16 And all the people in Ai came together to go after them; and they went after Joshua, moving away from the town.
And I and all the people with me will come near the town, and when they come out against us as they did before, we will go in flight from them; And they will come out after us, till we have got them away from the town; for they will say, They have gone in flight from us as before; so we will go in flight before them;
So the children of Benjamin saw that they were overcome: and the men of Israel had given way before Benjamin, putting their faith in the watchers who were to make the surprise attack on Gibeah. And the watchers, rushing on Gibeah and overrunning it, put all the town to the sword without mercy. Now the sign fixed between the men of Israel and those making the surprise attack was that when they made a pillar of smoke go up from the town, The men of Israel were to make a turn about in the fight. And Benjamin had overcome and put to death about thirty of the men of Israel, and were saying, Certainly they are falling back before us as in the first fight.
And you will say, I will go up to the land of small unwalled towns; I will go to those who are quiet, living, all of them, without fear of danger, without walls or locks or doors: To take their property by force and go off with their goods; turning your hand against the waste places which now are peopled, and against the people who have been got together out of the nations, who have got cattle and goods for themselves, who are living in the middle of the earth. Sheba, and Dedan and her traders, Tarshish with all her traders, will say to you, Have you come to take our goods? have you got your armies together to take away our property by force? to take away silver and gold, cattle and goods, to go off with great wealth? For this cause, son of man, be a prophet and say to Gog, These are the words of the Lord: In that day, when my people Israel are living without fear of danger, will you not be moved against them? And you will come from your place in the inmost parts of the north, you and a great number of peoples with you, all of them on horseback, a great force and a strong army: And you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land; and it will come about, in the last days, that I will make you come against my land, so that the nations may have knowledge of me when I make myself holy in you, O Gog, before their eyes. This is what the Lord has said: You are he of whom I gave them word in earlier times by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who in those days went on saying, year after year, that I would make you come up against them. And it will come about in that day, when Gog comes up against the land of Israel, says the Lord, that my wrath will come up, and my passion and my bitter feeling. For in the fire of my wrath I have said, Truly, in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the beasts of the field and everything moving on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth, will be shaking before me, and the mountains will be overturned and the high places will come down, and every wall will come falling down to the earth. And I will send to all my mountains for a sword against him, says the Lord: every man's sword will be against his brother. And I will take up my cause against him with disease and with blood; and I will send down on him and on his forces and on the peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower and great ice-drops, fire, and burning.
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, come together to make war against him who was seated on the horse and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him, by which they were turned from the true way who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image: these two were put living into the sea of ever-burning fire. And the rest were put to death with the sword of him who was on the horse, even the sword which came out of his mouth: and all the birds were made full with their flesh.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joshua 8
Commentary on Joshua 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
The embarrassment which Achan's sin gave to the affairs of Israel being over, we have them here in a very good posture again, the affairs both of war and religion. Here is,
Jos 8:1-2
Israel were very happy in having such a commander as Joshua, but Joshua was more happy in having such a director as God himself; when any difficulty occurred, he needed not to call a council of war who had God so nigh unto him, not only to answer, but even to anticipate, his enquiries. It should seem, Joshua was now at a stand, had scarcely recovered the discomposure he was put into by the trouble Achan gave them, and could not think, without fear and trembling, of pushing forward, lest there should be in the camp another Achan; then God spoke to him, either by vision, as before (ch. 5), or by the breastplate of judgment. Note, When we have faithfully put away sin, that accursed thing, which separates between us and God, then, and not till then, we may expect to hear from God to our comfort; and God's directing us how to go on in our Christian work and warfare is a good evidence of his being reconciled to us. Observe here,
Jos 8:3-22
We have here an account of the taking of Ai by stratagem. The stratagem here used, we are sure, was lawful and good; God himself appointed it, and we have no reason to think but that the like is lawful and good in other wars. Here was no league broken, no treaty of peace, that the advantage was gained; no, these are sacred things, and not to be jested with, nor used to serve a turn; truth, when once it is plighted, becomes a debt even to the enemy. But in this stratagem here was no untruth told; nothing was concealed but their own counsels, which no enemy ever pretended a right to be entrusted with; nothing was dissembled, nothing counterfeited but a retreat, which was no natural or necessary indication at all of their inability to maintain their onset, or of any design not to renew it. The enemy ought to have been upon their guard, and to have kept within the defence of their own walls. Common prudence, had they been governed by it, would have directed them not to venture on the pursuit of an army which they saw was so far superior to them in numbers, and leave their city unguarded; but (si populus vult decipi, decipiatur-if the people will be deceived, let them) if the Canaanites will be so easily imposed upon, and in pursuit of God's Israel will break through all the laws of policy and good management, the Israelites are not at all to be blamed for taking advantage of their fury and thoughtlessness; nor is it any way inconsistent with the character God is pleased to give of them, that they are children that will not lie. Now in the account here given of this matter,
Jos 8:23-29
We have here an account of the improvement which the Israelites made of their victory over Ai.
Jos 8:30-35
This religious solemnity of which we have here an account comes in somewhat surprisingly in the midst of the history of the wars of Canaan. After the taking of Jericho and Ai, we should have expected that the next news would be of their taking possession of the country, the pushing on of their victories in other cities, and the carrying of the war into the bowels of the nation, now that they had made themselves masters of these frontier towns. But here a scene opens of quite another nature; the camp of Israel is drawn out into the field, not to engage the enemy, but to offer sacrifice, to hear the law read, and to say Amen to the blessings and the curses. Some think this was not done till after some of the following victories were obtained which were read of, ch. 10 and 11. But it should seem by the maps that Shechem (near to which these two mountains Gerizim and Ebal were) was not so far off from Ai but that when they had taken that they might penetrate into the country as far as those two mountains, and therefore I would not willingly admit a transposition of the story; and the rather because, as it comes in here, it is a remarkable instance,
Twice Moses had given express orders for this solemnity; once Deu. 11:29, 30, where he seems to have pointed to the very place where it was to be performed; and again Deu. 27:2, etc. It was a federal transaction: the covenant was now renewed between God and Israel upon their taking possession of the land of promise, that they might be encouraged in the conquest of it, and might know upon what terms they held it, and come under fresh obligations to obedience. In token of the covenant,