Joshuachapter 9
27 verses · Joshua, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · History
And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof;
Introduction
Joshua, by tradition, History, Joshua Overview.
This chapter records a treaty Israel should not have made, and it was written for a people who lived with its results for centuries. The story turns on a trick, and the trick works because Israel's leaders trusted their own eyes. It sits between two campaigns and explains why one group of Canaanites survived inside Israel. Listen for the single sentence that names what Israel failed to do. Notice why the leaders keep an oath that was obtained by fraud. The chapter ends with a people given a lasting place of service at the house of God.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the land, hearing how its own leaders were outmanoeuvred without a fight
- What
- The Gibeonites trick Israel into a treaty by posing as travellers from a distant country, and are made woodcutters and water carriers.
- Where
- The camp at Gilgal, and the four Hivite towns of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath-jearim on the plateau northwest of Jerusalem.
- When
- After the fall of Jericho and Ai, while news of both was spreading through the hill country.
- Why
- To show the danger of deciding without seeking the LORD, and to show that an oath sworn in His name had to be kept.
Historical context
The book carries no superscription naming its writer, and it reports Joshua writing at least part of it at 24:26. The Babylonian Talmud at Bava Batra 14b to 15a assigns the whole book to him, while Martin Noth read it as the second volume of an exilic Deuteronomistic History.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Joshua stands here as the commander who succeeded Moses, and the chapter follows the fall of Jericho and of Ai, when news of both had reached every town in the hill country. Gibeon and its allied towns sat on the plateau controlling the approaches to the central hill country, and the text calls Gibeon a great city, like a royal city, with skilled fighting men.
The deception is built from travel gear, worn sacks, split and mended wineskins, patched sandals, threadbare clothes and crumbling bread, which is what a long distance caravan looked like after weeks on the road. A first hearer knew that an oath sworn in the name of the LORD bound the swearer whatever the manner of its getting. That is why the leaders honoured it after the fraud came out, and why the congregation's anger did not overturn it. Breaking a sworn treaty invited the wrath of the deity called as witness, and every nation in that world understood it.
The Gibeonites became woodcutters and water carriers for the congregation and for the altar, which was permanent subordinate labour that also placed them at the sanctuary. Generations later Saul's attempt to wipe them out was still treated as a broken oath needing redress.
Significance
The reason given for the failure is one sentence, and it is the point of the chapter. The men of Israel sampled the provisions and did not ask counsel from the LORD, so they tested the evidence and never asked the one who knew.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
First hearers would also have noticed what the Gibeonites said. They came because they had heard the name of the LORD and what He did in Egypt and to the two kings east of the Jordan. Fear of God drove them to lie their way into Israel rather than fight.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus carries only five notes with an English text on this chapter, and all five are Rashi. He is quoted from the Metsudah Publications Book of Joshua of 1997, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The first of them supplies a motive the account withholds. The verse says the Gibeonites also acted with cunning, and Rashi asks who acted so before them. His answer is the sons of Jacob at Shechem, who dealt in trickery with Hamor, the father of Shechem, who was a Hivite (Rashi on Joshua 9:4:1). The Gibeonites were Hivites too. On this reading the deception at Gibeon is a family memory of what Israel had once done to their own kin, and the Metsudah note beside Rashi says they felt justified by it. A Christian reader meeting the chapter only as a warning against failing to inquire of God will find that the classical reading also asks what Israel looked like from outside.
The disguise is read as detail rather than colour. The word for the bread the Gibeonites carried Rashi takes from a root for fire and heat, so the loaves were toasted hard for a long road. He notes that Targum Yonatan renders it the same way (Rashi on Joshua 9:5:1). The verb at the twelfth verse he derives from the word for provisions, which is what the bread was taken as (Rashi on Joshua 9:12:1).
The treaty itself is read against the law of the ban, and Rashi says so at the point the men of Israel first speak. The question they put is whether these strangers live nearby, and Rashi glosses it as asking whether they are of those who dwell in the land (Rashi on Joshua 9:7:1). The note beside him states the law the question is testing, that no treaty was to be made with the inhabitants of Canaan or with their gods. The whole deception turns on being counted outside that law. Rashi also marks a difference between the written and the read form of the verb in the same verse, and takes it that the men of Israel spoke as one man who doubted the story.
