John Calvin Commentary Joshua 8:29

"And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the eventide: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, unto this day." — Joshua 8:29 (ASV)

And the king of Ai he hanged, although he seems to have treated the king with great severity to satisfy the hatred of the people, I cannot doubt that he faithfully sought to execute the divine judgment. Conquerors, indeed, are accustomed to spare captive kings, because their rank seems to carry something venerable with it, but the condition of kings was different among those nations where God wished particularly to show how greatly He detested the wickedness He had so long tolerated. For while all were doomed to destruction, the divine vengeance justly displayed itself with greater sternness and severity on the leaders, from whom the cause of destruction originated.

We may add that the ignominious punishment inflicted on the king made it even less necessary to deal leniently with the common people. This prevented the Israelites from indulging in an inappropriate mercy, which might have made them more sluggish or careless in carrying out the task of universal extermination.

God purposely delivered the king alive into Joshua's hand, so that his punishment might be more marked and thus better suited as an example. Had he fallen in the conflict indiscriminately with others, he would have been exempted from this special mark of infamy. But now, even after his death, the divine vengeance pursues his corpse.

Indeed, after being hanged, he is thrown out at the gate of the city where he had sat on his throne in judgment, and a monument is erected to perpetuate his ignominy for posterity. His burial, however, is mentioned to let us know that nothing was done through disorderly haste, as Joshua carefully observed what Moses had prescribed in the Law (Deuteronomy 21:23): namely, that those hanged on gallows should be taken down before sunset, since such a spectacle was held in abomination.

And certainly, while it is humane to bury the dead underground, it is inhumanly cruel to cast them out to be torn by wild beasts or birds. Therefore, so that the people might not become accustomed to barbarity, God allowed criminals to be hanged, provided they did not remain hanging unburied for more than one day.

And so that the people might be more attentive to this duty, which otherwise might easily have been neglected, Moses declares that everyone who hangs on a tree is accursed; as if he were saying that the earth is contaminated by that kind of death, if the offensive object is not immediately taken away.