‘ And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them saying, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai.'
Meanwhile scouts were sent through the gap in the mountains to discover the next obstacle before them and they came across Ai. It was not seen to be very large. Only three military units were seen as necessary to take it (Joshua 7:3), thus, say, one hundred and fifty men (taking a normal unit as possibly around fifty). Military units were split into ‘tens', ‘hundreds' and thousands' (Judges 20:10). We might translate ‘families, wider families, sub-clans' for in ancient days these number words rather indicated tribal and sub-tribal units. It was only later that they would finally indicate the numerical value given to them today (and even then military units do not tend to reach the number indicated. For example a Roman ‘legion' and ‘century' never attained these numbers in practise. The names were simply technical). Thus there would be units of a few (the family - a ‘ten'), larger units over this (the wider family group - a ‘hundred'), and even larger units (the sub-clan - a ‘thousand'). See the divisions in Joshua 7:17-18.
Ai had quite possibly been deliberately set up and inhabited as a semi-permanent township, and as an established forward post for Bethel. This establishment as a reinforced defence post, making use of its ancient walls, may well have been directly in anticipation of Israel's invasion, which was expected fairly shortly from the Jordan valley, for this invasion must have been anticipated for some time as news filtered through of the approach of this fierce marauding people who were advancing in such numbers. It possibly contained specially trained fighting men/farmers, with their families, under a martial leader called its ‘king'. But its importance for Israel lay in the fact that it stood between the Israelite army and the final ascent to Bethel and the hill country.
Bethaven was used as a synonym for Bethel in Hosea 4:15; Amos 5:5. It meant ‘house of iniquity' (seen by the prophets as a more suitable term for a Bethel taken up with idolatry), but from the description here it was probably an outer sub-town of Bethel. (See Joshua 18:12; 1 Samuel 13:5; 1 Samuel 14:23 may have been another Bethaven).
Ai always carries the definite article ‘ha ay' - ‘the ruin'. The present ‘city' was thus seemingly a small township, established within the ruins of what was once a great city, making use of the ancient walls. Its total population was small. They were ‘but few' (Joshua 7:3), at the most a few hundred, including women and children. It had its own ‘king' and cattle (compare Genesis 19:20 with Genesis 14:2 for a parallel king over another very small town). How permanent the settlement was we do not know. They may well have moved here from Bethel some time before, occupying it in readiness to face the Israelite menace. Its identification is not certain.
Et-Tel is the more popular preference (being nearest to Jericho and having a name meaning ‘the mound'), but Tel Nisya (sometimes spelt Nusieh) is also suggested and has a number of things in its favour. The former has revealed no evidence of long term occupation at this period, but if its occupation was for defensive purposes in view of the approaching Israelites, such evidence would not be expected, especially as it was then unoccupied until a hundred or so years later. Ravages of weather and predators would soon remove any evidence of limited occupation. The latter has evidence of such occupation and the contours of the land around would allow a large number of men to be hidden. In the former case Bethel would be Tel Beitin, in the latter case Birah.
That it was described as containing ‘few' demonstrates that its population was much less than that of Jericho, which itself was (because of the size of the mound alone) less than two thousand.
Bethel. If Tel Beitin was Bethel the city dated back to the Middle Bronze age. Both Abraham and Jacob were at times in the vicinity of Bethel (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:3; Genesis 31:13; Genesis 35:7). Both saw it as religiously important. Jacob even appropriated its name for the place where he had his vision and looked on it as a sanctuary. The Middle Bronze age city was prosperous but destroyed about 1550 BC. It was rebuilt with well built late Bronze age houses, until this in turn was disastrously destroyed in late 13th century BC, to be followed by an Iron age city which marked a definite cultural change. It is tempting to see this as being as a result of occupation by Israel (either here or in Judges 1:22-24) but archaeology is difficult to apply with certainty. They were tumultuous times, and we are not sure whether this site was Bethel or not. As the Amarna letters reveal it would be a mistake to think of Canaan as a land at peace until the Israelites arrived.
It may be significant that Bethel is not said to have been taken by Joshua although its army was defeated by him along with that of Ai (Joshua 8:17). So we are faced with two possibilities. One is that it was captured along with Ai. The great conflagration that destroyed it then being the reason why it was lumped with Ai in grim humour as ‘the ruin'. The other is that Joshua may have been satisfied with rendering Bethel powerless by defeating and decimating its army without at this stage taking the city itself. At this time occupation was not a priority. Immobilising the enemy was. It is not likely that he slew its king at this time (Joshua 12:16) or he would have been dealt with as the king of Ai was dealt with.