The failure at the fourteenth verse is put in three words in Rashi and left there. The men accepted their words. "They trapped them with their mouths" (Rashi on Joshua 9:14:1). The wording he chooses comes from a clause about a man who lay in wait, and the sense is that Israel was caught by speech rather than by force. The site argues the ban and the exemptions at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest, and the card leaves the argument there. The corpus carries nineteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, more than on any other chapter of the twelve. Seven stand cited and unquoted at Metzudat David on Joshua 9:1:1, 9:3:1, 9:6:1, 9:9:1, 9:13:1, 9:23:1 and 9:26:1. Seven stand at Radak on Joshua 9:2:1, 9:10:1, 9:11:1, 9:20:1, 9:21:1, 9:24:1 and 9:25:1. Five stand at Malbim on Joshua 9:15:1, 9:16:1, 9:18:1, 9:19:1 and 9:22:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds the fourth chapter of the book of Joshua in Sefer HaYashar. On the second, the kings gathering to fight, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 2:4:1, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 9:23, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:16:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Noach 24:5.
The disguise carries a short run. On the fourth verse the corpus holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 940:8, on the fifth Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 30:32:4, and on the sixth Gittin 46a:7. On the eighth it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 181:4. On the ninth, where the Gibeonites speak of the name of the God of Israel, it holds Sifrei Bamidbar 78:1 and Sifrei Zuta 10:29:1. On the tenth it holds Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:15. On the eleventh it holds Bereshit Rabbah 49:9, Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 19:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 83:5. On the twelfth, the dry bread, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Terumot 5:1:1 and 5:1:9.
The oath and what it bound Israel to is the passage the tractates work hardest. On the fourteenth verse the corpus holds Tractate Kallah Rabbati 4:3, and on the fifteenth Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:1:7. On the seventeenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 26, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 13:12 and Sifrei Devarim 196:2. On the eighteenth, where the congregation murmurs against the princes who had sworn, it holds Gittin 46a:6, Ketubot 75a:1 and Ein Yaakov, Gittin 4:8. A passage of Otzar Midrashim on missing and extra letters, at 2:9, stands with them.
The sentence laid on the Gibeonites carries the rest. On the twenty-first verse, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the corpus holds Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 3:1:3, Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:9 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 24:11:4. On the twenty-second it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 8:4. On the twenty-third it holds Bereshit Rabbah 20:5, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 6:7:4 and Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 19:3. On the twenty-fourth, the answer the Gibeonites give about their lives, it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 42:14, and on the twenty-fifth Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 168:2. On the twenty-seventh it holds Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:7, Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 8:9 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 8:7. One further locator is filed under this chapter at a verse anchor past its twenty-seven verses, Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:8. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Joshua 9:4:1, 9:5:1, 9:7:1, 9:12:1 and 9:14:1, the Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997, reported CC-BY; Targum Jonathan, the rendering of the Gibeonites' bread at Joshua 9:5, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 9:5:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Joshua 9:1:1, 9:3:1, 9:6:1, 9:9:1, 9:13:1, 9:23:1 and 9:26:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Joshua 9:2:1, 9:10:1, 9:11:1, 9:20:1, 9:21:1, 9:24:1 and 9:25:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Joshua 9:15:1, 9:16:1, 9:18:1, 9:19:1 and 9:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/joshua/9.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Moldy bread and worn shoes: the Gibeonite ruse
Joshua 9:1-2
The kings west of the Jordan hear what the kings of 5:1 heard, and where those hearts melted, these combine. The six nations named are the six of Exodus 3:8 and Deuteronomy 20:17, the list the ban was written against. Their answer stands first so it can be weighed against Gibeon’s answer to the same report.
Joshua 9:1
“In the hills - See the Num 13:17 note. The valleys - Or “the vale” (the Shephelah, Deu 1:7), which imports the lowland country between the mountains and the sea coast.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Joshua 9:1
“And it came to pass when all the kings, etc. As the arrival of the people was well known to these kings from the very first, it is certain that their minds were intoxicated from above with security or lethargy, so that they did not forthwith league together to oppose them.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Kings of different nations, often at odds with one another, now unite against Israel, and John Wesley draws a lesson for Israel from it. Israel should learn from the Canaanites to lay aside quarrels among its own tribes. Five of these kings take the field against Gibeon at 10:5.
