Another thing that we learn from the story of Ai is that God did not intend that His people should ever suffer defeat, or that in the occupation of the land a single man should lose his life. In ordinary warfare the loss of thirty-six men in an assault upon a strongly fortified city would not be counted great, whether the assault were successful or not; but in taking possession of the land of Canaan it was a terrible reverse. The promise was, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you,” and “there shall not any man be able to stand before thee,” 1Joshua 1:8, 5. and now they themselves had been obliged to flee, with the loss of men. The influence that the passage of the Jordan and the capture of Jericho would have had to impress and overawe the heathen, was now broken. Trusting to their own strength, the Israelites had lost the power of God’s presence, and had demonstrated their own weakness. EVCO 382.1