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CHAP.VIII 14-28
(the people) is to be taken as the subject of the sentence: "The people had set all the host, that was on the north of the city, and its ambuscade on the west of the city." In the night, namely the night before the army arrived at the north of the town, Joshua went through the midst of the valley, which separated the Israelites from the town, so that in the morning he stood with all the army close before the town.
Vers. 14–23. When the king of Ai saw the Israelites, he hurried out in the morning against them to battle at the (previously) appointed place (למּועד, in locum condictum, as in 1 Sam. xx. 35) before the steppe (Arabah, not the valley of the Jordan, but the steppe or desert of Bethaven; see at chap. vii. 2), as he knew nothing of the ambuscade behind the town. — Ver. 15. But the Israelites let them beat them, and fled along the desert (of Bethaven). — Vers. 16, 17. And all the people in the town were called together to pursue the Israelites, and were drawn away from the town, so that not a man, i.e. not a single soldier who could take part in the pursuit, remained either in Ai or the neighbouring town of Bethel, and the town stood open behind them. It is evident from ver. 17 that the inhabitants of Bethel, which was about three hours' journey from Ai, took part in the battle, probably in consequence of a treaty which the king of Ai had made with them in the expectation of a renewed and still stronger attack on the part of the Israelites. Nothing further is known upon this point; nor can anything be inferred from the fact that the king of Bethel is included in the list of the kings slain by Joshua (chap. xii. 16). Consequently, we cannot decide whether the Bethelites came to the help of the Aites
in the books of Samuel and Kings with those in the books of Chronicles, and is admitted by every commentator. In my earlier commentary on Joshua, I attempted to solve the difficulty by the twofold assumption: first,that ver. 12 contains a supplementary statement, in which the number of the men posted in ambush is given for the first time; and **secondly, that the historian forgot to notice that out of the 30,000 men whom Joshua chose to make war upon Ai, 5000 were set apart to lie in ambush. But, on further examination of the text, I have come to the conclusion that the second assumption is irreconcilable with the distinct words of ver. 3, and feel obliged to give it up. On the other hand, I still adhere to the conviction that there is not sufficient ground either for the assumption that vers. 12, 13, contain an old marginal gloss that has crept into the text, or for the hypothesis of Ewald and Knobel,that these verses were introduced by the last editor of the book out of some other document. The last hypothesis amounts to a charge of thoughtlessness against the latest editor, which is hardly reconcilable with the endeavour, for which he is praised in other places, to reconcile the discrepancies in the different documents.