Joshua 9:2
“Tho' they were many kings of different nations, and doubtless of different interests, often at variance with each other, yet they are all determined to unite against Israel. O that Israel would learn this of Canaanites, to sacrifice private interests to the public good, and to lay aside all animosities among themselves, that they may cordially unite against the common enemy.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 9:3-5
Gibeon hears of Jericho and Ai and answers with a lie instead of an army. The Hebrew behind “deceptively” comes from the root of the serpent’s craftiness at Genesis 3:1. Every prop is chosen because it ages, sacks, wineskins, sandals, clothing and bread, five witnesses to a long road, with the bread last because a man would examine it first.
Joshua 9:3
“Gibeon was the head of the four towns Jos 9:17 occupied by the Hivites Jos 11:19. The inhabitants were Amorites 2Sa 21:2; the name “Amorites” being used as a general name for the Canaanite population (Deu 1:44 note). The Hivites seem to have had a non-monarchical form of government (compare Jos 9:3, Jos 9:11), but their city was Jos 10:2 in size and importance equal to those cities which the kings of the country made their capitals.”
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 9:3
“Other people heard those tidings, and were irritated thereby to make war upon Israel; but the Gibeonites heard them and were induced to make peace with them. Thus the discovery of the glory and grace of God in the gospel is to some a savour of life unto life, but to others a savour of death unto death, 2 Cor. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 9:3
“To make such an attempt, was very odious to their neighbors, because it was, in a manner, to make a schism among them, to open a door to the Israelites, and weaken the strength of their allies.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Albert Barnes renders the opening words they too acted, and reads the too as a link to Israel's own stratagem at Ai in chapter 8. Gibeon meets craft with craft. Adam Clarke says plainly that the Gibeonites lied, and adds that Scripture never commends them for it or holds them up as an example.
Joshua 9:4
“They did work wilily - Finesse of this kind is allowed by the conduct of all nations; and stratagems in war are all considered as legal. Nine tenths of the victories gained are attributable to stratagem; all sides practice them, and therefore none can condemn them. Much time and labor have been lost in the inquiry, “Did not the Gibeonites tell lies?” Certainly they did, and what is that to us? Does the word of God commend them for it? It does not. Are they held up to us as examples!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:4
“These skin bottles are liable to be rent when old and much used; and there are various ways of mending them--by inserting a new piece of leather, or by gathering together the edges of the rent and sewing them in the form of a purse, or by putting a round flat splinter of wood into the hole.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The word rendered moldy, nikkudim, means spotted or pierced with many holes, and Adam Clarke notes that an older English version read it as bored. He pictures bread eaten through by vermin during a long time in the sacks. Verse 12 uses the same word.
Joshua 9:5
“Old shoes and clouted - Their sandals, they pretended had been worn out by long and difficult travelling, and they had been obliged to have them frequently patched during the way; their garments also were worn thin; and what remained of their bread was mouldy - spotted with age, or, as our old version has it, bored - pierced with many holes by the vermin which had bred in it, through the length of the time it had been in their sacks; and this is the most literal meaning of the original נקדים nikkudim, which means spotted or pierced with…”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:5
“Not being so well baked as our biscuits, it becomes hard and mouldy from the moisture left in the dough. It is usually soaked in water previous to being used.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joshua 9:6-8
Their opening line, “We have come from a distant land”, is lifted from the law they are working around. Deuteronomy 20:10-15 permits terms of peace with cities very far off, and 20:16-18 orders the opposite for these nations, so the disguise turns on one clause. The men of Israel name the danger in verse 7, “Perhaps you dwell near us”, and it is met with evidence instead of inquiry.
Joshua 9:6
“Make ye a league with us - כרתו לנו ברית kirethu lanu berith, cut, or divide, the covenant sacrifice with us. From this it appears that heathenism at this time had its sacrifices, and covenants were ratified by sacrificing to and invoking the objects of their adoration.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The narrator calls the envoys Hivites before Israel knows it, and John Gill takes the name as given from what they afterward proved to be. Joshua 11:19 names the Hivites of Gibeon as the one people that made peace with Israel. Adam Clarke finds the lack of caution strange.
Joshua 9:7
“Peradventure ye dwell among us - It is strange they should have had such a suspicion, as the Gibeonites had acted so artfully; and it is as strange that, having such a suspicion, they acted with so little caution.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The envoys give the men of Israel no answer and turn to Joshua, whom Adam Clarke says they recognized as commander of the host. John Wesley reads we are your servants as an offer to accept any terms. Such ready surrender, he says, gave Joshua reason to suspect them.
