Joshua 8:9

9. Between Bethel and Ai This region is greatly cut up with gorges and ravines, “and,” says Dr. Thomson, “as I passed from Bethel towards Michmash, (southeasterly,) I could easily understand how Joshua’s ambush of five thousand men could be hid between Ai and Bethel.”

[On the west side of Ai A short distance west of Et-Tel, says Captain Wilson, “and entirely concealed from it by rising ground, is a small ravine well suited for an ambush, one of the branches of the main valley, which runs close to Et-Tel, and protects its northern face the same into which the army of the Israelites descended the night before the capture of the city. On the hills to the north, beyond the valley, Joshua encamped before making his final arrangements for the attack, (Joshua 8:11,) and it seems probable that he took his stand at some point on the hillside while the battle was raging, for there is a most commanding view over the whole scene, not only up the lateral valley, in which the ambush was placed, but also down by the way of the wilderness. Joshua 8:15. He would thus be able at the same time to control the feigned flight of the Israelites, and signal the ambush (Joshua 8:18-19) to rise up quickly and seize the city.”]

Joshua lodged that night among the people That is, among the twenty-five thousand who encamped for the night on the north side of Ai in the valley. Joshua 8:11; Joshua 8:13. The night here mentioned is to be understood as identical with that mentioned in Joshua 8:3; Joshua 8:13.