Joshua 9:15

_AND JOSHUA MADE PEACE WITH THEM, AND MADE A LEAGUE WITH THEM, TO LET THEM LIVE: AND THE PRINCES OF THE CONGREGATION SWARE UNTO THEM._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

14-21 The Israelites, having examined the provisions of the Gibeonites, hastily concluded that they confirmed their account. We make more haste than good speed, when we stay not to take God with us, and do not consult him by the word and prayer. The fraud was soon found out. A lying tongue is but for a moment. Had the oath been in itself unlawful, it would not have been binding; for no obligation can render it our duty to commit a sin. But it was not unlawful to spare the Canaanites who submitted, and left idolatry, desiring only that their lives might be spared. A citizen of Zion swears to his own hurt, and changes not, Psalms 15:4. Joshua and the princes, when they found that they had been deceived, did not apply to Eleazar the high priest to be freed from their engagement, much less did they pretend that no faith is to be kept with those to whom they had sworn. Let this convince us h...

Verse 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 Joshua 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. Genesis 15:10, c....

EXPOSITION THE GIBEONITES.— JOSHUA 9:1 AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN ALL THE KINGS. According to the explanation given above (Joshua 6:5, Joshua 6:15) of the particle כwith the infinitive, this must mean immediately. We must therefore suppose that the distance at which they lived from the scene of the events had prevented them from comprehending their astounding character so clearly as those who lived in the immediate neighbourhood (see Joshua 2:11; Joshua 5:1;...

AND JOSHUA MADE PEACE WITH THEM,.... Upon the report the princes made of having examined what they had said, and which they found to be true, particularly concerning their victuals: AND MADE A LEAGUE WITH THEM, TO LET THEM LIVE; and not destroy them as he did the Canaanites, and was ordered to do; they being supposed not to belong to them by the representation of things they had made: AND THE PRINCES OF THE CONGREGATION SWARE UNTO THEM; that they would keep the league and covenant they had made with them inviolable; they ratified it by an oath, which was a sacred solemn thing....

9. THE GIBEONITES CHAPTER 9 _ 1. The confederacy of the enemies (Joshua 9:1)_ 2. The deception of the Gibeonites (Joshua 9:3) 3. The failure (Joshua 9:14) 4. The deception discovered (Joshua 9:16) Israel now comes face to face with the other inhabitants of the land. These enemies, which Israel encountered, are the types of our enemies, and the conflict of God's earthly people is typical of our conflict. There is, however, a difference. Israel's enemies were flesh and blood; ours are not. Israel's conflict was in the land; ours is with the wicked spirits in the heavenly places. Israel was asked to drive the

JOSHUA 9. THE STRATAGEM OF THE GIBEONITES. This account, though composite, is straightforward enough if Joshua 9:17 be omitted. These verses _give_ an account by the priestly writer in which the princes of the congregation take the leading part, and make a treaty which immediately afterwards is made again by Joshua Joshua 9:22 is plainly the continuation of Joshua 9:16. That a treaty was made with the Gibeonites at an early date is a historical fact, but that treaty was very far from making them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Temple (Joshua 9:23; Joshua 9:2

The Embassy of the Gibeonites 3. _of Gibeon_ This city was the head of the four towns occupied by the Hivites, the other three being Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim (Joshua 9:17). It appears to have been a sort of independent republic, since we hear of elders there (Joshua 9:11), but not of a king, and is said to have been a great city _like_a royal city (Joshua 10:2), i.e. of the same size and importance as those which the kings of the country made their capitals. The name itself signifies "pertaining to a hill," i.e. built on a hill, and describes the site, which is, by the direct route, about 5 miles north of Jerusalem, on two of the rounded hills peculiar to this neighbourhood. Placed at the head of the pass

DISCOURSE: 252 JOSHUA’S LEAGUE WITH GIBEON Joshua 9:15. _And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, to let them live._ IT is not uncommon for persons to harden themselves against God, and, like Ahaz, “in their distress to trespass yet more against the Lord [Note: 2 Chronicles 28:22.].” The inhabitants of Canaan had been filled with terror and dismay even before the Israelites had passed over Jordan: yet they prepared to contend with the invading army, and to repel force by force. But when they saw that a passage was opened for Israel through Jordan, and that the walls of Jericho were thrown down by the sound of rams’ horns, and that Ai also was vanquished, it might have been hoped that they would submit themselves to the God of Israel, and endeavour by penitenc

_VER._ 15. _AND JOSHUA_— With the advice of the elders, who were deceived as well as himself, _made peace with them,_ &c. That is, he not only preserved their lives, (for, supposing the Gibeonites to have come from a country situate beyond the land of Canaan, nothing obliged him to put them to the sword) but they were left in the quiet possession of their effects. The word _life_ in Scripture is frequently of equal signification with _prosperity;_ in which sense we understand it here. Joshua promised to preserve to the Gibeonites their territories, privileges, and liberty. Hence this general seems to have engaged himself, without knowing it, to what he could not perform; for all alliance with the Canaanites was prohibited. And how, indeed, could the Israelites contract alliances with nations, whose gods and worship they were to abolish, and whose government they were commanded utterly to...