Joshua 9:4-27
The man of Gibeon a wily nine. They took old sacks, old wine bullies, old garments, nod old mended shoes, along with dry and moldy bread, and came to the camp of Israel. They told Joshua and the elders of Israel that they had come from a far country because they had heard of the fame of the Lord. They said they knew what the Lord had done to the two kings of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan, and of His wonders in the land of Egypt, and now they wanted to make a league with Israel. They acknowledged that the Israelites were the people of God and said they were willing to become their servants. All this pleased the elders of the congregation, and Joshua too, and they were fully persuaded that what these men said was rue. They looked at their old clothes and their moldy bread and decided that it would be a wise plan to make this agreement; so they did. They entered into a solemn covenant with them.
But they forgot one thing, and it was the most important thing of all. They forgot to ask the Lord about it. It all looked so good and so true, that they never thought it was necessary to inquire of Him. Surely they could trust their own eyes —they had seen the old clothes and the moldy bread—it must be true.
Alas, they were deceived. The men were from among the people of the land, with whom the Lord had told them they were not to make any agreements. But we might ask, How could they tell? They could not, but the Lord knew, and His Word says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5. It would have been so much better to have just told the men to wait until they had inquired of the Lord, but they thought they knew. They were impatient, as we often are. We often do not wait on the Lord but, instead act according to our own wisdom, only to find out how foolish we really are apart from Lord’s guidance. Let us not forget His Word, “Without Me ye can do nothing.”
It did not take long for the children of Israel to find out their mistake. Within three days they discovered that they had been deceived, and that these men were Gibeonites who dwelt in the land, right near to them. When they came to the part of the land where they lived, the people of Israel wanted to attack them and possess their land, but the princes of the congregation told them they could not, because of the oath they had made at this time. The mistake had been made, the harm was done! The people murmured against their leaders, but all they could do was to make the Gibeonites hewers of wood and drawers of water—they could not possess their land. The sad results of this mistake continued for centuries (2 Samuel 21:1-9), but yet when the people turned to the Lord, even in their mistake (which could not be undone), He undertook for them. Even in the conflict which followed later on in this book of Joshua, caused by this mistaken agreement, we find the Lord manifesting His power on behalf of His people a n d giving them victory.
Surely many of us can look back upon a mistake in our lives which has brought some sorrow with it which we feel even to this day. Do we need to be discouraged and give up? Oh no! God’s grace is greater than all our failure, and while owning it, let us not “fail of the grace of God.”
ML 04/19/1953