours and lived near by. So the Israelites set out and
on the third day they reached their cities; these were Gibeon, Kephirah,
Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. The Israelites did not slaughter them, be-
cause of the oath which the chief men of the community had sworn to them
by the Lord the God of Israel, but the people were all indignant with their
chiefs. The chiefs all replied to the assembled people, 'But we swore an
oath to them by the Lord the God of Israel; we cannot touch them now.
What we will do is this: we will spare their lives so that the oath which we
swore to them may bring no harm upon us. But though their lives must
be spared, they will be set to chop wood and carry water for the com-
munity.' The people agreed to do as their chiefs had said. Joshua summoned
the Gibeonites and said, 'Why did you play this trick on us? You told us
that you were a long way off, when you are near neighbours. There is a
curse upon you for this: for all time you shall provide us with slaves, to
chop wood and draw water for the house of my God. They answered
Joshua, 'We were told, sir, the the Lord your God had commanded Moses
his servant to give you the whole country and to exterminate all its in-
habitants; so because of you we were in terror of our lives, and that is why
we did this. We are in your power: do with us whatever you think right and
proper.' What he did was this: he saved them from death at the hands of
the Israelites, and they did not kill them; but thenceforward he set them to
chop wood and draw water for the community and for the altar of the Lord.
And to this day they do it at the place which the Lord chose.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Apr 16, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC
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