Joshua
Chapter 8
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Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
A dotted word is a harder one. Point at it, or tap it, for a short definition.
1God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. said to Joshua, Do not be afraid, and do not be shattered. Take with you all the people of the war, and get up, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.
2You shall do to Ai and to its king as you did to Jericho and to its king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Set yourself an ambush for the city, behind it.
3Joshua got up, and all the people of the war, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, warriors of worth, and sent them out by night.
4He commanded them, saying, See, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
5I, and all the people who are with me, will draw near to the city. When they come out to meet us as they did the first time, we will flee before them.
6They will come out after us until we have drawn them off from the city, for they will say, They are fleeing before us as they did the first time. And we will flee before them.
7You shall get up from the ambush and take the city, and God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God will give it into your hand.
8When you have seized the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary.. See, I have commanded you.
9Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place of ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. Joshua spent that night in the middle of the people.
10Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people, and he went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
11All the people of the war who were with him went up, drew near, and came opposite the city, and they camped on the north side of Ai, with the valley between it and Ai.
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- Text
The written form is בינו, “between it,” without the yod. The Masoretic reading is ביניו, with the yod. The sense is the same. The written form is printed.
12He took about five thousand men and set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13They set the people, the whole camp that was on the north side of the city, and its rear on the west side of the city. Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
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- Translation
Aqev is the heel. Here it is the rear of the camp.
14When the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried and rose early and went out to meet Israel for the battle, he and all his people, at the set time, in front of the Arabah. He did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15Joshua and all Israel were struck before them, and they fled by the way of the wilderness.
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- Translation
The verb is “they were struck.” The flight is the plan Joshua set in verses 5 and 6.
16All the people who were in the city were called out to chase after them. They chased after Joshua and were pulled away from the city.
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The written consonants are בעיר, “in the city.” The Masoretic reading is בעי, “in Ai.” The written “in the city” is printed.
17Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and chased after Israel.
18God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. said to Joshua, Stretch out the A pointed weapon thrown or held out in the hand. that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand. Joshua stretched out the A pointed weapon thrown or held out in the hand. that was in his hand toward the city.
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- Translation
A kidon is a javelin, a pointed weapon held in the hand.
19The ambush rose quickly from its place and ran when he stretched out his hand. They entered the city and captured it, and they hurried and set the city on fire.
20The men of Ai turned behind them and looked, and Look, the smoke of the city had gone up to the sky, and they had no strength in them to flee this way or that. The people who had fled toward the wilderness turned back against the pursuer.
21Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city had gone up, and they turned back and struck the men of Ai.
22And these came out from the city to meet them, so that they were in the middle for Israel, these on this side and these on that. They struck them until he had left him no survivor and no one who got away.
23They seized 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 where they had chased them, and all of them had fallen by the mouth of the sword until they were finished, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it by the mouth of the sword.
25All who fell on that day, from man to woman, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
26Joshua did not draw back his hand, which he had stretched out with the A pointed weapon thrown or held out in the hand., until he had Set apart for God. In this book it is often marked to be destroyed. all the inhabitants of Ai.
27Only the cattle and the spoil of that city did Israel plunder for themselves, according to the word of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., which he had commanded Joshua.
28Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day.
29He hanged the king of Ai on the tree until the time of evening. When the sun went in, Joshua commanded, and they took his corpse down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and they raised over it a great heap of stones, to this day.
30Then Joshua built an altar to God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
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In the Leningrad Codex these lines, through verse 35, stand inside chapter 8. They are not moved to a later chapter.
31as Moses, the servant of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the scroll of the instruction of Moses: an altar of whole stones, over which no one had swung iron. They offered up whole offerings on it to God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., and they sacrificed sacrifices of well-being.
32He wrote there, on the stones, a copy of the instruction of Moses, which he had written in front of the sons of Israel.
33All Israel, with its elders, the officers, and its judges, stood on this side and on that side of the chest, facing the priests, the Levites, who carried the chest of the A solemn agreement that binds God and people. of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., the A person living in a land that is not their own. the same as the native, half of them facing Mount Gerizim and half of them facing Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary., had commanded, to bless the people Israel first.
34After that he read all the words of the instruction, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the scroll of the instruction.
35There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read in front of the whole assembly of Israel, the women, the little children, and the A person living in a land that is not their own. who walked among them.