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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>Joshua 9 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/joshua/9.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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and how shall we make a league with you?">Joshua 9:7</a>. Gibeon was one member of a tetrapolis, or community of four cities, as is seen in <a href="/joshua/9-17.htm" title="And the children of Israel journeyed, and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim.">Joshua 9:17</a>. Their deception of Joshua and the Israelites on this occasion is a curious compensation for what was done by Simeon and Levi to the Hivites long before, when Jacob first came to Shechem from Padan-Aram (see Genesis 34). On that occasion, the inhabitants of a single city of the Hivites were put to the sword by Israel, by means of a stratagem; on this occasion, a stratagem saved four Hivite cities from destruction by Israel’s sword.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-4.htm">Joshua 9:4</a></div><div class="verse">They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;</div>(4) <span class= "bld">They did work wilily.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">and they </span>also <span class= "ital">dealt with subtilty. </span>The stratagem does not seem a very profound one, or one that would have been difficult to detect. But we may remember a fact of Israel’s experience which puts it in a somewhat different light. The Israelites themselves had come from a far country, but their raiment had not “waxed old upon them,” nor did “their feet swell,” these forty years. Of bread they had no need, when there was manna, and God gave them water for their thirst. Of worn garments and stale provisions they had no experience, and therefore, when the Gibeonites presented themselves in this extraordinary garb and guise, it is not unnatural that they were not detected by the eyes of Israel.<p><span class= "bld">They . . . made as if they had been ambassadors.</span>—The verb thus translated does not occur elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. By the alteration of a letter, the Targum, LXX., and some other versions make it mean, “they gat them provision.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-5.htm">Joshua 9:5</a></div><div class="verse">And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry <i>and</i> mouldy.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">Clouted</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> patched.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-7.htm">Joshua 9:7</a></div><div class="verse">And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Peradventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you?</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Peradventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you?</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">Peradventure thou art a dweller in the midst of me; and how shall I make a covenant with thee? </span>The Israelites assume the ownership of Canaan as already theirs.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-9.htm">Joshua 9:9</a></div><div class="verse">And they said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come because of the name of the LORD thy God: for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt,</div>(9, 10) <span class= "bld">All that he did in Egypt, and . . . to the two kings of the Amorites.</span>—The Gibeonites carefully abstain from referring to more recent exploits, as the passage of Jordan, the taking of Jericho and Ai; they mention only those which might have had time to reach them in the “far country” from which they asserted that they came.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-14.htm">Joshua 9:14</a></div><div class="verse">And the men took of their victuals, and asked not <i>counsel</i> at the mouth of the LORD.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">And the men took of their victuals.</span>—<span class= "ital">And they accepted the men from </span>(the appearance of) <span class= "ital">their provisions. </span>This, which is the view taken in our marginal reading, seems to be the more probable interpretation, and follows the Targum. “The men” can hardly refer to any one but the ambassadors of the Gibeonites.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-16.htm">Joshua 9:16</a></div><div class="verse">And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they <i>were</i> their neighbours, and <i>that</i> they dwelt among them.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Their neighbours, and they that dwelt among them.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">and that they </span>(the Gibeonites) <span class= "ital">were dwellers in the midst of him </span>(Israel). (So <a href="/joshua/9-7.htm" title="And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Peradventure you dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you?">Joshua 9:7</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-17.htm">Joshua 9:17</a></div><div class="verse">And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities <i>were</i> Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim.</span>—The first three of these were assigned to Benjamin (<a href="/context/joshua/18-25.htm" title="Gibeon, and Ramah, and Beeroth,">Joshua 18:25-26</a>), the last to Judah (15:60), in the division of the land. The fact that the larger portion of the territory of the Gibeonites was in the tribe of Benjamin explains how Saul was tempted to confiscate their possessions for the purpose of supplying his followers with fields and vineyards (<a href="/1_samuel/22-7.htm" title="Then Saul said to his servants that stood about him, Hear now, you Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds;">1Samuel 22:7</a>). He appears to have carried out his purpose in the case of Beeroth (<a href="/context/2_samuel/4-2.htm" title="And Saul's son had two men that were captains of bands: the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin: (for Beeroth also was reckoned to Benjamin.">2Samuel 4:2-3</a>), but not as regards all the Gibeonite towns. Gibeon became a city of the <span class= "ital">priests </span>(<a href="/joshua/21-17.htm" title="And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs,">Joshua 21:17</a>), and also a principal place of worship and the seat of the tabernacle (as Kirjath-jearim was of the ark) in later times. (See <a href="/1_samuel/6-21.htm" title="And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjathjearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come you down, and fetch it up to you.">1Samuel 6:21</a>; <a href="/1_samuel/7-1.htm" title="And the men of Kirjathjearim came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD.">1Samuel 7:1</a>, &c.; 1 Chron. 20:29; and <a href="/context/2_chronicles/1-3.htm" title="So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness.">2Chronicles 1:3-6</a>.) The fact that the Gibeonites were dedicated to the service of the sanctuary may partly account for this. In Gibeon, Solomon asked and received the wisdom which Joshua and Israel at this time did not ask.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-19.htm">Joshua 9:19</a></div><div class="verse">But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We have sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them.</div>(19) <span class= "bld">We have sworn unto them . . . therefore we may not touch them.</span>—Although the covenant was obtained from the Israelites by false pretences, yet, being made in the name of Jehovah, it could not be broken; it was His covenant. “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not,” is commended in <a href="/psalms/15-4.htm" title="In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honors them that fear the LORD. He that swears to his own hurt, and changes not.">Psalm 15:4</a>. We should notice that the law of Jehovah had raised the tone of morality in this particular. There are many Christians who would not hesitate to repudiate an agreement concluded under false pretences.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/joshua/9-23.htm">Joshua 9:23</a></div><div class="verse">Now therefore ye <i>are</i> cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.</div>(23) <span class= "bld">Bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.</span>—The precedent established in regard to the Gibeonites appears to have been followed by Solomon in his dealings with all the remnant of the doomed nations of Canaan who were not destroyed. (See <a href="/context/1_kings/9-20.htm" title="And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel,">1Kings 9:20-21</a>; <a href="/context/2_chronicles/8-7.htm" title="As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which were not of Israel,">2Chronicles 8:7-8</a>.) It is thought that they are to be recognised in the Nethinim of Ezra and Nehemiah, who come after the Levites, singers, and porters in the enumeration of the restored captives (<a href="/ezra/2-43.htm" title="The Nethinims: the children of Ziha, the children of Hasupha, the children of Tabbaoth,">Ezra 2:43</a>). Compare also the mention of Solomon’s servants (<a href="/ezra/2-58.htm" title="All the Nethinims, and the children of Solomon's servants, were three hundred ninety and two.">Ezra 2:58</a>), whose children are coupled with the Nethinim. 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