Joshua 8:28

And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) An heap for ever.—Heb., Tel-ôlam; modern name, Et-tel.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:23-29 God, the righteous Judge, had sentenced the Canaanites for their wickedness; the Israelites only executed his doom. None of their conduct can be drawn into an example for others. Especial reason no doubt there was for this severity to the king of Ai; it is likely he had been notoriously wicked and vile, and a blasphemer of the God of Israel.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

No doubt Joshua had ascended the heights, most likely those to the north of the valley, so as to separate himself from the flying Israelites on the lower ground, and to be visible to the men in ambush behind the city. He now, at the command of God, gives the appointed signal to the ambush.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever—"For ever" often signifies "a long time" (Ge 6:3). One of the remarkable things with regard to the tell we have identified with Ai is its name—the tell of the heap of stones—a name which to this day remains [Van De Velde].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For ever, or, for a long time, as that word oft signifies, as Genesis 6:3 Isaiah 42:14; for that it was after some ages rebuilt, may seem from Nehemiah 11:31, unless that were another city built near the former, there being some little difference in the name also.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Joshua burnt Ai,.... The whole city, fire being only set before to a few houses, to make a smoke as a signal; he did with it as he had done with Jericho, for so he was ordered, Joshua 8:2,

and made it an heap for ever; that is, for a long time, for it appears to have been rebuilt, and to have been inhabited by the Jews, after their return from their Babylonish captivity, Nehemiah 11:31,

even a desolation unto this day; to the time of the writing of this book; and by what has been just observed, it appears that Ezra could not be the writer of it, since this city was inhabited in his time.

Geneva Study Bible

And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for {l} ever, even a desolation unto this day.

(l) That it could never be built again.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. a heap] “an everlasting toumbe,” Wyclif. Heb. a “Tel,” always with the article, The Tel, or Heap. “For a long time modern explorers in vain sought for the site of Ai, where they knew it must have stood. “The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages,” writes Canon Williams, “declared repeatedly and emphatically that this was Tel and nothing else. I was satisfied that it should be so when, on subsequent reference to the original text of Joshua 8:28, I found it written that ‘Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a Tel for ever, even a desolation unto this day.’ There are many Tels in modern Palestine, that land of Tels, even Tel with some other name attached to it to mark the former site. But the site of Ai has no other name ‘unto this day.’ It is simply et-Tel = the Heap, ‘par excellence’.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - And Joshua burnt Ai. He continued the work of destruction which the ambush had begun, until the city was entirely destroyed. The word in ver. 19 (שׂרפ) has rather the sense of kindling a fire; the word here (יצת), more the sense of destruction by fire. A heap forever. טֵל־עולָם a heap of eternity; i.e., a heap forever, at least up to the time of our writer. But the Ai mentioned in Ezra 2:28 may have been a city built, not on precisely the same spot, but near enough to it to take its name. And if Ai signifies ruins, and Dean Stanley be right in regarding it as referring to ruins in the days of the Philistines, the name would be particularly suitable to this particular city. Travellers have identified the place with Tel-el. Hajar, immediately to the south of the Wady Mutyah. But see note on ch. 7:2 for Robinson's conclusion, which is confirmed by Canon Tristram, from the belief that Tel-el-Hajar does not answer to the description of Ai in the Scripture narrative. Hanged on a tree. Literally, "on the tree." Perhaps after his death, But see Genesis 40:22; Deuteronomy 21:22. Until eventide. We find here a remarkable coincidence with the precept in Deuteronomy 21:23. The fact that no notice is here taken of that passage is conclusive against its having been inserted with a view to that precept in later times, and this affords a strong presumption against the Elohist and Jehovist theory. Heap. Here גַּל, an expression usually applied to a heap of stones, a cairn, though not always in precisely this sense (see Jeremiah 9:10).

CHAPTER 8:30-35. THE COPY OF THE LAW. - Joshua 8:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Joshua had the town burnt down and made into a heap of rubbish for ever.