Joshua 9:8
“We are thy servants - This appears to have been the only answer they gave to the question of the Israelitish elders, and this they gave to Joshua, not to them, as they saw that Joshua was commander-in-chief of the host. Who are ye? and from whence come ye? - To these questions, from such an authority, they felt themselves obliged to give an explicit answer; and they do it very artfully by a mixture of truth, falsehood, and hypocrisy.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 9:9-10
They credit “the fame of the LORD your God”, cite Egypt and the two kings east of the Jordan, and stop there. Verse 3 says what they heard was Jericho and Ai, so they leave out the recent news a traveller from far off could not yet carry. Rahab’s confession at 2:10 names the same two events, which makes this speech a copy of a true one.
Joshua 9:9
“Because of the name of the Lord thy God - They pretend that they had undertaken this journey on a religious account; and seem to intimate that they had the highest respect for Jehovah, the object of the Israelites’ worship; this was hypocrisy. We have heard the fame of him - This was true: the wonders which God did in Egypt, and the discomfiture of Sihon and Og, had reached the whole land of Canaan, and it was on this account that the inhabitants of it were panic-struck.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:9
“At least, no fault was found with them for making a covenant with the Gibeonites; while, on the other hand, the violation of it was severely punished (2Sa 21:1; and Jos 11:19, 20).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Sihon king of Heshbon: Sihon and Og were defeated east of the Jordan, as Numbers 21:21-35 records, so the envoys cite victories won across the river. Their own town lay near at hand. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place Gibeon about six miles northwest of Jerusalem, at the village of El Jib, and call it the chief city of the Hivites.
Joshua 9:11-13
The elders and the whole country are invoked and the country is never named, which is the first thing a real embassy would state. The bread, the wine skins, the garments and the shoes are each produced in turn as proof, so the props carry the argument and the men only point at them. Nothing in the speech can be tested without asking somebody outside the room.
Joshua 9:11
“Wherefore our elders, etc. - All this, and what follows to the end of Jos 9:13, was false, contrived merely for the purpose of deceiving the Israelites, and this they did to save their own lives; as they expected all the inhabitants of Canaan to be put to the sword.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Gill marks where the speech changes hands. Verse 11 reports what the elders at home said, and here the envoys speak for themselves, pointing to bread they claim was hot from the oven. Matthew Henry observes that one lie opens the way to another, and that the way of that sin runs downhill.
Joshua 9:12
“This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses,.... These are not the words of the elders to the messengers they sent, continued, but of the ambassadors to the Israelites, pointing to the bread they brought with them, which they pretended was newly baked and took hot out of the oven: on the day we came forth to go unto you, but now, behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy: See Gill on Jos 9:5; which they gave as a demonstration and proof that they were come from a far country, as they had asserted.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:12
“And thus there are those who make themselves poor with the badges of want and distress and yet have great riches ( Prov. xiii. 7 ), or at least have no need of relief, by which fraud charity is misplaced and diverted from those that are real objects of it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry draws a lesson from the worn wineskins and clothes. He sets them beside Proverbs 13:7, of those who pretend to be poor and have great wealth. By such a pretense, he says, charity is turned away from those who truly need it.
Joshua 9:13
“And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new,.... That is, on the day they came out on their journey: and, behold, they be rent; which were owing to the long use that had been made of them, as they pretended: and these our garments, and our shoes, are become old by reason of the very long journey: quite worn out through length of time and tedious travels.”
One clause carries the chapter: they “did not seek the counsel of the LORD”. Numbers 27:21 had appointed Eleazar to ask by the Urim for Joshua by name, so the means stood unused in the camp. Readers divide over the sampling of the provisions, some reading a meal that sealed a treaty and others an inspection, and on either reading the evidence was weighed and the LORD was not asked.
Joshua 9:14
“And the men took of their victuals,.... That is, the princes of Israel took thereof; not to eat of them, for it cannot be thought that such personages would eat of such dry and mouldy bread, and especially as they were now in a plentiful country, and possessed of the fruits of it; but to see whether it was in such a plight and condition as they said, whereby they might judge of the truth of what they said; and they learned and knew, as R.”
