"... In my opinion, the description of impalement in Joshua 8:29 was not initially designed to illustrate Deuteronomic law, but rather takes its inspiration from the prevalent Neo-Assyrian practice directed against foreign enemies in wartime. The reliefs of the conquest of Lachish illustrate how Sennacherib carried out this practice in Judah during his third campaign. In my opinion, the early conquest account did not object to the idea that the Israelites should treat the kings of Canaan in the same fashion that Assyrians had treated Judean captives during the campaigns of the seventh century. I think that a later scribe, in the late sixth century or later, assumed that the rationale that was added to the law in Deuteronomy 21:22–23 should also apply to the period of the conquest in order to preserve the land of Israel’s inheritance from pollution. To this end, he added the details about removing the body of the king of Ai at sunset and interning his corpse in the cairn. In this case, a late Deuteronomistic revision of the Ai narrative employed the law in Deuteronomy 21:22–23 in an exegetical fashion ..."