With the hidden disobedience dealt with, it was time to deal with Ai. This time, Joshua had God's instructions for the battle.
And this time, they were allowed to keep the plunder.
God's instruction this time was to set an ambush, and Joshua sent about 5,000 men around to the west of Ai, between Ai and Bethel, the night before Joshua and his men set out from the camp (8:9).
Early the next morning Joshua mustered his men, and he and the leaders of Israel marched before them to Ai. The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city. They had the soldiers take up their positions --all those in the camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley. (vs 10-13)
Well, the king of Ai saw Joshua's troops move into the valley, and he headed out to meet them at a strategic point, from his point of view. The battle was engaged, and the Israelites seemed to fall back, just as they had before, and actually began a retreat back towards the desert.
Thinking that victory was within his grasp, the King of Ai called for all his men to pursue the Israelites; even the men from Bethel joined the pursuit ( vs. 17). They had to be congratulating themselves on once more defeating the army that was so feared as they chased them away from the city.
That now had no defenders left in it.
At God's signal, Joshua stopped and pointed his javelin back at the city. Somehow, that signal reached the force that had been waiting, and they attacked the city, defeating it easily and setting it on fire.
The smoke from the city was the signal for the fleeing forces to turn and attack their pursuers. And,
The men of the ambush also came out of the city against them, so that they were caught in the middle, with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down, leaving them neither survivors nor fugitives. (v.22)
It was a brilliant tactic. Israel's defeat of Ai was complete...they utterly destroyed it, just as they had destroyed Jericho. Per the custom, the king of Ai was hung on a tree outside the city, and at the end of the day his body was thrown down in front of the city gate and covered with a huge pile of rocks.
Which was still in place when the writer of the book of Joshua penned the words some years later.
As I read through the narrative, some things struck me that I really hadn't paid much attention to before; firstly, the Israelites were allowed to keep the plunder of Ai. If Achan had just been patient, he would have been able to keep, freely, any plunder he came upon there. Instead, he jumped on what he saw first, instead of waiting on God's later 'go'.
The second thing that struck me is that the success of the plan relied on the king of Ai taking the bait. Had Ai stayed shut up defending their city, the pincer movement would have not given the Israelites any advantage. But Israel had God leading them, provoking the soldiers of AI to take the battle outside of the city and giving Joshua real-time instruction, so he knew when to signal the attack on the city and when to turn and pursue their pursuers.
The last thing that struck me was the deliberate humiliation of Ai by hanging the king on a tree. They took him down at sunset, according to Moses' instruction in Deut. 21:22 - 23:
If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him the same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land...
Paul references this in Galatians 3:13, showing how even these details were foreshadowing Christ:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'
The ancient folks understood this; they knew it was always a criminal or a defeated enemy who was hung on the tree...sometimes it was just a display of the dead body, as was done to Saul and his sons in 1 Samuel 31, after they were killed in battle. The cross of Jesus wasn't just an ancient form of execution; hanging a body on a tree was also a particular form of humiliation and subjugation, symbolizing complete dominance over the one hung. It was the logic behind Moses putting the snake on a pole...symbolizing the defeat of that enemy. The humiliation of Ai's king...as small a detail as that would seem...actually demonstrates defeat in the same way that Jesus, who became sin for us and hung it on the cross, demonstrates his defeat of that enemy.
Complete dominance over the enemy.
No comments:
Post a Comment