3 more voices on this verse
Joshua 9:14
“The men took of their victuals - This was done in all probability in the way of friendship; for, from time immemorial to the present day, eating together, in the Asiatic countries, is considered a token of unalterable friendship; and those who eat even salt together, feel themselves bound thereby in a perpetual covenant. But the marginal reading of this clause should not be hastily rejected.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 9:14
“And he, being as yet ignorant of localities and not knowing anything of the inhabitants, did not see through their deceit, nor did he enquire of God but readily believed them. So sacred was one's promised word held in those days that no one would believe that others could try to deceive. Who could find fault with the saints in this, namely, that they should consider others to have the same feelings as themselves and suppose no one would lie because truth was their own companion?”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Duties of the Clergy 3.10.67-68patristic
Joshua 9:14
“For though it is probable, if God had been consulted, he would have consented to the sparing of the Gibeonites; yet it should have been done with more caution, and an obligation upon them to embrace the true religion. In every business of importance, we should stay to take God along with us, and by the word and prayer consult him.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 9:15-16
Joshua makes peace and the leaders swear by the LORD, the God of Israel, which verses 18 and 19 give as the reason nothing can be undone. The deception lasts three days, failing almost at once and still binding. Joshua covers the ground from Gilgal to Gibeon in one night march at 10:9, which is how near the distant land was.
Joshua 9:15
“Joshua made peace with them - Joshua agreed to receive them into a friendly connection with the Israelites, and to respect their lives and properties; and the elders of Israel bound themselves to the observance of it, and confirmed it with an oath. As the same words are used here as in Jos 9:6, we may suppose that the covenant was made in the ordinary way, a sacrifice being offered on the occasion, and its blood poured out before the Lord. See on Gen 15:10 (note), etc.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The fraud found out, the oath still binding
Matthew Henry sums up how the discovery is settled in the verses that follow. The Gibeonites keep their lives because Israel had covenanted with them, and they lose their liberty because the covenant was not fairly obtained. Adam Clarke puts Gibeon about eight leagues from Gilgal.
Joshua 9:16
“At the end of three days - Gibeon is reputed to be only about eight leagues distant from Gilgal, and on this account the fraud might be easily discovered in the time mentioned above.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 9:17-19
Four towns come in with Gibeon, each with a later history: Kiriath-jearim keeps the ark at 1 Samuel 7:1-2, and Beeroth produces the killers of Ish-bosheth at 2 Samuel 4:2. The congregation grumbles against the leaders with the verb the wilderness chapters use against Moses. The leaders rest their whole answer on having sworn “by the LORD, the God of Israel”.
Adam Clarke says the congregation grumbled only because it lost the spoil of the four cities. Matthew Henry allows that some may have cared for God's command. He thinks most were moved by their own profit, and adds how readily a people censures rulers whose reasons it cannot see.
Joshua 9:18
“All the congregation murmured - Merely because they were deprived of the spoils of the Gibeonites. They had now got under the full influence of a predatory spirit; God saw their proneness to this, and therefore, at particular times, totally interdicted the spoils of conquered cities, as in the case of Jericho.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke holds that a covenant got by deceit was void. The leaders kept it, he explains, because they had eaten with the Gibeonites and sworn by the LORD. John Gill reads cannot touch them as covering both their lives and their goods, and notes that the Targum renders the oath as sworn by the Word of the LORD.
Joshua 9:19
“But all the princes said to all the congregation,.... That is, all the princes that went to Gibeon addressed all the Israelites that were there: we have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel; by the Word of the Lord God, as the Targum; an oath is a solemn sacred thing, and not to be broken, and a good man will make conscience of it, and keep it, though he has sworn to his own hurt: and now therefore we may not touch them; neither take away their lives nor their substance.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:19
“We have sworn unto them - Although the Israelites were deceived in this business, and the covenant was made on a certain supposition which was afterwards proved to have had no foundation in truth, and consequently the whole engagement on the part of the deceived was hereby vitiated and rendered null and void; yet, because the elders had eaten with them, offered a covenant sacrifice, and sworn by Jehovah, they did not consider themselves at liberty to break the terms of the agreement, as far as the lives of the Gibeonites were concerned.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 9:20-21
The leaders’ reason, “so that no wrath will fall on us”, treats an oath obtained by fraud as binding. Psalm 15:4 praises the man who does not revise a costly oath, and 2 Samuel 21:1-2 records the famine after Saul broke this oath. Deuteronomy 29:11 already names those who cut wood and draw water inside the covenant assembly, so Gibeon is set at the bottom of Israel, within it.
Joshua 9:20
“He that ratifies a promise with an oath imprecates the divine vengeance if he wilfully break his promise, and has reason to expect that divine justice will take him at his word. God is not mocked, and therefore oaths are not to be jested with.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry sees the proposal quieting the angry congregation. Those who wanted the Gibeonites dead could accept a perpetual servitude that most men counted worse than death. Adam Clarke takes woodcutters and water carriers as a common saying for the lowest service, though he allows it may be meant literally.
