Joshua 9:22

"And Joshua called for them, and he spake unto them saying, Why have ye beguiled us, saying, we are very far from you, when ye dwell among us? Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall never fail to be of you bondmen, both hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. And they answered Joshua, and said, Because it was certainly told thy servants, how that Jehovah thy God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you; therefore we were sore afraid for our lives because of you, and have done this thing. And now, behold, we are in thy hand: as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do. And so did he unto them, and delivered them out of the hands of the children of Israel, that they slew them not. And Joshua that day made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of Jehovah, unto this day, in the place which he should choose."

One must confess that the Gibeonites gave a straightforward and truthful answer here as to why they had so skillfully deceived Joshua and all the Israelites. Their truthful answer, however, could not justify the fraud and deception, the falsehood and hypocrisy to which they had so effectively resorted, but all that, of course, did lead to their lives being spared.

The critical allegation that "the altar of Jehovah ... in the place which he (God) should choose" was a customary reference to Jerusalem is erroneous. We encountered many such critical assertions in our studies of Deuteronomy, but, as we pointed out, Jerusalem is nowhere mentioned in Deuteronomy, nor is Joshua 9:27 here a reference to it. Note the future tense in "God should choose," meaning that the permanent site of the tabernacle at this point in time had not been chosen. On this account, we reject absolutely the etiological explanation quite arbitrarily assigned to this chapter by some critics.

Blair pointed out that the curse Joshua here placed upon the Gibeonites was softened by the Lord and, indeed changed into a blessing:

"They were doomed to perpetual slavery, yet the curse that came upon them was a blessing. `Blessed are those who dwell in the house of the Lord' (Psalms 84:4). That was the curse that fell on the Gibeonites ... to be attached forever to the congregation and to the altar of God in the place (any place) that the Lord should choose. Such is God's grace. It was for the Gibeonites that God wrought the mighty miracle of the battle of Beth-horon (Joshua 10:7-15); and it was among the Gibeonites that God later located the tabernacle (2 Chronicles 1:3), and, in still later days, when the priests and Levites failed, God replaced them with the Gibeonites (Ezra 2:43; 8:20)."[30]

Joshua's curse upon the Gibeonites was the same as the curse upon the king of Ai. "Thus the judgment upon Ai and its king was pronounced, but not executed, upon the Gibeonites."[31] Why should Gibeon have been cursed at all? As Boling said, "They were cursed for bearing false witness. They were delivered from death by Israel's oath; but the Gibeonites were punished for deceiving Israel."[32] We find a somewhat similar thing in the story of Cain. He was punished, but also protected.

The tragic results of what is recorded in this chapter were profound in character. The old residue of the Canaanites remained in the Promised Land. The Gibeonites were firmly planted in the very heart of Israel's inheritance, and this hard cadre of paganism would, in time, frustrate to a certain degree the holy purpose of God with reference to Israel. The Israelites eventually would intermarry with them, adopt their sensuous pagan religion, and finally forsake God so completely that God would indeed remove them altogether from the Promised Land and send them into captivity. And yet, despite the shortcomings of Israel, a holy remnant of the Chosen People would await the Kingdom of God and would, in the fullness of time, welcome the Messiah into our evil world.