First: “Hai” [Ai] either signifies the same as “hi,” because both are written with the same Hebrew letters עי [ʿAi], or it is certainly wholly akin to it. And this word signifies a “mound,” a “solitude,” [and] a “desolation” (Num. 21:12; Ps. 78:1; Job 30:24; Jer. 26:18; Mic. 1:6; ch. 3:12). And, that the force of the former letter ʿayin [ע] might be expressed, the Seventy [LXX] render [it] γαὶ [gai] — as, in “Gomorrah” and others, was said above (q. 4). And so, in Augustine (in the book of Locutions and Questions), it is read Gai; and it is rendered by Origen (hom. 8) chaos; by Chrysostom’s translator it was (hom. 1) “I saw the Lord”; by St. Fulgentius (bk. 2 to Maximus, ch. 3), Gæ; [and] in [the questions on] Haggai, ἀγγαὶ [angai] for the Hebrew hahai — of which soon. Of the Innovators [Protestants], who innovate everything in the proper Hebrew names, not least Calvin calls [it] Ai. It is also called (Neh. 11:31) haia עיא; and Masius thinks that the aleph [א] was added at the end by [Nehemiah], so that the force of the article might be expressed, by which in this chapter, and ch. 12:28, it is named hal-ai [ha-ai]:
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and this article is prefixed to it, so that it may be distinguished, as it were, by excellence, from [the other] “Hai” — another, which is placed among the Ammonites (Jer. 49:3). And perhaps Josephus regarded this too, when he calls that Canaanite [city] Ἄιναν [Ainan], and its citizens Ἀιναίτας [Ainaitas]. But its site is thus given here (v. 2): Which is beside Bethaven, toward the eastern region of the town of Bethel. From two other, doubtful, places it is described — namely, by [its] nearness to Bethaven, and by the fact that it is more easterly than Bethel, which inclines more to the west and south. In this way:
[Figure: a square map, oriented by the four winds, with lettered points and a legend.] The square’s sides are marked for the compass; a diagonal runs from the lower-left corner up to the upper-right corner (e, Jericho), with a point K on it, and a small triangle at the lower-left. Legend:
- a — East [Oriens] (top)
- b — West [Occ.] (bottom)
- c — North [Sept.] (left)
- d — South [Merid.] (right)
- e — Jericho [Hierich.]
- f — Ai [Hai]
- g — Bethaven, the desert [Bethauen solitudo]
- h — Bethel
- i — Bethaven, the city [Bethauen vrbs]
- k — [no entry]
But here, concerning the former place [Bethaven], these things are to be noted. 1. That Bethaven is “the house of iniquity” [domus peccati]. 2. That Bethaven, here omitted by the Seventy [LXX], is elsewhere called by them “the house of On” [domus on] — because in Hebrew auen [אָוֶן, “iniquity”] and on [אוֹן] are written with the same letters, and on signifies the sorrow which is wont to arise from sin — so that οἶκος Ὤν [oikos Ōn, “house of On”] in the Septuagint is beth-on. 3. Below (ch. 18:12) a certain desert of Bethaven is set down; but it is uncertain, says Masius here, whether the desert itself was so called, or whether it is rather to be called “the desert of Bethaven itself” — so that Bethaven was either a village or a town [named] On, from which the name [came] to that solitude. Yet almost all think it was some town (Abulensis, q. 6; Ribera, on Hosea 4, nos. 32, 33; Adrichomius, in [the tribe of] Benjamin, no. 40, sec. 4). Is it the same city as Bethel? To Lyra it is the same; but certainly it ought to be distinguished [from Bethel] at least from the words of this place. Yet it is not to be denied that this name [Bethaven] was sometimes imposed on Bethel itself, out of contempt and mockery — namely, when Jeroboam’s calf began to be worshipped in it, and [the place] which had been “the House of God” (Gen. ch. 28) began to be “the house of sin” (Hosea 4 and 5; Abulensis, qq. 6, 7, 8, 9). 