HAI (Heb. hā-'Aj, always with the article, “the ruin”; Septuagint I°a). A Canaanite city east of and near Bethel and Bethaven (Gen. 12:8; Ios. 8:9; 12:9), somewhat north of Machmas (Is. 10:28), identified with the ruins of et-Tell, situated 2 km east of Bejtin (v. BETHESDA) and 2 km north of Dejr Divān on the Muḥmas-Bejtin road.
The Israelites’ first attack failed because of Achan’s (v.) transgression concerning the ban imposed on Jericho; but once the culprit had been punished and the guilt expiated, the action was resumed and crowned with victory: the inhabitants were defeated, the King was hanged, and the city was burned and reduced to a heap of ruins (Ios. 7-8). After the Exile, a small village arose nearby under the name 'Ajāh (Neh. 11:31), but in the time of Eusebius (Onom., 4, 27) the site appeared deserted.
The excavations carried out in 1933-35 revealed the imposing remains of a large city, with a royal palace, sanctuaries, and houses, protected by a triple circuit of walls, together with ceramic evidence of occupation from the third to the second millennium B.C., when, for unknown reasons, the city was covered over and its population annihilated. For eight centuries H. remained abandoned, and only between 1200 and 1000 did a small village re-form on the outskirts, lasting for approximately 150 years. The report on the excavations’ findings immediately raised the question of the historicity of the account in Giosuè. Independent criticism declared it unequivocally legendary (R. Dussaud, A. Lods) or etiological in character (M. Noth), arising in the Benjaminite milieu to explain the configuration and archaeological condition of the country. W. F. Albright is inclined to read the account as the historical conquest of Bethel, which took place in the thirteenth century but was transferred by the inhabitants of Bethel to the nearby Tell for etiological reasons. The position of Catholic scholars was either to deny the identification of hā-'Aj with et-Tell (Simons) or to await cautiously the complete results of the excavations (A. Fernández). The archaeologist P. Vincent maintains the topographical equation hā-'Aj = et-Tell and places the biblical account within the framework of the archaeological conclusions. In the time of Giosuè, the ancient Canaanite fortress, covered over and abandoned for centuries but still powerful and admirably situated, was transformed into a provisional defensive bastion by the Canaanites, and especially by the inhabitants of Bethel (8:17), who were determined to prevent and halt the victorious advance of the Israelites into the interior of the country. The account, subsequently victorious in its presentation of the entire action, would then have been clothed in the narrative colors of the other chapters concerning the conquest.
schools of oriental research, 56 (1934), pp. 2-15; 57 (1935), pp. 27-30; 74 (1930), pp. 15-18; M. Noth, Bethel und Ai, in Palästinofahrbuch, 31 (1935), pp. 7-20; J. Marquet-Henne, La deuxième campagne des fouilles à Ay (1924); Rapport sommaire, in Syria, 16 (1935), pp. 325-45; R. Dussaud, Note additionnelle, ibid., pp. 346-445; A. Lods, Les fouilles d'Ai et l'époque de l'entrée des Israélites en Palestine, in Mélanges F. Cumont, Brussels 1936, pp. 847-57; L.-H. Vincent, La Bible et l'archéologie dans l'équation 'Ai' = et-Tell, in Revue biblique, 46 (1937), pp. 258-66 (the most extensive report); J. Simons, Een opmerking over het Ai - problem, in Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux*, 9 (1944), pp. 157-62. Donato Baldi