Joshua 9

Joshua 9:1-27

THE OF GIBEONJoshua 9.“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 Perissite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof;“That they gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord” (Joshua 9:1-2).THE language of this text indicates the extent to which the preparations for war were made. The inhabitants of the hill country, the lowlands, and the Mediterranean shores united to battle the incoming hordes of Israel. The fall of Jericho and the conquest of Ai created universal consternation, and the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, tribes that were commonly at war one with another, formed a league against a common enemy. This is a good type of the New Testament record of Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and Herodians uniting against our Joshua—Jesus.War makes strange bed-fellows. The great World War of 1914-18 brought into the fellowship of fight nations that had long been at enmity one with another.But while fear united these discordant tribes, it also wrought after another manner with the inhabitants of Gibeon. It drove them to seek favor.FAVOR SOUGHT BY .Fear suggested the need of salvation.“When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, “They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;“And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.“And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, We be come from a far country: now therefore make ye a league with us” (Joshua 9:3-6).Fear is seldom a sound basis of procedure.

It almost uniformly resorts to indefensible strategy, to conscienceless shifts. It is fear that leads the criminal to dye his hair and grow his whiskers and seek to so disguise himself as to escape detection.

It is fear that sends the heathen on long pilgrimages, or suggests to him) bodily infliction. It is fear that drives the Catholic to penances and confessionals. It is fear that leads the crooked politician to secret conclaves, to exacting pledges, and to all underhanded methods. It is fear that creates the program of modernism and accomplishes an ecclesiastical machine, carefully constructed and well oiled, with which to railroad its measures.“Perfect love casteth out fear”, and leads men to work in the open rather than “wilily,” to appear as they are, rather than in false guise, and to meet the enemy boldly rather than by compromise and deception.Deception was determined! as the method of appeal.“And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Per-adventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you?“And they said unto Joshua, We are thy servants. And Joshua said unto them, Who are ye? and from whence come ye?“And they said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come, because of the Name of the Lord thy God: for we have heard the fame of Him, and all that He did in Egypt,“And all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond Jordan, to Sihon king of Heskbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, which was at Ashtaroth.“Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake to us, saying, Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, We are your servants: therefore now make ye a league with us.“This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you; but now, behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy.“And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new, and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey” (Joshua 9:7-13).In this instance, as is common with would-be deceivers, their stories involve the improbable, if not the impossible. Joshua and Israel seemed to have suspected this fact, and put to them the question, “Peradventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you” (Joshua 9:7)? “Who are ye? and from whence come ye??

Mark the answer. It is most informing. “They said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come, because of the Name of the Lord thy God: for we have heard the fame of Him, and all that He did in Egypt,“And all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond Jordan, to Sihon king of Heskbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, which was at Ashtaroth” (Joshua 9:9-10).They failed to tell Joshua and Israel how this news reached them. The telegraph did not exist in that day; the telephone was not yet invented; they had never even imagined the radio. People at such great distances would not know of these skirmishes, (for they were little more), and yet, here they are professing perfect familiarity with all that had taken place, and forgetting to tell how the information reached them.When did a deceiver ever make a statement without self-entanglement? The best wav in the world to meet the hobo is to let him talk and tell his story, and, then perhaps, make an investigation of his own report. Ask him to sit in a room while you wire to the city whence he comes and to the acquaintances named. You don’t need to send the wire.

Take ten minutes away from his presence arid when you return to him he will not be there. More than once have I seen the beggar pale at the proposal to wire his friends and confirm his story that I might help him.

Most of these, like the men of Gibeon, take their victuals and ask not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. We are not certain concerning this text, whether it applies to the Gibeonites or to the Israelites. If to the Gibeonites, it means that they were a godless company, who forgot to be grateful for the very food by which they were sustained. If, on the other hand, it refers to the Israelites, it means that they were easily deceived, accepted the appearances of things as adequate proofs, and were fooled into a fellowship that would have been impossible upon investigation of facts. Both classes exist now—men who take their food and forget that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights”, and men that determine great questions on the basis of their own reason, despising the Scripture injunction, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).The ruse resulted in a league of nations. “And Joshua made peace with, them, and made a league with them, to let them live: and princes of the congregation sware unto them” (Joshua 9:15).The League of Nations, then, is nothing new. It is at least as old as Joshua’s day.

The League of Nations, then, is not always firmly based. Here it rested upon a falsehood.

Who will argue that any league of nations ever rested upon anything else? When nations come together to form an agreement looking to the prevention of war, when and where do they ever plan, even, to tell the truth about themselves? Is it not the official business of every national representative to secure for his nation the most favorable terms possible? And is not that the chief objective rather than the prevention of war?Selfishness is seldom outspoken. It is not its habit to make known “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Selfishness is a poor witness in court! That’s why leagues of nations have never held, and they never will.

