Joshua 8:10

Joshua 8:10

8 And it will be, when you have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire. According to the commandment of the Lord you shall do. ^aSee, I have commanded you.”

9 Joshua therefore sent them out; and they went to lie in ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua lodged that night among the people.

10 Then Joshua rose up early in the morning and mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.

11 ^aAnd all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near; and they came before the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now a valley lay between them and Ai.

12 So he took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.

13 And when they had set the people, all the army that was on the north of the city, and its rear guard on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

14 Now it happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried and rose early and went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at an appointed place before the plain. But he ^adid not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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Joshua 8:11 >>

Joshua . . . numbered the people—that is, the detachment of liers-in-wait; he did this, to be furnished with clear evidence afterwards, that the work had been done without any loss of men, whereby the people's confidence in God would be strengthened and encouragement given them to prosecute the war of invasion with vigor.

he and the elders of Israel—the chief magistrates and rulers, whose presence and official authority were necessary to ensure that the cattle and spoil of the city might be equally divided between the combatants and the rest of the people (Numbers 31:27) —a military rule in Israel, that would have been very liable to be infringed, if an excited soldiery, eager for booty, had been left to their own will.

<< Joshua 8:9

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