Barry Metz 04/30/17

Beguiled by the EnemyJoshua 9

As we come to Joshua 9 this morning, we come to one of the most stunning deception stories in the Bible. Now we’re all familiar with deception stories in the Bible right? We’re familiar with the mother of all stories—the story of Satan deceiving Eve in the garden in Genesis 3. We’re probably familiar with the story later in Genesis where Jacob deceives his brother Esau to steal his birthright and blessing. And I could bet that if we put our heads together we could think of other deception stories. How about the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts?1 Or the stories out of I and II Samuel where Michal deceived her father Saul and helped David escape2 and the story where Saul tried to deceive the medium of Endor into showing him the future.3 Deception is present in the Bible from beginning to end.

And this really shouldn’t surprise us since God’s arch enemy, Satan, is the ‘Father of lies’. Satan is a frenetic4 deceiver. And if we believe that earthly struggles have their origin in heavenly places, if we believe that Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land for example is ultimately the “earthly outworking of a cosmic spiritual conflict”5 between Satan and God, then we would accept, indeed we would expect that the enemies of God would use everything in their arsenal to defeat God’s purposes.

Now as we come to Joshua 9 this morning, where are we in our outline of the book? (This is that sign in the mall where we get the ‘You are Here’ perspective.)

You can see on the slide that Joshua 9 falls in the Roman numeral II section—“Taking the Land”

Now if you were with us last week at the end of Joshua 8, you remember that Joshua put a hold on the military campaigns and led the people in a needed covenant renewal ceremony. It was time for the people to be reminded of their covenant with God. It was time for them to be ‘reminded of who God is and what their relationship must be with him, if they were to keep their inheritance in the land.’ It was time for the people to be reminded of the blessings that God promised for obedience and the curses that would come from disobedience. And so the entire nation met at the foot of Mt Gerizim and Mt. Ebal and renewed the covenant. It was a spiritual highpoint for the people. 1 Acts 5:1-122 1 Samuel 19:11-173 1 Samuel 28:124 Fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way5 Jackman D. (2014). Joshua: People of God’s purpose. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.) (p. 103). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

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And if you’ve walked with the Lord long enough, you know that challenges often follow mountaintop experiences. Joshua 9 is one of those kind of challenges that follows a spiritual high.

Before we look at the text, let’s remind ourselves what God had commanded Israel to do to the people of the land.

It’s pretty clear. Wouldn’t you agree? Israel was to completely exterminate the people of the Promised Land so their sinful ways couldn’t spread. Sinful practices are contagious because sinful humans are curious. Put an idolater next door and before you know it we’re thinking that their god might be better. Bad company corrupts…what? I Cor 15:33 Bad company corrupts good character. From other scriptures we know that God had a set time in his mind when6 He would judge the people of the Promised Land for their sin and that time was now. And he had chosen the Israelites it seems to be the agent of His judgment on the people of the land.

Notice Deuteronomy 20:17 on the screen mentions the Hivites. Make a mental note of that; the Gibeonites in our passage are Hivites. They are to be in the very crosshairs of God’s judgment.

But God expressly told the Israelites something else—they were not to make a covenant with the people of the land.

6 Genesis 15:16

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Why were the Israelites not to make a covenant with the people of the land? Verse 4 on the screen…. ‘for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.’….they would lead the Israelites into idolatry. Now what’s interesting about the Gibeonites—and I don’t want to give the story away completely—but what’s interesting about the Gibeonites is that they had heard of Yahweh’s renown, they had heard of his power and they came to his people out of fear. They seemed to believe in the supremacy of the Lord’s power. Were they really seeking refuge in the all-powerful God? We’ll look at that in a moment. At a recent conference that I attended, Larry Crabb described how he became a Christian at summer camp. It was the last night of camp and the campers and counselors gathered around a huge, a huge campfire. Among a host of other topics, the speaker touched on the fires of hell and being there forever as an unbeliever. Crabb, an impressionable pre-teen was terrified, and he came forward that night to receive Jesus as savior. So we wonder out loud even before we look at the details of this story in Joshua 9 if the Gibeonites are experiencing a campfire conversion of sorts.

Let’s dig in. Follow along with me as I read Joshua 9:1-2

9 As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, heard of this, 2 they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.

