Good morning. Please turn with me in your copies of God’s word to Joshua chapter 8. Joshua chapter 8.
On Sunday Evenings we have been working through the book of Joshua, and we’ve made it to chapter 8, which we’ll cover today. To catch us all up to speed, chapter 6 contains the most well-known part of this book, which is Joshua leading the people of God to victory at the battle of Jericho.
If you’ll remember, the Lord tells Joshua that he would lead the people in a march around the city, once a day for 6 days, with only the horns being blown. Then, on the 7th day, they march around 7 times, and on the final lap they blow the trumpets and yell, and the city walls would fall down.
They obeyed, and the Lord proved faithful to his word. And following the Lord’s command, they devoted the entire city to destruction. Or, at least that’s what everybody thought.
Because in chapter 7, they then move onto the next military target, a city called Ai, which was a small town. It should have been an easy victory. But they get defeated. They get run off by the smaller army of Ai.
And it is through that defeat, that Joshua is told by the Lord that someone in the camp had disobeyed the covenant, and kept some of the devoted things for himself.
A man named Achan stole some valuables, hid them under his tent, and in doing so, brought guilt and defilement on to himself, his family, and the whole nation.
Then, in a sobering act of judgement on sin, the people obey the Lord, stone Achan and his family, and leave the pile of rocks over them as a symbol of God’s justice and the heinousness of sin.
That now leads us to chapter 8. Let’s read chapter 8 and see how the story continues:
And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land. 2 And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city, behind it.”
3 So Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out by night. 4 And he commanded them, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you remain ready. 5 And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out against us just as before, we shall 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 from us, just as before.’ So we will flee before them. 7 Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city, for the Lord your God will give it into your hand.
8 And as soon as you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of the Lord. See, I have commanded you.” 9 So Joshua sent them out. And they went to the place of ambush and lay between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai, but Joshua spent that night among the people.
10 Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. 11 And all the fighting men who were with him went up and drew near before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai, with a ravine between them and Ai. 12 He took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.
13 So they stationed the forces, the main encampment that was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city. But Joshua spent that night in the valley. 14 And as soon as the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the men of the city, hurried and went out early to the appointed place[a] toward the Arabah to meet Israel in battle. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15 And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled in the direction of the wilderness. 16 So all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and as they pursued Joshua they were drawn away from the city. 17 Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel.
18 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19 And the men in the ambush rose quickly out of their place, and as soon as he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it. And they hurried to set the city on fire.
20 So when the men of Ai looked back, behold, the smoke of the city went up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that, for the people who fled to the wilderness turned back against the pursuers. 21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and struck down the men of Ai.
22 And the others came out from the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped. 23 But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him near to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down 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.
26 But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.[b] 27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua. 28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day.
29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.
We’ll begin by noting the undeserved kindness of the Lord. The kindness of the Lord.
This section in chapter 8 begins with an indicator of the undeserved favor of the lord towards his people. His first words to Israel are surprising: “Do not fear, and do not be dismayed.” Do not be fearful. Do not dread what is about to happen.
And this shows us the kindness of the Lord because consider what they would be feeling in their hearts at that moment. Not only had they just witnessed the terrible judgment of the Lord against Achan’s sin, but they also saw their brothers get beaten in battle, in the first attempt on Ai.
The initial group of men that were sent to take out Ai had been repelled. They had all sorts of reasons to be tempted to fear.
They were surely wondering to themselves: “What happened to the promises of the Lord, where he said he would give us victory?
What happens when the other cities hear about our defeat? Will they then come in and try to take us out?
Did Achan’s sin reverse the blessings that the Lord had promised to us?
Have we lost the favor of the Lord?”
And in all of that swirling temptation to be fearful, the Lord speaks exactly what their timid souls need to hear in that moment: Do not be afraid.
But not only does his word of exhortation show us the undeserved favor he had toward Israel, but we also see in his words further encouragement, further evidence of his undeserved kindness, when he promises them victory:
Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.
The Lord has already given the battle to them. It is done. There is no question about the outcome of this skirmish with Ai.
And notice how thorough this victory will be: the king, the people, the city, and the land. All of it. Full and complete victory. Not barely scraping by. Not halfway doing it. Not a long and costly battle that will take years to finish off. The battle is decided and the victory will be decisive.
