4:10 Now the priests carrying the ark of the covenant were standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people was accomplished, in accordance with all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people went across quickly,
8:1 The Lord told Joshua, “Don’t be afraid and don’t panic! 9 Take the whole army with you and march against Ai! 10 See, I am handing over to you 11 the king of Ai, along with his people, city, and land.
1 tn Heb “and it will be at the sounding of the horn, the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the ram’s horn.” The text of Josh 6:5 seems to be unduly repetitive, so for the sake of English style and readability, it is best to streamline the text here. The reading in the Hebrew looks like a conflation of variant readings, with the second (“when you hear the sound of the ram’s horn”) being an interpolation that assimilates the text to verse 20 (“when the army heard the sound of the horn”). Note that the words “when you hear the sound of the ram's horn” do not appear in the LXX of verse 5.
2 tn Heb “all the people will shout with a loud shout.”
3 tn Heb “fall in its place.”
4 tn Heb “and the people will go up, each man straight ahead.”
1 tn Heb “and they returned to Joshua and said to him.”
2 tn Heb “Don’t let all the people go up.”
3 tn Heb “Let about two thousand men or about three thousand men go up to defeat Ai.”
4 tn Heb “all the people for they are small.”
1 tn Or perhaps “and don’t get discouraged!”
2 tn Heb “Take with you all the people of war and arise, go up against Ai!”
3 tn Heb “I have given into our hand.” The verbal form, a perfect, is probably best understood as a perfect of certitude, indicating the certainty of the action.