Ver. 1. The Hittite and the Amorite.] Some say the Girgashites are not here named, because that, of all the seven nations, they accepted of conditions; of peace; the rest, save only the Gibeonites, who were of the Hivites, (Joshua 9:7) stood it out to their utter destruction. If men harden their hearts, God will harden his hand, and hasten their ruin.
Ver. 2. That they gathered themselves together, &c.] Herein they showed themselves far wiser than our forefathers, of whom Tacitus testifieth upon his own experience, for he had been in Brittany with his father-in-law Agricola, that nothing more disadvantaged them against the Romans, who conquered them, than dissension, that mother of dissolution. Seldom did two or three cities convene or combine: Ita dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur, and so when they cannot agree to fight together, they are undone together.
Ver. 3. And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard, &c.] The rest of the Canaanites had heard as much, but made not so good a use of it. Some hear and fear; others hear and are hardened. Some of St Paul’s hearers at Athens derided, others doubted, a few only believed. (Acts 17:32,34) Grace maketh the difference.
Ver. 4. They did work wilily.] They exercised a serpentine subtilty, and dealt fraudulently, as Genesis 3:1; but where was their columbine simplicity? (Matthew 10:16) They strain hard to save their lives. But a man should rather die than lie.
Ver. 5. And old shoes and clouted.] Papists, boasting so much of antiquity, are by one not unfitly compared to these Gibeonites with their old shoes and mouldy bread. Antiquity disjoined from verity is but filthy hoariness, and deserveth no more reverence than an old fornicator, who is so much the more odious because old. It is here at best, as in books, some of which are odorandae rubiginis, of greater antiquity than authority. Those were old things spoken of in 1 Chronicles 4:22, but no whit the better for that.
Ver. 6. We be come from a far country.] And therefore you may safely make a league with us. (Deuteronomy 20:11) Here was fair tale, but not a word of truth, Nusquam tuta fides. “ Sit licit in partes circumspectissimus omnes, Nemo tamen vulpes nemo cavere potest.”
Ver. 7. Peradventure ye dwell among us.] Certe qui caret ne decipiatur, vi cavet dum etiam caret.
Ver. 8. We are thy servants.] We come not to capitulate with thee, but t o receive conditions from thee; and to be wholly at thine appointment. A servant is υπηρετης και οργανον, saith Aristotle, the master’s underling and instrument.
Ver. 9. From a very far country, &c.] Thus mendacium mendacio assunt, they lay lie upon lie, as those in Psalms 119:69. They had taught their tongues to speak lies, and were artists at it. (Jeremiah 9:5) They had taken fast hold of deceit. (Jeremiah 8:5)
Ver. 10. And all that he did to the two kings.] Not of Jericho and Ai, but of Heshbon and Pashan, things long since done, and far and near talked of.
Ver. 11. And go to meet them, and say.] Seeing we are not able to match them, it is good policy to meet them with entreaties of peace. Let us do the like by Almighty God. (Amos 4:12) Mittamus preces et lachrymas cordis legatos, saith Cyprian; Currat paenitentia ne praecurrat sententia, saith Chrysologus.
Ver. 12. This is our bread, &c.] See Joshua 9:5,6,9.
Ver. 13. See Jos 9:5,6,9.
Ver. 14. And the men took of their victuals.] That is, they did eat of it in token of a league made with them, say some: others more probably, they took it and looked on it, to see whether it were hoary and mouldy, as they had said. And asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.] This precipitancy and credulity is seldom successful. Good Josiah lost his life by it. Sometimes both grace and wit are asleep in the holiest and wariest breasts.
Ver. 15. And Joshua made peace with them.] This was not without the Lord; who, as he glorified his justice in rooting out the rest of the Amorites, so he manifested his mercy in saving these Gibeonites from that general deluge of destruction.
Ver. 16. At the end of three days.] Truth is the daughter of time: falsehood will out at length. Some is so thin, that it may be presently seen through: and some again so closely and covertly carried, that it appeareth not till after a time.
Ver. 17. And Kirjathjearim.] Or, The city of woods; famous afterwards for the birth of the prophet Uriah there, who prophesied against Jerusalem, and suffered for speaking truth. (Jeremiah 26:20-22) Veritas odium parit.
Ver. 18. Smote them not.] But yet bore them on their backs, as we say, and murmured against the princes who were gulled by the Gibeonites, and the people by that means beguiled of the spoil of those great cities. Because the princes…had sworn unto them.] ορκος quasi ερκος; an oath is a hedge which must not be lept over for the avoiding of a piece of fouler way. If the Gibeonites had been slain after an oath given for their security, the banks of blasphemy would have been broken down in those heathens that had heard of it.
Ver. 19. , Now therefore we may not touch them.] Unless we will run upon the pikes of God’s displeasure, as Saul did four hundred years after this. (2 Samuel 21:1,2)
Ver. 20. Lest wrath be upon us.] In the twelve tables at Rome it was written, Periurii, poena divina, exitium; humans, dedecus.” God punisheth perjury with destruction, men with disgrace. Tissaphernes the Persian being overcome by Agesilaus, desired a truce, and had it, both parties swearing to observe it. This Agesilaus did with great care, but not Tissaphernes. Agesilaus comforted himself and his army with this, that the Persian by his perjury would both provoke God and offend men, and should fare accordingly. Nepos, in Vita Agesil.
Ver. 21. But let them be hewers of wood and drawers of water.] Lignatores et lixae: so they are freed from a natural death, because of the princes’ oath, but condemned to a civil death (slavery) by the princes’ sentence. Unto all the congregation.] That they, in the meantime, as a royal nation might be privileged and exempted from such servile drudgery. A great mercy to the one, and, as it proved, no less to the other. See Ezra 2:43, [See Trapp on “Ezr 2:43”] These Gibeonites were afterwards called Nethinims, that is, Dedititii, or rather Deodati, men given to God, and to the public service of the sanctuary and people.
Ver. 22. Wherefore have ye beguiled us?] [See Trapp on “Jos 9:6”] [See Trapp on “Jos 9:7”] But was Joshua so light of belief? knew he not that Multis annis iam transactis? &c.
Ver. 23. Now therefore ye are cursed,] viz., With Cannaan’s curse, “A servant of servants,” &c., which yet afterwards God turned to a blessing. See on Ezra 2:43 Ge 9:25, and observe that it was literally fulfilled in these Canaanites.
Ver. 24. Therefore we were sore afraid of our lives.] Man is ζωον φιλοζωον, a life-loving creature. Skin for skin and all that he hath will he give for his life. But yet he purchaseth his life at too dear a rate who payeth his honesty to save it. He that thus saveth his life shall lose it. Life in God’s displeasure is worse than death, said that martyr.
Ver. 25. And now, behold, we are in thine hand.] These ambassadors were masters of speech, which they here order very prudently and politically to effect that they came for. An orator, saith Quintilian—so, an ambassador—should be Vir bonus, dicendi peritus, a good man, well able to express himself.
Ver. 26. And delivered them out of the hands of the children of Israel.] Whose fingers even itched, as they say, after the pillage of those great cities: but Joshua staved them off.
Ver. 27. For the congregation.] To do those works belonging to God’s service, which otherwise the people should have done. Ut lignatores essent et lixae.