Joshua 9:14-18a - Joshua made a treaty of peace

9:14,15

The Israelites inspect the Gibeonites’ goods, but they do not inquire of the Lord. So Joshua made a peace treaty with them. These two verses contain the two key elements. The first is that Israel did not inquire of the Lord, they relied purely on their assessment of the situation. Now we should use our brains and skills, but we must also recognise that they are not infallible. We do not know everything. So we should always submit plans and thoughts to the Lord, who knows and sees a lot more than we do! The second element is the peace treaty, and later we will see that Israel was intent on keeping that treaty that they had made, and rightly so. Why was the matter so important? Israel was supposed to take over the whole land of Canaan, and that included the land belonging to the Gibeonites.

9:16-18a

Three days later the Israelites heard that the Gibeonites were indeed near neighbours. So they set out to find out whether or not this was true, and came to their cities. So they discovered that they had been lied to. However, Israel did not attack the Gibeonites because they had made an oath by the name of the Lord. It is worthwhile considering the nature of the disobedience here on the part of Israel. Where there is overt disobedience, i.e. doing something that is clearly wrong, such as making an idol to worship, the response is simple. They need to repent and stop doing whatever they were doing. Here the action was not overtly disobedient. Their fault was in not asking the Lord for guidance. Now the Israelites had been lied to, and in normal circumstances if someone is tricked into entering a contract through deception, then that contract is no longer valid. However, here the Israelites had sworn an oath in the name of the Lord, and so considered themselves still bound by the oath.