But, unlike with Jericho, we have even further evidence of the undeserved kindness of the Lord in the blessings that he promises them. He tells them that they will not only have victory, but they will have the spoils of this battle. Verse 2:
And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves
They get to have the spoils of this victory.
The previous defeat at Ai hadn’t revoked Israel’s favor. The sin of Achan hadn’t undone their privileged covenant status.
Now that the nation has been purged of the unconfessed evil in its midst, the divine favor will yet again continue to flow.
And that comes to fruition in verse 27: Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua.
Undeserved kindness seen in the comforting exhortation not to fear, the promise of victory, and in His generous blessings.
And this reminds us of a comforting truth about the nature of our God. You see, too often we find ourselves like the nation of Israel. We see that we have committed some sort of sin.
We fall short in some area, maybe we’re unfaithful when we should have followed through on something, we didn’t keep our word.
Maybe we’re impatient and angry, rather than longsuffering and kind.
Maybe we’re anxious and fearful, just like Israel, rather than trusting in the Lord’s protection.
Whatever it is, we fall short and have sinned. And we can be tempted to think that maybe God doesn’t love us like he used to.
Maybe he’s not going to be as warm to us, like in days past.
Maybe we’re ashamed and feel like we can’t approach him like we used to.
We’re not sure he’s going to hear our prayers as he did previously. Not sure he’s going to smile on us like he did in the past.
Whatever it is, we are tempted to be fearful that our failure has somehow broken the relationship. We think that our sin has severed the covenant.
But in those moments, we need to remember that the New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant that Israel was under. This is hugely important. The New Covenant, which believers are under today, is not like the old covenant.
Israel’s status, and their tasting of covenant blessings in the land, was tied to their obedience. If they wanted blessing, they had to obey. If they wanted to avoid the curses of the covenant, they had to act right. And when they fail to do that, they were punished. That’s what happened with Achan, and that’s what happened at the first loss at Ai.
Perfection was necessary for them to retain covenant blessing. And failure to attain blessing, required Judgment. That’s what happened to Achan. Sin and guilt had to be removed from the assembly, and transgression had to be atoned for.
But the New Covenant and our status in it is not like that. In the New Covenant, your righteous obedience is not the means of you inheriting the covenant blessings.
And conversely, your failure-to-be-perfect does not mean that you lose covenant blessings and instead get curses.
Rather, your standing before God, as his child, is solely on the basis of the righteousness of another, Jesus Christ. His perfection and his obedience are reckoned to your account, in the place of your failures and your sin.
And in the greatest evidence of the undeserved kindness of the Lord, the guilt for your sins were reckoned to Christ on the cross. That’s the gospel:
A sinful nation, Christ’s bride, the people of God, are declared to be righteous, rather than condemned like Achan, and in their stead the perfect, sinless son of God is treated as though he was the guilty Achan.
The righteous in the place of the unrighteous. That’s the ground of our salvation. And we taste of this blessed salvation, not because we are so faithful and wonderful, not by obedience to the law or doing good deeds, but simply by believing in the message of salvation that Christ proclaimed. Faith alone is what allows us to taste of these covenant blessings.
And so, because our salvation never was built upon OUR obedience, that means that our disobedience doesn’t undo our salvation. Covenant entrance was not given because of your faithfulness, and likewise, covenant expulsion is not given because of our disobedience.
Christ alone is the ground of our status as children of God, and our stumbling and bumbling in the Christian life, yes it is lamentable and yes we should strive against it, but believers never have to fear if we’re holy enough for God to like us again.
You are his child. Even through the ups and downs. You’re part of his household, and even when you stumble, he loves you enough to point out your sins, woo you back to him in the gospel, discipline you if necessary, but never in wrath. His wrath toward your sin was already poured out on the cross.
He brings us back to him like the loving father he is, so that we can find our rest and solace in him alone.
Do not fear, he says, I will always be with you, and I will give you victory, even when things seem scary. He will never leave us or forsake us, nor will he abandon the covenant he’s made with us because of our sin, because he’s already judged our sin on the cross. His wrath is appeased, and no longer aimed at you. It was finished on the cross.
