Scripture Daily

Context No. 284 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 9:7-13: in context

7The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “What if you live among us? How could we make a covenant with you?” 8They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” Joshua said to them, “Who are you? Where do you come from?” 9They said to him, “Your servants have come from a very far country because of the name of the LORD your God; for we have heard of his fame, all that he did in Egypt, 10and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth. 11Our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, ‘Take supplies in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them. Tell them, “We are your servants. Now make a covenant with us.”’ 12This our bread we took hot for our supplies out of our houses on the day we went out to go to you; but now, behold, it is dry, and has become moldy. 13These wineskins, which we filled, were new; and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey.”

This passage is the con at the heart of the Gibeonite story. The Gibeonites are a local Canaanite people, close neighbors of Israel, and they are terrified of being destroyed like the cities before them. So instead of fighting, they run a deception. They dress up as travelers from a distant country and come to Israel asking for a peace treaty, and the whole trick rests on manufactured evidence.

They have thought it through in physical detail. Look, they say, we are your servants from a very far land, we came because we heard of your God's fame. And they produce the proof. This bread was hot from our ovens the day we left, and now, see, it is dry and crumbling with mold. These wineskins were new, and now they are cracked and split. Our clothes and our sandals are worn out from the length of the road. Every prop has been deliberately aged to tell a story of a long journey. And it works. Israel inspects the evidence, even samples the stale bread, and it all checks out, so they make the covenant. The next verse, just past this passage, names the real failure: they did not ask counsel of the LORD. They trusted their own examination of convincing proof and never thought to ask God.

The deception did not beat their eyes; it beat their prayerlessness. The evidence was checkable, and it was also staged. What convincing evidence have I inspected, even tested and confirmed, and accepted at face value without once asking God, when the whole thing may have been arranged to look exactly that convincing?

Sources