The Bible Says
Joshua 7:2-5 Meaning

In Joshua 7:1, the LORD was furious with the sons of Israel because one of their soldiers disobeyed His command. God had instructed His people to destroy Jericho and everything in it, except items of precious metals, which would go “into the treasury of the LORD” (Joshua 6:19). However, a man from the Israelite army committed treachery by keeping some of these items, as well as a costly cloak which should have been destroyed. The verse identified the perpetrator as Achan and said he was from the tribe of Judah, a prominent group among the ancient Israelites. Unfortunately, unaware of Achan’s guilt, Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, a city near Beth-Aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land” (v. 2).

Ai was a small Canaanite city. It existed before Abraham (Genesis 12:8; 13:3). The name means “a ruin.”According to recent archaeological discoveries, biblical Ai is the modern site Et-Tell. It was the second city attacked in Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land and was about fifteen miles northwest of Jericho. Thus, while the Israelites were in Jericho, Joshua commissioned some men to go up and spy out the land.

Throughout military history and modernity, it is a common practice to gather intel through reconnaissance. In ancient times, this was accomplished when a military leader sent out men as spies to gather information about the movement and troop sizes of their enemy (Joshua 2:2). In searching out a city, the scouts would identify the numbers of their enemy’s warriors and their general preparedness for the battle. They tried to learn as much as possible about their foes to see how they could defeat them and conquer their cities. Joshua employed this tactic for Jericho and overthrew it (Joshua 2 and 6). Ai was next in line, so he commanded some men to investigate it.

The men obeyed Joshua’s command: So the men went up and spied out Ai (v. 2). They were excited to do so because they saw how the LORD fought for them to give them victory over Jericho. Thus, they explored Ai. Once done, they returned to Joshua and said to him: Do not let all the people go up (v. 3).

The Israelite army had a large number of warriors. According to Joshua 4, the two-and-a-half eastern tribes alone numbered about 40,000 soldiers (Joshua 4:13). But the scouts, based on their mission of discovery, deemed that their foes were few and the battle against them would be easy. So they told Joshua that only two or three thousand men needed to go up to Ai. They reiterated their confidence, saying: Do not make all the people toil up there (v. 3). That means Joshua did not need to work hard to dispatch the whole Israelite army to fight against Ai because they [the men of Ai] were few. It takes a lot of time and resources to mobilize military units, so rather than send the entire host of Israel, a smaller force was projected to be able to take Ai off the board with ease.

Joshua believed the scouts’ report. So, about three thousand men from the people went up there (v. 4). Since it seemed like a relatively easy victory, only three thousand Israelite soldiers were deployed. But when they engaged with the soldiers of Ai, they soon retreated. The three thousand Israelites fled from the men of Ai (v. 4). The enemy surprised them and struck down about thirty-six of their men (v. 5). While thirty-six appears to be a small number, it is significant because it described Israel’s first defeat in the land of Canaan.

The narrator did not record any instance of Israelite casualties during their battle against the inhabitants of Jericho (Joshua 6). They had complete success there because the LORD was with them and fought for them. Jericho was also a mighty city, and with God demolishing the walls and handing over total victory, the Israelites may have been feeling overconfident, even invincible. It was a rude awakening to suddenly have the little city of Ai immediately begin slaughtering their men. The sudden turn of events, the bloodshed and loss of life, struck fear into the confused Israelite soldiers.

After killing some of the Israelite warriors, the soldier of Ai pursued them from the gate as far as Shebarim, a town between Ai and Jericho (v. 5). This describes an ongoing engagement between both forces, with the Israelites running for miles while the soldiers of Ai continue to chase (and possibly kill) those in the rearguard. They struck them down on the descent. That is to say, they chased Israel eastward, down the steep hills toward Jericho. The Israelites may have experienced further undisclosed loss of life as the soldiers of Ai triumphed over them and followed them in their retreat. As a result, the hearts of the people melted and became as water (v. 5).

The Bible often uses the image of melting to describe the effects of fear and anxiety. The idea of a melted heart means a total loss of strength and resistance. (The heart stands for the core of a person’s inner being.) In Joshua 2, Rahab described the anxiety and fear of the inhabitants of Jericho upon hearing how God dealt with the Egyptians and the Amorite kings to rescue His covenant people (Joshua 2:11). The kings of Canaan were also terrified (“their hearts melted”) by the suddenness of the host of Israelites crossing the Jordan (Joshua 5:1). Now, the Israelites themselves were experiencing the same fear their enemies once felt at their first taste of defeat.

In the following passage, Joshua will seek to understand why the Lord’s favor has left Israel’s military endeavors.