5. Before the idolatrous worship of this calf was in Bethel, whence had that town — whose proper name was Bethaven — been so called? Abulensis answers (q. 11) that it had another name among the Canaanites, but was so called by the Israelites, either because idols were worshipped there with some special cult, or because some chief of them was worshipped. Now concerning the latter place, which is Bethel, these things are to be noted. First: that it is a city, as is plain from many places of Scripture. Secondly: that it signifies “the house of God,” for the cause handed down at Gen. 28. Thirdly: that it was formerly called Luz, as is had in the same place. Where, since in Hebrew there are two words, oulam Luz — that is, “olim Luz” [“formerly Luz”] — they are wrongly joined in the Greek, as if this were the ancient name of the city. For in the old books, and in St. Augustine (on Genesis, qq. 85 and 113), it is read ουλαμμαους [oulammaous]; in others, ιαλάμ [ialam; the Greek indistinct]; in the corrected Seventy, ουλαμλυζ [oulamluz] — [all garbled forms of “Ulam-Luz”]. But of this name [I shall say] something again [from] Judges ch. 1. Fourthly: how [Bethel] is or is not distinguished from Bethaven has just been expounded; but one controversy remains — were there formerly two “Bethels,” or two towns properly so named? Radak, and R. Isaiah, and Ribera (on Hosea ch. 4, no. 29) set up two: one in the tribe of Ephraim, whose ancient name was Luz, [and] which was then called Bethel by Jacob and his posterity; the other in the tribe of Benjamin. But Lyra, Abulensis, [and] Masius (below, ch. 1, q. [4], v. 2) say there is one city — with whom I agree, although (as Masius warns in the cited place), if we would speak properly, Luz was the city, [and] Bethel the field near the city. But that Lyra will have this one Bethel to be Jerusalem, and to have received the name Bethel not from Jacob (Gen. ch. 28) but earlier from Abraham (Gen. ch. 12), on account of his adoration toward the west — I utterly deny, with Abulensis, Masius, [and] Ribera. Concerning the nearness of these places, thus Masius: “How great the space of ground was between Jericho and Ai, is written in the old commentaries on Exodus which are named שמות רבה [Shemoth Rabbah]. For there, at ch. 23, these words are read: ‘The region of Canaan is called the desirable land, because it was longed for by all Kings. For between Ai and Jericho there are only three miles, and yet each city had its own King,’ etc.” Consonant with these are the [things] which our men, who surveyed those places, have written: that Ai was situated about three leagues from the fountain of Elisha, toward the north, on the western part of the mount which the common people now call Quarantana, from CHRIST’s fast — because there he endured forty days for our sake (for that that fountain is in the territory of Jericho is certain from the sacred history). And [as for] the space which by the Gauls is called a “league,” this by the Hebrews [is] מיל Mil (a word taken from the Latins, as if you should say milliarium); it is [so] named, containing about two thousand five hundred paces — that is, as much of a journey as a man on foot completes in the space of an hour with the usual pace. Although there is [a place] where, for a thousand
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paces, you may find this word placed by the Hebrews. Moreover, from Ai to Bethel [there] was scarcely a longer interval than of one league.
