So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolation to this day.
Parallel translations
- WEB So Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.
- KJV And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.
- NKJV So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day.
- NASB So Joshua burned Ai and made it a refuse heap forever, a desolation until this day.
- NLT So Joshua burned the town of Ai, and it became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Joshua burns Ai and leaves it a permanent heap of ruins. The city is reduced to a lasting monument of judgment.
Overview
The total burning of Ai fulfills God's command and leaves a desolation 'to this day' as a witness. Its name, meaning 'ruin' or 'heap,' becomes fittingly literal. The enduring desolation stands as a testimony to the judgment that falls on those who oppose the living God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Deut 13:16And you are to gather all its plunder in the middle of the public square, and completely burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. The city must remain a mound of ruins forever, never to be rebuilt.
- Jer 49:2Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will sound the battle cry against Rabbah of the Ammonites. It will become a heap of ruins, and its villages will be burned. Then Israel will drive out their dispossessors, says the LORD.
- Jer 50:26Come against her from the farthest border. Break open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain. Devote her to destruction; leave her no survivors.
- Josh 4:9Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant stood. And the stones are there to this day.
- 2 Kgs 19:25Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
- Isa 17:1This is the burden against Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is no longer a city; it has become a heap of ruins.
- Isa 25:2Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.
- Jer 9:11“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Mic 3:12Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.
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Christ at the center
Joshua — the same name as Jesus, 'the LORD saves' — leads God's people into their inheritance, a shadow of the greater Joshua who brings us into the true rest and the promised land that remains.
How Joshua 8:28 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.