After the encouraging report brought back by his spies, Joshua sends a relatively small force (some three thousand men) to attack Ai, a city on a mountain ridge some 24 kilometers northwest of Jericho. Of course neither Joshua nor the rest of the Israelites know that the Lord is angry with them because of what Achan has done, and so they are surprised and terrified by the defeat they suffer.

The location of Ai is given in relation to Bethel; it was about 2.5 kilometers east (or better, southeast) of Bethel, which is easily identified and located on biblical maps. It is not easy, however, precisely to identify Bethaven, which in the text is said to be a separate locality, not far from Bethel. Bethaven (literally “house of evil/wickedness”) often appears as an insulting nickname for Bethel itself (which means “house of God”; see Hos 4.15; 5.8; Amos 5.5b). So some scholars consider “near Bethaven” an editorial gloss. Others, however, take it to be a variant spelling of “Bethon.”

The initial sentence of verse 2 is difficult for at least two reasons. First, it contains a series of two appositionals, which separate by some distance the subject men from the verbs go and explore. Second, it implies discourse (with orders to go and explore). Some of these difficulties may be made easier if the following restructuring is accepted as a guideline:

• Joshua sent some men from Jericho to the city of Ai. Ai was east of the city of Bethel and not far from the city of Bethaven. Joshua told the men, “Go and find out what you can about the city of Ai and the land around it.”

When they had done so is literally “And the men went up and spied out Ai” (Revised Standard Version). The sentence may be translated “The men obeyed Joshua’s command” or “The men did what Joshua told them to do.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .