So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai.
Ver. 4. And they fled before the men of Ai.] Their sins having betrayed them into the hands of divine justice, the victory was abandoned, and sent away to the enemy; as that noble General Trajan told Valens, the Arrian emperor, when he had been defeated by the Goths in the very first battle, as these Israelites also were. a
a Niceph., lib. xiii. cap. 40.