These first two verses in chapter 9 basically say that everyone and their brother west of the Jordan gathered together to fight Israel. Whoa! Now this is a new development. And it’s a bit threatening. As recently as Joshua 5:1, all the kings west of the Jordan, hearing about the LORD drying up the waters of the Jordan, were quaking in their cowboy boots. They lived west of the Jordan right? What happened? Why all of a sudden were the kings emboldened to fight Israel? Could it be, that Israel’s defeat at Ai—the first battle of Ai—could it be that Israel’s defeat in that first battle at Ai had encouraged the Canaanite kings that Israel could be defeated?7

Well the Gibeonites, thinking outside the Canaanite box8, have a different idea completely…3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, 4 they on their part --in contrast to all the other people in the land-- acted with cunning … in other words they decided to achieve their ends by deception….and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins, worn-out and torn and mended, 5 with worn-out, patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes. And all their provisions were dry and crumbly. 6 And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.”

So the Gibeonites acted with “cunning.” Now sometimes in the Old Testament scriptures this Hebrew word has a negative connotation; other times it has a positive connotation.9 For example in 1 Samuel,

7 Hess as quoted in Hubbard, R. L., Jr. (2009). Joshua (p. 283). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.8 Jackman9 The verbal form of the root ערם occurs five times in the OT, being applied by Saul to David in 1 Sam 23:22 in a two-sided meaning. From Saul’s perspective it is a bad characteristic, while from the narrator’s it is admirable. The term is cast in a bad light in Job 5:13 and Ps 83:4, while

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Saul hears that David is cunning.10 For Saul that’s a bad thing and for David that’s a good thing. What about our passage? Well for the Gibeonites their acting in cunning is a good thing; for the Israelites it’s a bad thing.

But what really is going on here? The Gibeonites are acting very clever. Why do we say that? Somehow they knew—how they knew we don’t know—but somehow they knew that the LORD had made a distinction between the cities in the land and the cities outside the land. 11 Now what do I mean? The Israelites were allowed to make covenants with peoples outside the land. Somehow the Gibeonites came to know that.

In the same passage we looked at—Deuteronomy 20—listen to this rule for cities outside the land… 10 “When you draw near to a city to fight against it (and its understood from the context that these are cities outside the land), offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.

So the Gibeonites, acting with cunning, come to the Israelites attempting to convince them that they have come from a place outside the Promised land. Knowing the distinction in Deuteronomy 20 that the LORD had made between cities in the land and cities outside the land, they came to Israel in effect saying, “We’re the kind of people you can make a covenant with—we live outside the land!” We’ve come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us!

Look at verse 7….

7 But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us; then how can we make a covenant with you?”

The Israelites are understandably wary and circumspect….Perhaps you’re our neighbors, how are we to know? But notice, also in verse 7, how the narrator uses the term Hivite. The narrator--and now you and I---know that these foreigners are Hivites—these are people that are on God’s extermination list. But the Israelites have no idea do they?

Verse 8 8 They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” Now their answer is really no answer at all is it? But it sure is inviting! How often does someone walk up to you and say, “I’m your servant!” You can just imagine the Israelites thinking to themselves, “Wow this is the life! We walk around walled

a good connotation appears in Prov 15:5 and 19:25. Outside our passage the adjective occurs four times, negatively in Exod 21:14 but positively in Prov 1:4; 8:5, 12. Double entendre is used in our passage as in 1 Samuel. From the Gibeonite point of view, they were quite wise in what they did, whereas the Israelites saw their actions as deceptive and wrong. The modern reader tends to take the Israelite perspective so that “contemporary readers may need some help to comprehend the worldview that could see such trickery as laudable.” For the language here, compare Deut 29:5, 11.10 1 Samuel 23:2211 Davis, D. R. (2000). Joshua: No Falling Words (p. 74). Scotland: Christian Focus Publications. They seemed to know that Israel was directed to dispossess and exterminate the residents of Canaan and probably knew that Israel was to make no treaties with these peoples (v. 24; see Exod. 23:31–33; 34:12; Deut. 7:2). But they may also have known that Israel was permitted to spare and conclude peace with cities located ‘very far from you’ (see Deut. 20:10–18); doubtless for this reason the Gibeonites stress that they are from ‘a distant land’ (vv. 6, 9).

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cities and blow our horns and the walls fall down! And people approach us at our base camp and say, ‘We’re your servants!’ It doesn’t get any better than this!”12

Continuing in verse 8 And Joshua said to them, “Who are you? And where do you come from?” 9 They said to him, “From a very distant country your servants have come….notice how they repeat that magical sounding phrase ‘your servants’…talk about pouring it on thick… what’s not to like about these guys?....they’re kind of nice to have around aren’t they?… From a very distant country your servants have come because of the name of the LORD your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon the king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.

