Chapter 41: Achan, Ai, and Mount Ebal

Study notes

Achan admits to Joshua that he took a cloak, silver, and gold from the spoil and that the items are buried inside his tent, and all Israel stones him. An ambush then captures Ai, and Joshua builds an altar on Mount Ebal and writes a copy of Moses’s instruction on stones there.

From Joshua 7:20–21 (KoS), Joshua 7:25 (KoS), Joshua 8:18–23 (KoS), Joshua 8:30–32 (KoS).

These notes and questions are original study helps written for this site, not scripture. The verses shown with each question are quoted from the Kingdoms of Scripture Bible.

Notice and discuss

Read each passage, then think about the question on your own or talk it over with others. No answers are collected.

1. What do Joshua and the elders do before the chest, and what does Joshua ask Yahweh?

   Joshua tore his clothes and fell on his face to the ground before the chest of Yahweh until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, Alas, my Lord Yahweh, why did you bring this people across the Jordan at all, to give us into the hand of the Amorite, to destroy us? If only we had been willing and had stayed beyond the Jordan. Please, my Lord, what can I say after Israel has turned the back of its neck before its enemies? The Canaanite and all who live in the land will hear, and they will come around against us and cut our name off from the earth. What will you do for your great name?

   Joshua 7:6–9 (KoS)

   Note · Translation The consonants after “my Lord” are YHWH. The vowels written on that name are the vowels of Elohim, the reading used when Adonai stands in front of the name. The consonants are printed as Yahweh. The verb is doubled: he caused them to cross, causing to cross.

2. What plan does Joshua give the men he sends to lie in ambush behind Ai?

   Joshua got up, and all the people of the war, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, warriors of worth, and sent them out by night. He commanded them, saying, See, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready. I, and all the people who are with me, will draw near to the city. When they come out to meet us as they did the first time, we will flee before them. They will come out after us until we have drawn them off from the city, for they will say, They are fleeing before us as they did the first time. And we will flee before them. You shall get up from the ambush and take the city, and Yahweh your God will give it into your hand. When you have seized the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of Yahweh. See, I have commanded you. Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place of ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. Joshua spent that night in the middle of the people.

   Joshua 8:3–9 (KoS)

3. What does Joshua read to the assembly, and who does the text say was there to hear it?

   After that he read all the words of the instruction, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the scroll of the instruction. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read in front of the whole assembly of Israel, the women, the little children, and the sojourner who walked among them.

   Joshua 8:34–35 (KoS)