That’s good news for believers. Comforting news.
But if you aren’t trusting in the Lord, this text speaks to you also. We can look further in the text, after the battle, and see our second point: the just judgment of the Lord. The just judgement of the Lord.
Joshua puts together a battle plan. He sends some of the army into an ambush position, and others come from the other side of the city. They draw the men of Ai out, letting them think that the Israelites are fleeing again, just like they did the other day, so that the men of Ai would leave the city to chase after the fleeing Hebrews.
And when the men desert the city, the others laying in hiding would come into the city and light it on fire. Pick up in verse 20:
So when the men of Ai looked back, behold, the smoke of the city went up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that, for the people who fled to the wilderness turned back against the pursuers. 21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. 22 And the others came out from the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped. 23 But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him near to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down 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.26 But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.[b] 27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua.
28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day. 29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.
12,000 people killed. The city burned to the ground and made into a heap of ruins. The wickedness of the inhabitants of Ai, which the Lord had clearly condemned before, had finally been repaid.
And the king, the one who thought he was powerful to stand against the army of the Lord, was drug out and hung from a tree, the great image of being cursed.
The law of God says, “if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.” Deuteronomy 21:22-23.
The people of Ai had refused to honor the Lord as god, and therefore had earned for themselves the just judgment of death. They had violated the law of the Lord, and served other gods, and therefore merited for themselves this judgment.
Some people have a real issue with the killing of the Canaanites, but their condemnation is clear in scripture. Sin deserves death. The wages of sin is death, Paul would later write.
The death of the people of Ai, and the hanging of the king from the tree, an image of the whole nation being cursed by god, all of that is understandable, within the biblical context.
The harder question is not actually why the people of Ai get judged. The harder question is, “why does Israel not die?” We’ve seen just in the last chapter that the people of God are sinners too. They sin. They violate God’s law. Why do they not all get killed?
Why does their leader, Joshua, not get drug out and hung from a tree in judgment?
And the answer is that the king of Israel DOES eventually paraded out, and hung on a tree, and cursed. Judgment does eventually come. But it doesn’t come in the way that people would expect.
Judgement comes when the Son of God himself, the sinless divine son, comes down and takes the represents His nation in judgement. But, surprisingly, he doesn’t take the place of every ethnic jew, not every physical offspring of Abraham.
No, he takes the place of everyone who is united to him by faith, who is circumcised of heart (in the words of Deuteronomy), everyone who is born of the spirit (in the words of John), who is a inward, spiritual Jew (in the words Paul of Romans 2:29).
All those trusting in Christ have had their king drug out and hung on a tree to be cursed by God. And in the wonderful blessing of the gospel, the cursing of our king in our place, means that we don’t have to fear defeat and death. Our victory was won because our king was cursed in our place.
Galatians 3:13- Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”
For believers the curse of death is gone. The law no longer can condemn us, our sin no longer can sentence us to hell. In Christ, we’ve been made victors, because of his death in our place.
He was the king slain in defeat, so that in his apparent defeat, we might be more than conquerors.
Joshua’s military victory over Ai in chapter 8 is encouraging, but was only temporary.
It was earthly.
But Christ’s victory is greater because it has eternal ramifications. It is forever. When he says it is finished, it is truly and forever so. The Spiritual victory supersedes even the greatest earthly military battles.
And I think that’s why our text moves immediately to emphasize the spiritual realities at play.
Let’s read the final 5 verses, and see our last point: The centrality of the Word of the Lord. Verse 30:
30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings.
32 And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written.33 And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel.
34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived[c] among them.
This section of text seems to come as a jarring surprise in the middle of a narrative about the military campaign. We’re on the war path, why does the narrator stick in this little section about a worship service? That seems odd, at best.
But it reminds us of the centrality of the word of God, and the importance of what’s happening here, both in the people and in the land.
The scene cuts immediately to Mount Ebal, which is near Shechem, a place rich in significance in the minds of the Israelites. Shechem is where the Lord first made the promise to Abram that he would give this land from the Canaanites to the offspring of Abram. And in response Abram then made an altar to the Lord, and worshipped Him there. Genesis 12:7.
So this place called Shechem, and the victory that the Israelites had just experienced, represent the promises of the Lord to Abrahm coming to fulfillment.
Further, this scene that plays out on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim is a re-enactment of the covenant ceremony that was first done by Moses. In fact, Joshua performing this entire ceremony was already explicitly commanded by the Lord through Moses in Deuteronomy 11:29.
They would put half of the people on one mountain, and the other half of the people on the other mountain. Then the law of the Lord was read. One half of the people represented the covenant blessings, and the other half represented the covenant curses. It was basically a national-level sermon illustration saying, if you obey, you will be blessed, and if you disobey, you will be cursed.
To further add significance to the ceremony, the city of Shechem was the location of a local Canaanite temple, which was called the Baal-berith, which means the “lord of the covenant” or baal of the covenant.[1]
The entire ceremony led by Joshua was like a big billboard proclaiming to the surrounding pagans that the God of Israel is the true God. That although Baal proclaims himself to be the lord of the covenant, he is no match for the true God, Yahweh, who is victorious over this false god.
And the whole ceremony also serves the people of Israel by reminded them of what matters most. The military victory is nice, but it means nothing without the blessing of the Lord. Worldly power and success, spoils, money and wealth, none of it makes any difference, if the Lord is not at the center of it.
And how often do we need to hear the same kind of exhortation. We walk through life, week by week, indoctrinated daily by the cares of this world, by the temptations to put all of our hopes and dreams, all of our security and pleasure, to put all of our hearts into this world.
We can buy into the lies of Satan that success and prosperity are the means of true satisfaction and fulfillment.
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Mark 8:36.
If God is not at the center of our lives, then we’ve simply bought into the lie of the modern-day Baal of the covenant.
We may not worship at the feet of a statue in Shechem, but we can certainly be tempted to be distracted from what is true and eternal, and worship at the feet of any number of idols here and now.
The battle of the daily grind can pull our vision from what is most important.
But God in his kindness has a way for us to pull our heads out of the battle. He disturbs our busyness, and gives us a weekly break, wherein we have a little interruption. That’s part of the blessing of the weekly sabbath.
A little reminder, every 7 days, of what is most important. A weekly opportunity to remind ourselves that his word and our relationship to him is more important than anything this world can offer, more important than any victories we might have out in the battlefield of this world.
Without him, our victories are meaningless. And without him, our losses will be devastating.
Without him at the center, we can be deceived into thinking that WE have done the victory, when in reality, without him we can do nothing.
We need to be reminded that He is our strength and our shield, as we read in Psalm 28. He’s the only one who can provide safety and security.
He is the only source of victory.
He is the true God over all the other idols of this world.
And that’s a hugely important reminder, because we’re not so different than the Israelites in our text.
Consider this: these last few chapters have made it abundantly clear that the greatest danger that the people of God will face in the land is not the Canaanites, with their mighty armies and swords and walls.
The greatest danger that the people of God face is their own sin.
It is their own un-holiness in the face of the utter Holiness of the Lord.
Their greatest vulnerability, their most pressing danger had nothing to do with the people in the land, because their threat was internal. It was being carried around with them in their hearts.
And in as much as that was true, then you and I are just like the Israelites here. We’re not called to go purge a land of wicked inhabitants, but we are called to go out into a world that is hostile toward the truth and all that we stand for.
But in all that appearance of danger, the scariest thing that a believer faces today is not physical threat or even death. It’s not the taunts of the enemy. The greatest foe that you face every day stares at you in the mirror.
The sin that we all carry around with us, that’s our greatest enemy. That’s what will bring pain our lives. That’s what will distance us from the ones that we love. That’s what will bring shame on the name of our beloved savior. Our hearts and the sin that clings so closely.
But praise be to God that he’s promised us a new heart. A heart that’s full of his spirit, that grows in delighting in His law. He’s given us the gospel, which promises us that He will be our strength and our shield. He will defend us, from all enemies, within or without, foreign or domestic, as it were.
And if the Lord is my shield, then nobody can do final harm to me, not even me.
That’s comforting news.
[1] John D. Currid, Crossway ESV Bible Atlas (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103.