Joshua 9:21
“Render “they shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water:” menial duties belonging to the lowest classes only (compare the marginal reference). The curse of Noah Gen 9:25 on the children of Ham was thus fulfilled to the letter in the case of these Hivites.”
Hewers of wood and drawers of water
Joshua 9:22-23
Joshua charges them with the deceit, and the curse he gives is servitude. Verse 7 calls them Hivites, a son of Canaan at Genesis 10:17, so the words land on the line Noah cursed to be a servant of servants at Genesis 9:25. The service is “for the house of my God”, which binds them to the sanctuary instead of a private master.
Joshua 9:22
“Were the Israelites bound to respect an oath thus procured by fraud? Were they right in doing so? Dr. Sanderson (“Works,” vol. iv. 4 pp. 269, 300, Oxford edition), determines these questions in the affirmative; and rightly, since the oath, though unlawfully taken, was not an oath taken to do an unlawful thing, i. e. a thing in itself unlawful. It was the carelessness of the Israelites themselves which betrayed them into this league.”
John Wesley reads the sentence as changing the kind of curse the Gibeonites bear, from the death decreed on Canaan to bondage. Adam Clarke holds that the curse means servitude alone. Wesley adds that perpetually lays the service on their descendants.
Joshua 9:23
“Now therefore ye are cursed - Does not this refer to what was pronounced by Noah, Gen 9:26, against Ham and his posterity? Did not the curse of Ham imply slavery, and nothing else? Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be; and does it not sufficiently appear that nothing else than perpetual slavery is implied in the curse of the Gibeonites?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 9:23
“Ye are cursed - You shall not escape the curse of God which by divine sentence belongs to all the Canaanites; but only change the quality of it, you shall feel that curse of bondage, which is proper to your race by virtue of that ancient decree, Gen. ix, 25. Bond-men - The slavery, which is upon you shall be entailed on your posterity.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 9:24-25
Their answer is Rahab’s: they heard what the LORD commanded Moses, and they believed it. Deuteronomy 7:1-2 is the command they quote back, and fear of it drove the whole performance, admitted without excuse. The words “we are in your hands” put them where Rahab put herself at 2:12-13, and the two Canaanite households that survive this book took the report as true.
Joshua 9:24
“We were sore afraid of our lives - Self-preservation, which is the most powerful law of nature, dictated to them those measures which they adopted; and they plead this as the motive of their conduct.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 9:24
“Under the greatest provocations, it is our wisdom and duty to keep our temper, and to bridle our passion; a just cause needs not anger to defend it, and a bad one is made never the better by it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 9:24
“It was mere fear which drove the Gibeonites to act as they did. They sought for union with God’s people, not for its own sake, but to save their lives. Rahab’s motives were higher (Jos 2:9 ff). Hence, she was adopted into Israel; the Gibeonites remained forever bondsmen of Israel.”
good and right: Adam Clarke hears two appeals in whatever seems good and right. Justice they had earned by the fraud, and mercy they asked because fear had driven them to it. John Gill adds a third ground, the league and the oath, which Joshua was bound to weigh as well.
Joshua 9:25
“And thus the ransom of their lives is paid; dominion is acquired by the preservation of a life that lies at mercy ( servus dicitur a servando--a servant is so called from the act of saving ); they owe their service to those to whom they owe their lives. Observe how the judgment is given against them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 9:26-27
Joshua keeps them alive and sets their labour at “the altar at the place He would choose”, the wording Deuteronomy 12:5 uses of a sanctuary not yet built. Gill and other older writers read the temple servants of Ezra 2:43-58 and 8:20 as their descendants, a link Ezra leaves unstated. The treaty also sets up the next chapter, since Adoni-zedek attacks Gibeon at 10:1-5 because of it.
Joshua 9:26
“And so did he unto them - That is, he acted according to justice and mercy: he delivered them out of the hands of the people, so that they slew them not - here was mercy; and he made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and to the altar of God - here was justice. Thus Joshua did nothing but what was good and right, not only in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of the Lord. How long the Gibeonites were preserved as a distinct people after this, we know not.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry sees a kindness in the sentence. Made servants of Israel, the Gibeonites became servants of the LORD, and Henry calls service in his house liberty. He also takes their place at the altar as a picture of the Gentiles, whom Isaiah 66:21 says God will take even for priests and Levites.
