Wednesday Bible Study: One weird trick

Joshua 9 is a very strange story. Of course Biblical apologists find deep meaning in it, although I would say that whatever moral lesson you might try to draw is easily demolished, especially in the context. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into a treaty which precludes the Israelites from massacring them as they are everyone else in the area. When the Israelites discover the deception, they nevertheless still consider themselves bound by the treaty, but only part way. They won ' t murder the Gibeonites, they ' ll just enslave them. So why is this here? I haven ' t been able to find that there ' s any historical record of it, but it is possible that at the time this was written -- 300 years or more after it supposedly happened -- the Gibeonites were a subject people of Judah. That ' s what the text literally says. Or at least, in general terms, the writers wanted to endorse the idea of subjugation. Note that Yahweh butts out of this -- he could have warned the people of the deception, but he is absent from this part of the story. Make of it what you will.9 Now when all the kings west of the Jordan heard about these things —the kings in the hill country, in the western foothills, and along the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Lebanon (the kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites)—2 they came together to wage war against Joshua and Israel.3 However, when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had do...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs