Joshua 8: 1-29 Victory at Ai


1) Enemies defeated
2) No confidence in the flesh
a) Do the obvious
b) He will tell us
3) Rest

4) Passover
5) Eating grain
6) Sanctified Ground




8:1 Now the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. 2 And you shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king;
but you shall take only its spoil and its cattle as plunder for yourselves.

Set an ambush for the city behind it."

3 So Joshua rose with all the people of war to go up to Ai; and Joshua chose 30,000 men (“30 chiefs”), valiant warriors, and sent them out at night.
4 And he commanded them, saying, "See, you are going to ambush the city from behind it.

5 Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And it will come about when they come out to meet us as at the first, that we will flee before them. 6 And they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, 'They are fleeing before us as at the first.' So we will flee before them.

7 And you shall rise from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.
8 Then it will be when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire.”

9 So Joshua sent them away, and they went to the place of ambush and remained between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai.

11 Then all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and arrived in front of the city, and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between him and Ai, and Joshua spent that night in the midst of the valley.

14 And it came about when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried and rose up early and went out to meet Israel in battle, he and all his people at the appointed place before the desert plain. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.


Hebrews 9:27 It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment
15 And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.

16 And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
17 So not a man was left in Ai who had not gone out after Israel, and they left the city unguarded and pursued Israel.

19 And the men in ambush rose quickly from their place, and they ran and entered the city and captured it; and they quickly set the city on fire.

20 When the men of Ai turned back and looked, behold, the smoke of the city ascended to the sky, and they had no place to flee this way or that, for the people who had been fleeing to the wilderness turned against the pursuers.

21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city ascended, they turned back and slew the men of Ai.

22 And the others came out from the city to encounter them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side; and they slew them until no one was left of those who survived or escaped.
23 But they took alive the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.

24 Now it came about when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them were fallen by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed, then all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

25 And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000-- all the people of Ai.

27 Israel took the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of the LORD which He had commanded.

28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation until this day. 29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave command and they took his body down from the tree, and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day.



1 Corinthians 6:12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.


1 Timothy 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.


James 1:17 Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.