Joshua 9:27
“And Joshua made them that day,.... Constituted and appointed them, ordered and settled them, in the post and office after mentioned; or "gave" them (u); hence some think they had the name Nethinim, persons given to the Levites for the service of the sanctuary: namely, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord; some think they were employed both for the service of the congregation, when they wanted wood and water, and for the altar, and what belonged to it, that needed both.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, the report of an embassy, a treaty and an oath, as table classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The props produced one at a time | The embassy carries five things that age, and the chapter lists them twice, once as the narrator sets the scene and once as the envoys hold them up for inspection. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 3 to 5 that every prop is chosen because it ages. It names the sacks, the wine skins, the shoes, the garments and the bread as five separate witnesses to a long road. It states that the bread is put last because it is the item a man would examine first. Its note on verses 11 to 13 adds that the props carry the argument while the men only point at them.The published exposition of Joshua 9, the notes on verses 3 to 5 and on verses 11 to 13, the notes cite Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. | Joshua 9:4, Joshua 9:5, Joshua 9:12, Joshua 9:13 |
| Your servants, said four times | The Gibeonites call themselves servants at their first word to Joshua, and again in the speech that follows. They say it again in the message they report from their elders, and again in the answer they give after the deception is exposed. The word travels with them from the disguise into the sentence, so the title they took to get a treaty becomes the title they hold for good at verse 23.This lane's count over the Berean Standard Bible text of Joshua 9 in the store, the chapter's own verses 8, 9, 11 and 24. | Joshua 9:8, Joshua 9:9, Joshua 9:11, Joshua 9:24 |
| The far country, claimed and then answered | The embassy opens with a distant land at verse 6 and repeats it at verse 9. Joshua closes the exchange at verse 22, charging them with saying they lived far away when they lived among Israel. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 6 to 8 that the phrase is lifted out of the law the envoys are working around. Deuteronomy 20:10 to 15 permits terms of peace with a city very far off. Deuteronomy 20:16 to 18 orders the opposite for the cities of these nations, so the whole disguise turns on one clause of one statute.The published exposition of Joshua 9, the note on verses 6 to 8, the note cites Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament. | Joshua 9:6, Joshua 9:9, Joshua 9:22 |
| Woodcutters and water carriers, said three times | The sentence is pronounced by the leaders at verse 21, by Joshua at verse 23 and by the narrator at verse 27. Each time the phrase is the same, while the place of the service grows more exact, from the congregation, to the house of God, to the altar. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 20 to 21 that the phrase was already in use. Deuteronomy 29:11 applies it to the lowest class standing inside the covenant assembly, so the sentence sets the Gibeonites at the bottom of Israel.The published exposition of Joshua 9, the note on verses 20 to 21, the note cites Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. | Joshua 9:21, Joshua 9:23, Joshua 9:27 |
The law the disguise is built on
20 more paragraphs on the patterns
Everything the envoys say is shaped by a statute they have heard about. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 6 to 8 that Deuteronomy 20:10 to 15 permits terms of peace with a city very far off. The same note states that Deuteronomy 20:16 to 18 orders the opposite for the cities of the nations in the land. The single claim of a far country is what the whole performance rests on.
The Gibeonites themselves name the command at verse 24, where they say they were told that the LORD had commanded Moses to give Israel the land and to wipe out its inhabitants. The published exposition states on verses 24 and 25 that Deuteronomy 7:1 to 2 is the command they are quoting back. It states that fear of it drove the performance, and that they admit the fear without offering an excuse.
The chapter also settles who they are. Verse 7 calls them Hivites. The published exposition states on verses 22 and 23 that the Hivite is a son of Canaan at Genesis 10:17. Joshua's sentence of servitude therefore lands on that line in the shape Noah used at Genesis 9:25, a servant of servants.
The herem, and the two cases where the door stood open
The chapter is one of the two places the conquest's own rule is tested from inside. The book's published dossier names Gibeon beside Rahab as evidence in its theology entry on the ban. Rahab confesses the God of Israel and is spared with her household at 2:11 and 6:25. The Gibeonites ask for terms and receive them at 9:15 (src/components/book/dossier-content/joshua.ts, the entry "The Ban, and the Ground of the War").
The dossier sets out two readings of the conquest commands and states no verdict between them.
