Joshua 9:1

A sharp focus upon another mistake of the Israelites is provided in Joshua 9, that mistake being their covenant with the Gibeonites to spare them from the kind of destruction that had been executed upon Jericho and Ai. Critical assaults upon this chapter are totally frustrated by a number of facts:

(1) The narrative itself is skillfully presented with a perfection that effectively denies the designation of the chapter as a composite of several narratives from different sources. As Woudstra stated it, "The narrator's skill ... argues against considering the chapter to be a composite of a variety of traditions, patched together so that the seams show in several places."[1]

(2) Critical scholars have been unable to reach any consensus whatever in their vain efforts to identify portions of the chapter with diverse sources. The questions that might be raised remain "unsolved by textual criticism."[2]

(3) Even the critical fancy of moving the date of the passage to the period of the exile, or later, is today widely rejected. Sizoo noted that:

"The fact that such a pact (as the one related in this chapter) existed is attested by 2 Samuel 21:2. Even if that verse is called a gloss (which is the customary device of critics in dealing with passages that contradict their theories), the context clearly reflects a treaty violation by Saul. If such a treaty existed in Saul's day, there is no reason to suppose that it did not date back to the time of the Conquest.[3] (The comments in parenthesis are mine, J.B.C.).

This chapter further reveals what is increasingly evident, that Joshua, like the entire Pentateuch, is in no sense a chronological account of all that Israel did. The Book of Joshua does not give us a thorough, item-by-item account of the conquest of Canaan, but, on the other hand, it relates the events which are pertinent to the redemptive purpose of God. Although Israel did indeed CONQUER all of Canaan, they did NOT drive out all of the Canaanites as God had commanded them, and this chapter relates primarily to that failure on Israel's part.

"And it came to pass when the kings that were beyond the Jordan, in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and all the shore of the Great Sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanites, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof, that they gathered themselves together to light with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord."

The hill-country, the lowland, and the seacoast were the three geographical divisions of Palestine, and the picture here is simply that of a coalition of many of the kings of Canaan, forced by the fear that fell upon all of them as a result of Israel's victories at Jericho and Ai. They were too late with this. They had been forewarned of what Israel intended to do ever since the crossing of the Red Sea, but they still waited until Joshua and the Israelites were practically upon them before they acted. From the human standpoint, their coalition against Israel was a good thing. As Matthew Henry said:

"Oh that Israel (the Church) would learn this of the Canaanites, to sacrifice private interests to the public welfare, and to lay aside all animosities among themselves, that they may cordially unite against the common enemies of God's Kingdom among men."[4]

"Which were beyond Jordan ..." "Seventeen times in the Book of Joshua, this expression refers to the area east of Jordan, but here it refers to the area west of Jordan."[5] We have seen in previous O.T. books that this expression is worthless in determining either the identity or the location of the writer.

"The Great Sea in front of Lebanon ..." The Great Sea here is, of course, the Mediterranean but the expression, "in front of Lebanon" is evidently a mistranslation, for the simple reason that in the terminology of those days, "in front of" invariably meant "east of."[6] The Mediterranean, of course, is west of Lebanon. The most recent scholarship confirms this judgment by rendering the phrase, "toward Lebanon," instead of "east of Lebanon."[7]