Joshua 9:4

they did work wilily Rather, they also did work wilily. They had heard what Joshua had done in the case of Jericho and Ai, and the stratagems he had em ployed, and now they also resolved to do something and to meet craft with craft. "Thei thouзten felli," Wyclif.

made as if they had been Or, as the Ancient Versions with the change of a single consonant, reading here as in Joshua 9:12, render, provided themselves with victuals.

old sacks upon their asses These were probably the same as "the large bags, usually of hair, in which the Orientals pack up, for convenient transport on the backs of animals, all the baggage and commodities required for the journey. Beds, boxes, provisions, pots, packages of goods, all are carried in such bags, slung over the back of the animal, one hanging at each side. Being a good deal knocked about and exposed to the weather, these saddle-bags, as one might call them but for their size, suffer in a long journey; and hence the Gibeonites took old bags, to convey the impression that a long journey had been made. Kitto's Bible Illustrations, 11. p. 286.

wine bottles i.e. skin bottles, of which classical antiquity has afforded many representations. In the East the wine was preserved not in casks but in earthen jars and leathern bottles, made of the skins of goats, oxen, and buffaloes, turned inside out, washed, and rubbed over with warm mineral tar or naphtha. The wine is drawn out at one of the feet, by opening or closing the cord with which it is tied. This explains how the bottles could be "old," "rent," and "bound up," and also the caution of our Lord against pouring new wine into old bottles, lest they should be burst by the wine (Mark 2:22).