Why have these people come to the Israelites? Because of the renown of Yahweh! Yahweh’s “fame”, like a magnet has drawn them to visit the Israelites. Or so they say. They’ve heard a report of Him. They’ve heard all that he did in Egypt and all that he did to the Amorite kings east of the Jordan.

Their words are almost a direct echo of Rahab’s back in Joshua 2:10. But we don’t know what’s really in their heart. Faith was in Rahab’s heart. What’s in the Gibeonite’s hearts? Faith or flattery? It’s hard to know when they sound so spiritual and pious.13

But notice their information is old. Notice they don’t say anything about the miraculous way Israel crossed the Jordan or about Jericho or about Ai…you see they’ve thought of everything….even their news is old and not up to date. They’ve been traveling for so long—or so they want the Israelites to believe—that they haven’t been able to keep up with the nightly news on CNN—Canaanite News Network. Their ignorance of the latest local news reinforces their claim of being foreigners.14 ‘We’re not from around here; we aren’t a threat to you!’

{Where are they from really? We’ll look at a map later but Gibeon is about 7-10 miles southwest of Ai15…they’re from the heartland of the Promised Land….so they had to know about the defeat of Jericho and Ai.}

Verse 1111 So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, ‘Take provisions in your hand for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, “We are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us.” ’….again what’s to not like about these guys? … How could Israel ever deny a treaty to a people who honor Yahweh like they do and want peace?16

12 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (p. 196). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.13 Davis14 Hubbard, R. L., Jr. (2009). Joshua (p. 285). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.15 The city of Gibeon (modern el-Jib) sits in the central mountains about seven miles southwest of Ai (also nine miles northwest of Jerusalem). That explains why the word about Ai so easily reaches them.16 Hubbard, R. L., Jr. (2009). Joshua (pp. 285–286). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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12 Here is our bread. It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey on the day we set out to come to you, but now, behold, it is dry and crumbly. 13 These wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they have burst. And these garments and sandals of ours are worn out from the very long journey.”

Look at the first half of verse 14 14 So the men took some of their provisions….if you have the NIV it says they sampled some of their provisions…Exhibit A—the bread…it really was dry and crumbly… “That is really old bread.” Exhibit B—the wineskins…every one of them had burst….”Those wineskins are really old too”Exhibit C—their clothes….had they ever seen such worn out clothes?!

One author has made a very interesting observation. “The reference to worn out sandals and patched clothing (seems) to twist back to the days of the Sinai wandering”. When Israel was in the desert, their sandals and clothing didn’t wear out. And there was plenty of manna bread to keep them from going hungry—Israel really didn’t lack for anything.17 So in an odd sort of way, therefore, the Gibeonites appear like an Israel in need of Yahweh (a God who will take care of them). Maybe the Gibeonites are more like Israel than we would first recognize—they too need God’s grace to survive.18

Look at the second half of verse 14….but they did not ask counsel from the LORD. …literally ‘but the mouth of Yahweh they did not ask’.

We shouldn’t forget that Joshua and his men could have inquired of Yahweh through Eleazar the priest.

Numbers 27:21 was very specific in the instructions directly to Joshua about what he was to do when the Book of the Law didn’t cover the details of a particular circumstance. “He [Joshua] shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD.” So Yahweh’s direction was available but was ignored.19

17 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (p. 195). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company. Deut 29:5–618 Polzin takes this picture into account when he suggests that the link between Israel and the Gibeonites rests in the recognition that neither rightly deserves a covenant relationship. If torah is strictly interpreted, both deserve obliteration; only by grace can they survive.19 Davis, D. R. (2000). Joshua: No Falling Words (p. 75). Scotland: Christian Focus Publications.

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But let’s try to put ourselves in their sandals. Just considering the evidence….Touching the crusty bread, seeing the worn out clothes….it all seemed to be so cut and dry (no pun intended)….why pray about this? Common sense seemed to make the decision easy. “It’s obvious what we should do, isn’t it?” Do you ever feel that way about issues in your life—they’re so minor and unimportant, what we need to do is so clear, why pray about it?

“What an open door this is….this is a bird nest on the ground…..who can lose with this deal?”

It would be easy to rely on their senses and what logic seemed to tell them. It would be easy to walk by sight at this moment. “(But) do we need the guidance of God only when we are in doubt? Do we not need to be careful when we begin to think, “There is no need to consult the Lord on this matter—it’s quite clear”20?

