Joshua 9:22-27: a reflection

22Joshua called for them, and he spoke to them, saying, “Why have you deceived us, saying, ‘We are very far from you,’ when you live among us? 23Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you will never fail to be slaves, both wood cutters and drawers of water for the house of my God.” 24They answered Joshua, and said, “Because your servants were certainly told how the LORD your God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. Therefore we were very afraid for our lives because of you, and have done this thing. 25Now, behold, we are in your hand. Do to us as it seems good and right to you to do.” 26He did so to them, and delivered them out of the hand of the children of Israel, so that they didn’t kill them. 27That day Joshua made them wood cutters and drawers of water for the congregation and for the LORD’s altar to this day, in the place which he should choose.

The Gibeonites had lied their way into a treaty, pretending to come from a far country when they lived next door. When the deception came to light, Joshua confronted them, and they made no excuses. They admitted they had acted out of fear for their lives. They threw themselves entirely on Israel's mercy: do to us whatever seems good and right to you.

What follows is striking. Joshua holds them to a place of lowly service, cutters of wood and drawers of water, yet he does not destroy them. And the service he assigns is service at the house of God, at the altar of the Lord. People who came in by a lie are drawn near to the place of worship. Their humbling becomes the very spot where they stand closest to God's presence.

There is comfort here for anyone who fears they have forfeited their place by their own crookedness. God is able to take a life that came to him under a cloud and give it honest work near his altar. Do not assume that a shameful beginning bars you from a useful nearness to God. Come as the Gibeonites came, with no defense but his mercy, and let him assign you a place at his house.

Lord, I have not always come to you with clean hands, and like the Gibeonites I have sometimes been driven more by fear than by faith. Yet you draw the lowly near to your altar. Take my humbled life and give it honest work in your house. Let my place, however small, be close to you. Amen.