AMBUSH

Ambuscades, in which troops were posted in concealed locations to surprise the enemy, were employed on various occasions by the Israelites. Joshua skillfully employed an ambush against Ai, posting five thousand men to the W of the city at night, while deploying the main body of his forces to the N. The following morning he drew the city’s defenders away from the city by feigning defeat, thus allowing the ambush to rise up and take the city (Josh. 8:2-21) Ambushes were involved in the dispute between the landowners of Shechem and Gideon’s son Abimelech. (Judg. 9:25, 31-45) Samson was the object of ambushes by the Philistines. (Judg. 16:1-12) Saul set an ambush against Amalek and later accused David of lying in ambush for him. (1 Sam. 15:5; 22:8) Other ambushes were those in the fight of Israel against the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. 20:29-44), the unsuccessful ambush of Judah by Jeroboam (2 Chron. 13:13-19), the ambush producing confusion among Judah’s attackers in the days of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:22, 23), those mentioned in describing the fall of Jerusalem (Lam. 4:19), and the ambush decreed against Babylon by Jehovah. (Jer. 51:12) The returning Jewish exiles were protected from ambush by Jehovah.—Ezra 8:31; see WAR.

The Hebrew word ʼa·ravʹ, meaning “to lie in wait or to ambush,” is also used in describing the hunting tactics of animals (Job 38:39, 40; Lam. 3:10), and, figuratively, to describe the prostitute as she waylays men (Prov. 7:12; 23:27, 28), and to describe the tactics of wicked ones against the innocent and the righteous. (Job 31:9; Ps. 10:8, 9; Prov. 1:11, 18; 12:6; 24:15; Jer. 9:4-9; Mic. 7:2; compare Psalms 56:1-6; 83:3, 4.) In Israel the death penalty was decreed for the man found guilty of killing another after lying in wait to do it.—Deut. 19:11, 12.

The more than forty Jews who “bound themselves with a curse” plotted an ambush against the apostle Paul but were foiled by Paul’s nephew.—Acts 23:12-35.