Proverbs 3:5–6 (ESV)

5  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

6  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

“The applications to our own faithlessness and folly are many and obvious. A challenging statement in James 4:17 says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” The context (here in Joshua 9) is a false self-confidence about (the) future rather than a daily submission of every part of our lives to the will of God.

How often the Lord is waiting for us to seek him, to pray that he will direct our steps and govern our decision-making through the light of his Word and the grace of his providence. Yet how often we snatch our lives back into our own control. We sample the moldy bread, and we act foolishly because we have been deceived by what we see and what people say, by flattery and pride.”21

One author says ‘Not that (we) need to ask the Lord whether (we) should get a haircut at 4:00 pm. The scriptures don’t require wilting in the everlasting arms, only leaning on them. But we must beware of the subtle unbelief that says, ‘I have this under control’…(I can handle this’)….We need not only the power of God to overwhelm our obvious enemies but also the wisdom of God to detect our subtle enemies.22

15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.

20 Davis21 Jackman22 Davis

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The fast talking Gibeonites did the unthinkable! They extracted ‘shalom’ (peace) from the Israelites. And shalom is not just the absence of war, but wholeness, prosperity, and integration. And what’s more, they also extracted a “covenant to preserve their lives” through an unstated oath.23

According to verse 15, Joshua made the treaty and Israel’s leaders ratified it with an oath. Presumably, the oath invoked the name of Yahweh to enforce it—the same Yahweh whom Israel had failed to consult.

What were the treaty’s provisions? They never are really stated but given what happens in the immediate context (and in the rest of scripture), the Israelites offered the Gibeonites peace. Secondly they also committed themselves to protect the Gibeonites if the Gibeonites were threatened—we’ll see that take place in chapter 10. And thirdly the treaty must have documented what punishments would occur if either party violated the covenant….we’ll see that play out way down the line in 2 Samuel 21 believe it or not.24

With the deal sworn and signed, the only thing that remained is the obvious question: what would Israel do now? {Suddenly a sense of foreboding overshadows the story. Why is that? Well the last time Israel used common sense to make a decision, the defeat at Ai occurred. What will happen now?}25

Verse16 At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them.

With the treaty only three days old, Israel learns that their new “foreign” partners are in fact Gibeonites, they are Hivites, a people on God’s extermination hit-list!26

17 And the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. The people of Israel set out from Gilgal, their basecamp to establish once and for all what the truth is and they reached the Gibeonite cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. Here the Gibeonite cities are noted on a map.

23 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (p. 198). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.24 2 Sam. 21:1825 Hubbard26 Hubbard, R. L., Jr. (2009). Joshua (p. 287). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriathjearim….Talk about being right in the center of the country! 7-10 miles from Jerusalem! 7-10 miles from Ai!

If identified correctly, this settlement cluster rests in one of the most strategic crossroads in the region. Far from distant, they are a federation fixed in the heart of the Heartland.27

18 But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. 19 But all the leaders said to all the congregation, “We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them.

The people of Israel grumbled against their leaders for making the oath. And in contrast to their ancestors who grumbled their way across the desert, these Israelites here in Joshua 9 were justified in grumbling. Why? Because their leadership wasn’t following God.

The oath left the nation in a pickle. On the one hand, obeying Yahweh meant putting the Gibeonites to death because they were on God’s extermination list. But this wasn’t an option because of the unbreakable oath sworn in Yahweh’s name.

Must a promise be kept if it was obtained by deception?28 A promise is a promise when God’s name is involved. What were the Israelites to do? What are we to do when we’ve made a poor decision that has terrible circumstances? What should the Israelites do in such a circumstance? Live as faithfully as they could within a twisted situation29 Doesn’t this sometimes happen to us? Don’t we sometimes have to live obediently in circumstances that result from our folly?

Pausing to think out loud, I wonder if the Israelites could have asked Yahweh for direction here….30

20 This we will do to them: let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them.” 21 And the leaders said to them, “Let them live.” So they became cutters of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, just as the leaders had said of them. 27 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (p. 202). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.28 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (pp. 202–203). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.29 Davis30 Bullard makes this suggestion

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Verse 20 makes it very clear that if the Israelites were to break their promise to the Gibeonites they would themselves become liable to God’s wrath since his name had been involved in the process.31

Keep that idea in mind….that the Israelites would experience God’s wrath if they broke the treaty with the Gibeonites….we’ll return to it at the end of our time.