The first reads the war as judgment on a wickedness that had ripened over four centuries. Its holders are the text's own stated reasons at Genesis 15:16, Leviticus 18:24 to 28 and Deuteronomy 9:5, together with the exemption of Rahab and of Gibeon, and this site's own reading. On this account the ground is moral rather than ethnic. God delayed the judgment four hundred years while the iniquity of the Amorites was still incomplete. Moses told Israel the reason was the wickedness of the nations, and the absence of any righteousness of Israel's own. Leviticus warned Israel that the same land would spit them out for the same practices. The exemptions are the proof that the door was open, since two Canaanite households asked and lived.
The second reads the campaigns as attacks on fortified military centres, reported in the summarizing rhetoric ancient conquest accounts used. Its holders are K. Lawson Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts, 1990, who set Joshua beside Egyptian, Hittite and Assyrian campaign texts, and Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 2003. On this account the totalizing language reports a decisive victory in the standard idiom of the period. That is why the same book can say the land was taken at 11:23 and that much of it remains at 13:1.
The dossier carries the fuller argument behind its own door at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest.
The oath, and what breaking it cost later
The leaders give one reason for keeping a treaty obtained by fraud, that wrath would fall on them for the oath they swore. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 20 and 21 that this treats an oath obtained by fraud as binding on the men who swore it. The same note states that Psalm 15:4 gives the same principle, of a man who swears to his own hurt and does not change. It records the three years of famine at 2 Samuel 21:1 to 2, which followed Saul breaking this exact oath generations later.
The published exposition of Joshua 10 states on verses 6 and 7 that the oath sworn at 9:15 and 9:19 obliges Joshua to march. The city he marches for had obtained its treaty by lying, and the same note names the famine in David's reign at 2 Samuel 21:1 to 2.
Where the Gibeonites end up
Four towns come in under the treaty, and the published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 17 to 19 that each has a later history. Kiriath-jearim keeps the ark twenty years at 1 Samuel 7:1 to 2, and Beeroth produces the men who kill Ishbosheth at 2 Samuel 4:2. Gibeon itself holds the tabernacle at 1 Chronicles 16:39 and hears Solomon's dream at 1 Kings 3:4 to 5.
The last two verses fix the service at the altar. The published exposition states on verses 26 and 27 that the wording of verse 27 follows Deuteronomy 12:5 on the sanctuary before there is one. The men who lied to stay clear of Israel therefore spend their generations at its centre. The same note records that Ezra 2:43 to 58 and Ezra 8:20 list the Nethinim, given for the service of the Levites. It records that older writers including John Gill read them as this people's descendants, and that the text of Ezra leaves the link unstated. The reading is held rather than proven, and the note marks it as such.
What the surrounding nations show
The book's published dossier records the Amarna Letters, an Egyptian diplomatic archive of about 1360 to 1330 BC. In it Canaanite city-state rulers write to Egypt for help against roving groups called the habiru, and Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem complains that the land is being lost. The dossier reads it as a picture of Canaan matching Joshua's own, a country of many small kings. It states plainly that the habiru are a social category rather than an ethnic name. The letters therefore describe the same kind of world without identifying Israel in it (src/components/book/dossier-content/joshua.ts, the ancient Near East section).
That bears on this chapter at one point a reader can check in the text. Gibeon negotiates through elders and inhabitants at verse 11, and the great city of 10:2 is described by its size and its fighting men. The published dossier also records the Mesha Stele of about 840 BC. In it King Mesha devotes the inhabitants of Nebo to his god, using the same Semitic root as the Hebrew herem, which shows the ban was a known practice across the region. The dossier states what separates the biblical use: a named wickedness, a four-hundred-year delay, and terms available to anyone who asks.
The pattern the chapter leaves
The two Canaanite households that live through this book are the two that took the report about the LORD as true. The published exposition of Joshua 9 states on verses 9 and 10 that the envoys cite Egypt and the two kings east of the Jordan and stop there. The same note states that Rahab's confession at 2:9 to 10 names the same two items, and that this speech is a copy of a true one. Its note on verses 24 and 25 states that the answer the Gibeonites give is Rahab's answer, and that both put themselves in Israel's hand.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Martin Noth, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien, 1943, as the book's published dossier states the position (src/components/book/dossier-content/joshua.ts, the provenance entry on the author); This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "Joshua": "history", which files the book with Judges and Ruth rather than with the law and This site's published guide to Joshua, which takes the three campaigns from the book dossier's first section and the outline's second movement, src/components/book/guides/joshua/JoshuaGuide.tsx, the campaigns at lines 128 to 146.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.