town or village

Ai

• Today Et Tell
• Location disputed

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Battles and sieges

1. c. 1406 BCIsrael repulsed at Ai Josh 7:2–5
   About three thousand of Israel against the men of Ai. Israel flees; about thirty-six men are killed in the pursuit to Shebarim.
2. c. 1406 BCJoshua takes Ai Josh 8:1–29
   Israel under Joshua, with an ambush behind the city, against the men of Ai. Ai is burned and its king hanged.

History

Ai is usually identified with et-Tell, a large mound beside the village of Deir Dibwan, about 3 km east of Beitin, ancient Bethel, on a plateau overlooking the Jordan Valley. Both the Hebrew name, ha-Ai, and the Arabic et-Tell mean a heap of ruins. Excavations by Judith Marquet-Krause in 1933–1935 and by Joseph Callaway from 1964 uncovered a walled city of the Early Bronze Age, built about 3100 BC, with a temple-palace on its acropolis. It was destroyed more than once and finally about 2400 BC.

The mound then lay empty for more than a thousand years. About 1200 BC a small unwalled village of farmers and herders, with cisterns cut in the rock, was built on part of it; it was abandoned about 1050 BC without destruction. In Genesis Abram pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai and builds an altar there. In the Book of Joshua Israel's first attack on Ai fails because Achan has taken from the spoil of Jericho; then an ambush laid between Bethel and Ai takes the city, and Joshua "burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever".

As et-Tell had no town in the Late Bronze Age, how the story relates to the site is disputed. Many scholars read it as an explanation of an ancient ruin; W. F. Albright suggested that a memory of the capture of nearby Bethel was transferred to Ai; others look for Joshua's Ai elsewhere. In 1995–2000 and 2009–2016 the Associates for Biblical Research dug at Khirbet el-Maqatir, about 1 km west of et-Tell, where Bryant Wood identifies a small fortress burned in the fifteenth century BC as Ai. Most scholars still place Ai at et-Tell.

Men of Bethel and Ai are listed among the exiles who returned from Babylon. Josephus calls Ai a city above Jericho. In the early fourth century Eusebius placed Ai near Bethel and wrote that it was then deserted. At Khirbet el-Maqatir a church was built in the fourth century, enlarged into a basilica with three apses about 400 and joined by a monastery in the later fifth century.

Scripture: Gen 12:8; Gen 13:3; Josh 7:1–26; Josh 8:1–29; Ezra 2:28; Neh 7:32

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (32)

Gen 12:8

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

Gen 13:3

And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;

Josh 7:2

And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai.

Josh 7:3

And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but few.

Josh 7:4

So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai.

Josh 7:5

And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.

Josh 8:1

And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land:

Josh 8:2

And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.

Josh 8:3

So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night.

Josh 8:5

And I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them,

Josh 8:9

Joshua therefore sent them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people.

Josh 8:10

And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and numbered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.

Josh 8:11

And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai.

Josh 8:12

And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of the city.

Josh 8:14

And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city.

Josh 8:16

And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them: and they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.

Josh 8:17

And there was not a man left in Ai or Beth-el, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel.

Josh 8:18

And the LORD said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.

Josh 8:20

And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

Josh 8:21

And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.

Josh 8:22

And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.

Josh 8:23

And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.

Josh 8:24

And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.

Josh 8:25

And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.

Josh 8:26

For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

Josh 8:28

And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

Josh 8:29

And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.

Josh 9:1

And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof;

Josh 9:3

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai,

Josh 10:1

Now it came to pass, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;

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