Verse 21 So the Gibeonites became cutters of wood and drawers of water. By announcing that the Gibeonites would sweat on behalf of the entire community, it had to quash the grumbling of the people for the time being, don’t you think?32 And notice the leaders made this decision.

Why cutters of wood and drawers of water? According to Deuteronomy 29:11 this was already the practice for aliens within the community of Israel.33 It was just manual labor that had to be done in the camp.

Well Joshua has been conferring with the leadership up to this point. In verse 22, Joshua summons the Gibeonites and lays out their punishment. And we’re going notice that he makes a subtle change in their punishment

22 Joshua summoned (the Gibeonites), and he said to them, “Why did you deceive us, saying, ‘We are very far from you,’ when you dwell among us? 23 Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, cutters of wood and drawers of water….and then he adds some new information…cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.”

Alright you Gibeonites, Joshua says….You’re cursed….You’ll never be anything but servants….Cutters of wood and drawers of water….for the house of my God.

Supplying wood and water for the extensive sacrificial system in Israel would indeed be hard work but being closely associated with the house of God….wouldn’t that be a blessing?

“You’re cursed Gibeonites!… (let me put it in today’s terms) you’re going to do maintenance around the church, rehearse with the choir on Wednesday nights and attend services on Sunday!”

One author says, “They were …. brought into a situation where they would naturally acquire the knowledge of God and of his revealed will, (they) were made to dwell in the Lord’s house, (they) were honored with near access to him in the services of the sanctuary….and (therefore they were) placed in circumstances eminently favorable to their spiritual and eternal interests.”34

31 Jackman, D. (2014). Joshua: People of God’s purpose. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.) (p. 108). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.32 Ziese, M. (2008). Joshua (p. 203). Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.33 Jackman34 Davis

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Joshua’s jolting clause takes the Gibeonites and gives them over wholly to service to Yahweh, not destroying them per se, but destroying their former identity and placing them in a new relationship with Israel and her God.

24 They answered Joshua, “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the LORD your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you—so we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing.They resorted to deception because they were afraid. 25 And now, behold, we are in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.”

26 So he did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them. 27 But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the LORD, to this day, in the place that he should choose.

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As we reflect on this story from Joshua 9, there are several talking points we could highlight. Let me mention 3 quickly and then move to the point that I think should overshadow the three I mention. { In other words listen hard for the first three points but then listen doubly hard for the fourth}

It’s not much of stretch to make the point from Joshua 9 that just as Israel had an enemy that beguiled them, we have an enemy that seeks to beguile us. 2 Corinthians 11:3 ….3 But I am afraid, Paul says, that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning…notice the word cunning…we saw it in Joshua 9… that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. In the context of 2 Corinthians Paul’s converts were being led—“—down the garden path so to speak by rival (teachers), and the Corinthians (weren’t) even aware of what (was) going on35

D. A. Carson applies the text:

From the time of the Fall to the present day, men and women have frequently succumbed to the deceptive devices of the devil. Christians are especially open to the kind of cunning deceit that combines the language of faith and religion with the content of self-interest and flattery. We like to be told how special we are, how wise, how blessed.… We like to have our Christianity shaped less by the cross than by triumphalism or rules or charismatic leaders or subjective experience. And if this shaping can be coated with assurances of orthodoxy, complete with cliché, we may not detect the presence of the arch-deceiver, nor see that we are being weaned away from “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” to a “different gospel.”36

So that’s a first talking point-- just as Israel had an enemy that beguiled them, we have an enemy that seeks to beguile us. And we must be aware.

35 Belleville, L. L. (1996). 2 Corinthians (Vol. 8, 2 Co 11:1). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.36 Hughes, R. K. (2006). 2 Corinthians: power in weakness (p. 195). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

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A second talking point from this passage could be that common sense is never an adequate basis for making a decision as a believer. You and I are called to walk by faith and not by sight. We’re called to not lean on our own understanding.

Repeating a quote I used….

“How often the Lord is waiting for us to seek him, to pray that he will direct our steps and govern our decision-making through the light of his Word and the grace of his providence. Yet how often we snatch our lives back into our own control. We sample the moldy bread, and we act foolishly because we have been deceived by what we see and what people say, by flattery and pride.”37

So that’s a second talking point-- common sense is never an adequate basis for making a decision as a believer

A third talking point could be an oath made in God’s name is a serious thing. Now Jesus urges us to not use oaths at all but it’s important to God that we follow thru on the things we commit to do. In our story the leaders of the congregation took an oath by Yahweh the God of Israel. And because they had taken the oath they were convinced that they needed to fulfill their part of the oath or they would experience God’s wrath.

