Chapter 8

God sends the people back to Ai, and this time they can take it's spoil and it's livestock for themselves.  They are to ambush the city from behind.  God doesn't just send them to Ai, he tells them what strategy the army is to use in taking it.

This is successful and 12,000 people of Ai - which was every last one of them - is killed.  The king of Ai is hanged on a tree until sunset.

Here is a phrase that has been showing up a lot.  I didn't think too much of it the first time I saw it, but it has showed up again in the story of Achan, and now in the destruction of Ai.  Looking for all the places it has shown up would be a good study.  The phrase is "devoted to destruction".  It is interesting because each time this phrase is used, TCR has a footnote that goes like this:  "That is, set apart (devoted) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction)".  Apparently this phrase is quite complex, and implies that those things being killed are an offering, like a bull or a goat.  Not sure I understand all the implications of this.  Would be a good study.

Joshua builds an altar, and writes all the laws given him via Moses on the stones, and then he reads them aloud, blessings and curses, with all the people, and the sojourners among them, all present.  Wonder why Joshua waits until after Ai to do this?  Maybe Jericho and Ai were geographically "in the way" until after they were destroyed?