That’s why, when they break up, charges and counter-charges are so common. Deception and self-interest play too conspicuous a part in their creation.JOSHUA’S TO Three days and the deception was uncovered.“And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbours, and that they dwelt among them.“And the Children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibe on, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim” (Joshua 9:16-17).When did a falsehood ever survive three days?When did a deception ever know anything but a brief existence? That’s the trouble about lying. A lie does not live long enough to do one practical good. That’s the trouble about shrewd, satanic victories. They are shortly over. Even death could retain its hold upon the Christ but three days. Deception is the devil’s method.

That’s why he, himself, will be eventually undone. When the end of this age shall come and Satan, loosed out of prison for a little season, shall have “compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city”, the victory will be short-lived.The league was regarded as binding by Israel.“And the Children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.“But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them.“This we will do to them; we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them” (Joshua 9:18-20).There are people who imagine that when they have entered a contract, if the other man does not keep all of his part, or if he has practiced deception in securing agreement, their pledge is thereby nullified. Not necessarily so! The word of God’s man ought to be good under almost any circumstances. We are not concerned to discuss here those hypothetical propositions with which some people pester themselves; namely, “when a man has his pistol poked in your face and is threatening to take your life, are you permitted to employ any ruse to escape or retain your money?” “Are you privileged to deny the possession of any part of the same that might be on your person”?

Or, “if he has kidnaped your child and is demanding a ransom, and you have met the ransom, and publicly agreed, through the press, not to prosecute, are you bound to keep your pledge”? In our judgment, God is not the petty, exacting individual that takes no account of circumstances, that knows only the speech and demands the keeping of the last farthing of the same!But there are great life contracts that bind God’s people, irrespective of whether the other party has deceived or is proving dependable.

They are purchasers of land on contract basis, in which contract it is plainly said that “if the purchaser fail to make payments on the exact date therein mentioned, he shall forfeit all his rights”. But the highest courts have decided that rights are not so easily forfeited when once a man has made valuable investment.There are instances in which a man and woman stand before the altar of marriage and take solemn vows to mutually “love, honor, cherish and protect”, and before many moons it may be discovered that certain deceptions were practiced in order to bring about the marriage, or that one party to the marriage is failing daily to fulfil, to the last letter, the pledges taken. Does that release the other from the keeping of his obligations? We think not! There are men who unite themselves with churches and subscribe to the covenants of the same, and then later, when something transpires in the church that is nonacceptable to them, they feel that their pledges of fidelity are no longer binding, and oftentimes refuse even to pay pledges of financial character. Are such righteously released?

We think not!Israel’s word was regarded by Israel herself as worth something, and pitiable is the man who does not so esteem his own speech when it takes the form of a pledge.Israel’s new interpretation of this vow was in selfish interest. “And the princes said unto them, Let them live; but let them be hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation” (Joshua 9:21).There are ways of keeping one’s word, and yet not keeping it, paradoxical as that may sound. You may let a man live and yet kill him daily.

You may bring him forth from behind the iron bars of a prison house, and yet put him under the steel bars of ignoble slavery. It is not an uncommon thing in America for some man or woman, living on a farm, to approach a foundling asylum and propose the adoption of a child, and sign up all the legal papers essential to the same. In that instrument are contracts that pledge “affection”, “clothes”, “food”, “parental care”. And yet, how often those same people will take a child from a foundling asylum to farm slavery, and while granting him freedom of open air and of country spaces, make him as abject a slave as ever wrought under the lash of a Southern plantation. This is interpreting a league in self-interest, and Joshua’s method was not vastly better, as recorded in Joshua 9:23, “Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God”. But this act was softened, somewhat, by the circumstance thatGIBEON TO They frankly admitted their fear and falsehood.“And they answered Joshua, and said, Because it was certainly told thy servants, how that the Lord 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 of our lives because of you, and have done this thing” (Joshua 9:24).This raises a question, of course, as to which is better, slavery or death?

Between the frightful horns of this dilemma, men have ever been supposed to have the right of choice, and the Gibeonites preferred the former. Can we blame them?

No! Self-preservation is the first law of life. And yet, the man who saves his life by surrendering to an abject slavery, seldom excites the admiration of his fellows. The world is wont to admire and laud those heroes who prefer death to enslavement; who willingly submit themselves to the same rather than to subjugation.Yet, the true man will hardly condemn those who love life and cling to the same, even at the cost of freedom. The language of the Gibeonites is the language of surrender. “Behold, we are in thine hand: as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do” (Joshua 9:25).Joshua both saved! and enslaved them. “So did he unto them, and delivered them out of the hand of the Children of Israel, that they slew them not. And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose” (Joshua 9:26-27).There is a slavery that is sweet, and a bondage that is blessed.

It may be possible that life under Joshua was a vast improvement upon what life in Gibeon had been. The black men of America were captured and carried away from Africa, and under the whip of taskmasters in America, made to daily drudge.

And yet, who will say that American enslavement was not an improvement upon African freedom? The man who yields himself to our Joshua—Jesus, becomes “a slave”. Paul counted himself “a bond-slave” of the Christ; and yet, experience has proven that such slavery is heaven in comparison with the hell of freedom known to the life of sin.