II. The spies, in their great military prudence, sent [reconnaissance] ahead to the place against which he [Joshua] was planning war, in the manner said in ch. 2. But between the Jericho-reconnaissance and the Ai-reconnaissance there is this difference: that the spies of the former had to enter the city itself (above, ch. 2, v. 1); but these Ai-[spies did] not, but [surveyed] only the land — or, as it is called here, the “territory” (v. 2). For while the Israelites’ camp was still beyond the Jordan, the Canaanites opened their gates; but now, after they see that these have crossed the Jordan, they shut and fortify all their own [places]. Who these spies were is indicated by no one. But when these had seen the small city from afar, they returned, announcing that very few soldiers were needed to take it (v. 3). “Why,” they say, “shall all the people be vexed in vain?” In Hebrew: “Do not weary all the people [by going] thither, because they (the enemy) [are] few.” Do not weary [them], I say, by going thither, by going up to those mountains, by fighting with those enemies. Hence the Seventy [render it] μὴ ἀναγάγῃς [mē anagagēs, “do not lead up”]. III. The counsel of the spies — about sending few warriors to Ai — pleased Joshua; and so he sent only three thousand (v. 4). Calvin disapproves this facility [rashness] of Joshua: “Since,” he says, “it was necessary a little later to advance farther with all the forces, to send ahead a small band for the sake of storming the city does not seem to have been [a mark] of military skill.” But Calvin seems little skilled, who does not remember that common [saying]: “Things are done in vain through more, which can be done through fewer.” And what does military science or skill prescribe — that huge armies be led against forts, little towns, [and] petty enemy troops? Yet Calvin goes on: “Certainly it was useful for the multitude that 20 or 30 thousand be scattered here and there for foraging.” Sometimes it is useful, sometimes useless. And granted it were then useful, was it necessary that these so-many thousands be sent to Ai? He who indeed scatters [men] here and there for foraging does not send all joined together at once, but sends a third here, a fourth elsewhere, or more thousands, as seems expedient to him. But he still goes on: “Add that, in making the slaughter, although all willingly offered their throats, there was business enough to weary a few men.” By two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, all the males of the city of Shechem were slain with utter slaughter (Gen. 34:25); and by very few, huge slaughters have not rarely been made — in the most crowded battle-lines of enemies, and in the vastest camps — both in sacred and in profane history: how, then, would three thousand men be wearied among the Ai-people, [who were] not so very many? But suppose they be wearied — what then? Is it a crime [piaculum] for soldiers — and soldiers indeed [who are] assaulting, fighting, slaying, and conquering — to be wearied? If, therefore, Joshua’s deed be weighed on the balance of human prudence, he did excellently; and his love and gentleness toward the subject people is to be praised and imitated, in that he was unwilling to impose on them, without cause, an unnecessary labor. But if the same action be referred to the secret counsel of God, it was most fitting to the divine plan — that he might both rouse the people, and unnerve it with excessive terror and grief. For if, three thousand being routed, so great a trembling and mourning arose, what if all the forces of the Israelites had been driven into flight? And yet [so it would have been], on account of Achan’s sacrilegious guilt. IV. Joshua, therefore, began the war of Ai by sending three thousand fighting-men (v. 4). But Abulensis (q. 12) disputes copiously why Josephus writes (bk. 5) that thirty thousand were sent; and after various answers he concludes that Josephus, in his manner, either erred, or exaggerated the matter more than is fair. But although elsewhere often little or no defense at all is available for Josephus, here he is free from all fault. For it was his old translator Rufinus who said “thirty thousand,” not Josephus, who, with the Septuagint, expressly writes that there were sent τρισχιλίους ὁπλίτας [trischilious hoplitas], that is, three thousand soldiers. V. But these, as soon as they came thither, struck with terror turned their backs; and when, down the slope of the mount on which Ai was situated, they fled back into the camp, the Ai-people themselves pursued them in trepidation, from the gate of their city as far as Sabarim — that is, either “until they had broken or crushed them,” as the Chaldee [Targum] renders, as if it should be read schebaram or schobram (for schabar [שבר] is “to break”); and almost all the Greeks signify the same: or “as far as the place called Sabarim,” that is, the place of breakings, or of shatterings, or of crushings — the name perhaps imposed from this event, as we see done elsewhere. And there fell in that flight 36 men, not 30 only, as it is in q. 36 of the Questions from the Old Testament in tome 4 of St. Augustine — as if, from each thousand, 12 men. Some think this happened to them because they were privy to Achan’s sacrilege. But that rule of law prevails with me: “He who is not proved bad is presumed good.” And Josephus calls [them] ἄνδρας ἀγαθοὺς καὶ σπουδῆς ἀξίους [andras agathous kai spoudēs axious, “good men, and worthy of esteem”], and [says] that by Achan’s fault alone they were not at all protected by God, and were therefore slain — [as] that cited question 36 of St. Augustine [holds]. And R. Eliezer (ch. 38): “On account of Achan,” he says, “thirty-six just [men] died” — although it could easily happen that there was in them some other sin, which by death, according to God’s judgment, they deservedly paid, and perhaps washed away. Yet if God willed, He could, without any fault of anyone, inflict bodily death on someone. For neither, says that cited question 36 from the Old Testament, “in such cases is [He] a debtor, so that He be held liable.” But of this again below, q. 36.