There’s an interesting follow up to this story about the Gibeonites in 2 Samuel 21. We won’t take the time turn there but Joshua is long gone, the period of the Judges (a period of over 300 years has come and gone) and David is now king. In other words…. many years have passed. Listen to 2 Samuel 21:1-2…. 2 Samuel 21:1–2

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the LORD. Now stick with me. David is king and the land is experiencing a mysterious famine. And David seeks the LORD’s face, “LORD, what is going on?” And the LORD said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” Hundreds of years after the making of the covenant with the Gibeonites here in Joshua 9, King Saul broke the covenant. He killed some Gibeonites and now the land was experiencing God’s wrath in the form of a famine. Well David took steps to resolve the bloodguilt and I’ll let you read the gory details on your own but don’t miss the point, when we commit to do stuff and call on God to witness our commitment, it’s very important that we keep our word and follow thru on what we say we were going to do. Jesus in urging us not to use oaths, said it this way, “Let what you say be simply yes or no, anything more than this comes from evil” In other words we should do what we say we are going to do.

So those are three talking points, applications, that we could give attention to.

But let me turn to a point that I believe should overshadow the ones that I just mentioned. What is God teaching us about himself in the story? Well the Gibeonite ruse was Satan’s attempt to destroy Israel from within, “bringing Canaanite idolatry and immorality into the very heart of the nation, and so

37 Jackman

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threatening the very worship of the living God.”38 Inviting the Gibeonites into the Israelite camp through a covenant effectively gave idol worship and immorality free reign in the camp. What’s God going to do what that? How will God deal with a Trojan horse full of idolaters inside the Israelite camp?

Joshua’s words to the Gibeonites give us a hint here—“You’ll be cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God”.39 What Satan meant for evil—a cunning attempt at making a covenant with the people of God and being welcomed into the camp-- God turned it around for good: “Let’s give those immoral idolaters front row seats at the tabernacle!” “The very thing the enemy planned to destroy—the worship of God—was preserved and enhanced by God’s overruling providence, His ingenious redirection.40 Idolatrous Gibeonites were assigned to keep the altar fires burning and to keep the water well supplied for the cleansing rituals, so as to continue, increase and extend Israel’s worship of their living God”41.

It’s a little bit like God taking a thorn in the flesh and using it for good….

Or God taking cancer in the body and using it for good.

“This does not provide an easy excuse for our failure and sinful self-confidence, but it gives wonderful hope to those of us who are only too conscious of our past mistakes and weaknesses. And in the ingenious wisdom that belongs to God alone, he even causes the Gibeonites, the agents of deception, to be rescued. It was their temporal blessing that their lives were spared, but their eternal blessing that they were made members of the community of Yahweh and Israel, even though they were woodcutters and water carriers.”42

This is the glory of Yahweh. He cannot be outmaneuvered by human cunning or hindered by human fallibility. That glory is shown in the grace….

that can turn a curse into a blessing, that can use our mistakes and foolishness to bind us more closely than ever to him, that can reveal where we went wrong and make it become the means by which we can

begin to go right.

Listen to Nehemiah 3:7….Nehemiah 3 is the chapter where Nehemiah lists everyone who took part in the rebuilding of the walls….and again many, many years have passes since the conquest…maybe 800 years.. Joshua 9……800 years…..Nehemiah 3

7 And next to them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, the seat of the governor of the province Beyond the River. That was Nehemiah 3:7

38 Jackman39 Verse 23, verse 2740 Jackman41 Jackman42 Jackman

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Barry Metz 04/30/17

Nehemiah 7:25 tells us that 95 sons of Gibeon returned from the exile….

“Think of those ninety-five sons of Gibeon rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. What privileges came their way because their lives were refocused on the tabernacle, the place of sacrifice and communion with God, the manifestation of his living presence among his people! In David Howard’s words, “They appear to have been fully assimilated among the Jews, as much believers in Israel’s God as was Rahab and other foreign ‘converts’ and as much recipients of God’s grace.”

(So in our story, neither the Gibeonites nor the Israelites come out of the story untainted, but the grace of God superabounds over all human sin and failure. God is the hero of the story.”43

43 Jackman, D. (2014). Joshua: People of God’s purpose. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.) (p. 110). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

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