In this book of Joshua, fruitful in various moral illustrations, we are now introduced to the Gibeonites, and through them to a very serious and important lesson.
It was faith which led Rahab of Jericho into alliance with Israel, as we saw in our meditation on chapter 2, and as we learn both from James and the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. For she accepted the people of God in their day of weakness, while they were yet in the wilderness—like Ruth afterward who would fain go with Naomi still in exile and poverty, or like Abigail who owned David in the day when he needed a loaf of bread.
This is faith. This is accepting the Son of Man under the sign of the prophet Jonah. But this is not the way of the Gibeonites. During the interval from Rahab to them, Israel crossed the Jordan. In words of Scripture, “the Master of the house had risen up and had shut to the door.” Judgment had begun to take its course. It was too late for faith to exercise itself. Israel was no longer distant, but arrived; no longer unseen, but in the midst. Their day of strength had come. It was, therefore, fear for themselves, and not faith, which moved the Gibeonites to seek a league with Israel. It was like the cry, “Lord, Lord, open unto us”—and we are told that such is a vain cry.
The Gibeonites had heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai; that is, they heard of judgment in the land after Israel had crossed the Jordan, or as we said, when the Master of the house had risen up. Rahab had heard what the Lord had done at the Red Sea and in the wilderness (see 2:10; 9:3). But this makes a great difference. It is easy to be gracious when pangs come upon us: but such graciousness is not of faith, but of fear. It is natural, nay, necessary. The Gibeonites pretend that they were moved by the same report as that which had moved Rahab (vss. 9-10), but this was false, as verse 3 has already shown us. They were like the multitude who followed the Lord, not because they saw the miracles, but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled. They sought Joshua for what they could secure, or get, or make, by him; they sought him for themselves, for the deliverance which they now found they needed, since judgment had overtaken them.
This was the moral standing of the Gibeonites. It was not in them, faith acknowledging the God of Israel. Joshua should have been alive to all this, but he slept, and tares are now sown in the field. The princes make a league with these men of Gibeon, and the uncircumcised get a place in the midst of Israel. Israel may now do the best they can, under the conditions and results of their own carelessness, but the tares cannot now be rooted up, and there, in the fields of Israel they are destined by-and-by to give trouble enough to those who let them in (see 2 Sam. 2:11And it came to pass after this, that David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord said unto him, Go up. And David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron. (2 Samuel 2:1)).
Surely we read in all this a serious lesson.
We learn the difference between faith which forms such present alliance with Christ, as He will own in the future day of His glory—and fear which seeks Him after the day of judgment has set in. It is in this age of His weakness that faith owns Him, and then the hour of judgment, and the eternity of glory in their different ways, are both ours.
We learn also, the danger as well as the evil, of being careless in the service of the house of God. “While men slept, the enemy sowed tares.” Our carelessness works mischief, the bitter fruits of which may be gathered after many years.