9 The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is near Beth-el, one;
And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war. Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days. And let seven priests go before the ark with seven loud-sounding horns in their hands: on the seventh day you are to go round the town seven times, the priests blowing their horns. And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward. Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent for the priests and said to them, Take up the ark of the agreement, and let seven priests take seven horns in their hands and go before the ark of the Lord. And he said to the people, Go forward, circling the town, and let the armed men go before the ark of the Lord. So after Joshua had said this to the people, the seven priests with their seven horns went forward before the Lord, blowing on their horns: and the ark of the Lord's agreement went after them. And the armed men went before the priests who were blowing the horns, and the mass of the people went after the ark, blowing their horns. And to the people Joshua gave an order, saying, You will give no cry, and make no sound, and let no word go out of your mouth till the day when I say, Give a loud cry; then give a loud cry. So he made the ark of the Lord go all round the town once: then they went back to the tents for the night. And early in the morning Joshua got up, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. And the seven priests with their seven horns went on before the ark of the Lord, blowing their horns: the armed men went before them, and the mass of the people went after the ark of the Lord, blowing their horns. The second day they went all round the town once, and then went back to their tents: and so they did for six days. Then on the seventh day they got up early, at the dawn of the day, and went round the town in the same way, but that day they went round it seven times. And the seventh time, at the sound of the priests' horns, Joshua said to the people, Now give a loud cry; for the Lord has given you the town. And the town will be put to the curse, and everything in it will be given to the Lord: only Rahab, the loose woman, and all who are in the house with her, will be kept safe, because she kept secret the men we sent. And as for you, keep yourselves from the cursed thing, for fear that you may get a desire for it and take some of it for yourselves, and so be the cause of a curse and great trouble on the tents of Israel. But all the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and iron are holy to the Lord: they are to come into the store-house of the Lord. So the people gave a loud cry, and the horns were sounded; and on hearing the horns the people gave a loud cry, and the wall came down flat, so that the people went up into the town, every man going straight before him, and they took the town. And they put everything in the town to the curse; men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and ass, they put to death without mercy.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear and do not be troubled: take with you all the fighting-men and go up against Ai: for I have given into your hands the king of Ai and his people and his town and his land:
And he put the king of Ai to death, hanging him on a tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave them orders to take his body down from the tree, and put it in the public place of the town, covering it with a great mass of stones, which is there to this day. Then Joshua put up an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal, In the way ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, as it is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, untouched by any iron instrument: and on it they made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord. And he made there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, writing it before the eyes of the children of Israel. And all Israel, those who were Israelites by birth, as well as the men from other lands living with them, and their responsible men and their overseers and judges, took their places round the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, whose work it was to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement; half of them were stationed in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, in agreement with the orders for the blessing of the children of Israel which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given. And after, he gave them all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, as it is all recorded in the book of the law; Reading to all the meeting of Israel, with the women and the children and the men from other lands who were living among them, every word of the orders which Moses had given.
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Commentary on Joshua 12 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 12
Jos 12:1-6. The Two Kings Whose Countries Moses Took and Disposed of.
1. Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan—This chapter contains a recapitulation of the conquests made in the promised land, with the additional mention of some places not formerly noted in the sacred history. The river Arnon on the south and mount Hermon on the north were the respective boundaries of the land acquired by the Israelites beyond Jordan (see Nu 21:21-24; De 2:36; 3:3-16 [and see on De 2:24]).
Jos 12:7-24. The One and Thirty Kings on the West Side of Jordan, Which Joshua Smote.
7. Baal-gad … even unto … Halak—(See on Jos 11:17). A list of thirty-one chief towns is here given; and, as the whole land contained a superficial extent of only fifteen miles in length by fifty in breadth, it is evident that these capital cities belonged to petty and insignificant kingdoms. With a few exceptions, they were not the scenes of any important events recorded in the sacred history, and therefore do not require a particular notice.