Question IX. Why was Ai destroyed by fire? (v. 28)

Someone might wonder, says Masius: “and not without reason, why God ordered this city too to be utterly destroyed — [God] whose counsel and will, nevertheless, was that the Israelites should not only exterminate the Canaanites from the whole region, but should themselves also inhabit their places. And there is extant, in Xenophon, a most prudent deliberation of the supreme Commander Cyrus, by which it is shown [that], for waging war rightly in another’s dominion, it is most advisable not only to snatch from the enemy, as much as can be done, very many strongholds, but also to procure for oneself and one’s own very many [strongholds]: since those who do not do this differ nothing from those who sail through a vast sea. For they indeed sail with a perpetual course; but what part of the waves they have once run through by sailing, that they hold no more than [what is] still untouched. But God did not will his Israel to trust in human reasonings, but to lean on His single aid and grace, to observe His nods [signals], to have all confidence placed in Him alone, [and] to look upon His single benevolence as the safest refuge. He willed indeed [that], the old colonists being gradually routed, they should procure for themselves dwellings in Canaan, and cultivate the cities left by those [colonists]. But the enemy was not yet so far repressed that it was advisable [that] any fortified places remain, which could be a refuge for him again — especially since they [the Israelites] themselves had not yet discharged the commanded ceremony at Mount Ebal and Gerizim, to which the whole multitude was to be led away. And besides, to hold strongholds and towns with garrisons, before a great part of the war was finished, would have been nothing else than to increase confidence in oneself, [and] to diminish [confidence] in God. Moreover it is credible [that] the soldiers were more inclined to preserve this city than to lay it waste — since the Commander so keenly orders it to be burned up.” See [the things] said about Jericho (ch. 6). In their time, Eusebius of Caesarea and St. Jerome (in the book on the Hebrew places), when they described it [Ai], say: “Now only a deserted place is shown.”