Joshua 7:6

"And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of Jehovah until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord Jehovah, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over the Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? would that we had been content and dwelt beyond the Jordan! Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after that Israel hath turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites, and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will compass us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do for thy great name?"

The distress of Joshua is certainly understandable. A stunning defeat of Israel by a garrison that the Israelites themselves had evaluated as so small that they would need no more than a relative handful of men to take it that such an outpost should be able to put Israel to flight, that was indeed a disaster. Skilled commander that he was, Joshua, knew what a boon this would be to Israel's enemies, and he feared that it would result in a massive counter-attack against Israel by the whole population of Canaan.

Some have criticized Joshua for sending out spies, apparently without Divine instructions to do so, and for going forward with the attack without specific instructions such as he had received prior to the victory at Jericho, and even for the humiliation of himself in this episode of falling on his face before the ark and casting dust on his head. We do not find that the Lord rebuked Joshua for any of these, and, therefore, we shall dissent from the views of critical commentators. The only thing that appears to us as detrimental to the attack on Ai was the seeming over-confidence that did not send enough men to take it in the first place. Nor can we buy that report of the spies. Later on, when Israel took Ai, they put to death 12,000 men (Joshua 8:25); and from that we know that the spies simply failed in their mission. "John Calvin made some severe remarks on Joshua's folly and want of faith here, but it may be paralleled by most Christians in adversity."[8]