Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joshua 9:18
And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.
18. had sworn unto them ] The remembrance of the league was kept up through the whole course of the subsequent history. A terrible trial befell the nation because Saul had massacred certain of the Gibeonites (2Sa 21:1-2; 1Sa 22:18-19), and David remained faithful to the vow which Joshua had made.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 18. All the congregation murmured] Merely because they were deprived of the spoils of the Gibeonites. They had now got under the full influence of a predatory spirit; God saw their proneness to this, and therefore, at particular times, totally interdicted the spoils of conquered cities, as in the case of Jericho.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Partly, from that proneness which is in people to censure the actions of their rulers; partly, because they might think the princes by their rashness had brought them into a snare, that they could neither kill them for fear of the oath, nor spare them for fear of Gods command to the contrary; and partly, for their desire of the possession and spoil of these cities, of which they thought themselves hereby deprived.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18-27. the children of Israel smotethem notThe moral character of the Gibeonites’ stratagem wasbad. The princes of the congregation did not vindicate either theexpediency or the lawfulness of the connection they had formed; butthey felt the solemn obligations of their oath; and, although thepopular clamor was loud against them, caused either by disappointmentat losing the spoils of Gibeon, or by displeasure at the apparentbreach of the divine commandment, they determined to adhere to theirpledge, “because they had sworn by the Lord God of Israel.”The Israelitish princes acted conscientiously; they felt themselvesbound by their solemn promise; but to prevent the disastrousconsequences of their imprudent haste, they resolved to degrade theGibeonites to a servile condition as a means of preventing theirpeople from being ensnared into idolatry, and thus acted up, as theythought, to the true spirit and end of the law.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the children of Israel smote them not,…. The inhabitants of the four cities, when they came to them, though they found it to be a true report that was brought them of their being neighbours, and that they were imposed upon by them:
because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel; by the Word of the Lord God of Israel, as the Targum, and therefore they restrained the people from smiting and plundering them; for it was not the oath of the princes the people so much regarded, or had such an influence on them as to abstain from seizing on them, but the princes, by reason of their oath, would not suffer them to touch them:
and all the congregation murmured against the princes; not only for taking such an oath, but chiefly because they restrained them from smiting the Gibeonites, and taking their substance for a prey; their eager desire of revenge, and of seizing their goods, and inhabiting their cities, raised a murmur in them against the princes. This is to be understood not of the whole body of the people at Gilgal, but of all that party that was sent to Gibeon, and of the princes that went with them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“ The Israelites smote them not,” sc., with the edge of the sword, “ because the princes of the congregation had sworn to them,” sc., to let them live (Jos 9:15); but, notwithstanding the murmuring of the congregation, they declared that they might not touch them because of their oath. “ This (sc., what we have sworn) we will do to them, and let them live ( , inf. abs. with special emphasis instead of the finite verb), lest wrath come upon us because of the oath.” Wrath (sc., of God), a judgment such as fell upon Israel in the time of David, because Saul disregarded this oath and sought to destroy the Gibeonites (2Sa 21:1.).
But how could the elders of Israel consider themselves bound by their oath to grant to the Gibeonites the preservation of life which had been secured to them by the treaty they had made, when the very supposition upon which the treaty was made, viz., that the Gibeonites did not belong to the tribes of Canaan, was proved to be false, and the Gibeonites had studiously deceived them by pretending that they had come from a very distant land? As they had been absolutely forbidden to make any treaties with the Canaanites, it might be supposed that, after the discovery of the deception which had been practised upon them, the Israelitish rulers would be under no obligation to observe the treaty which they had made with the Gibeonites in full faith in the truth of their word. And no doubt from the stand-point of strict justice this view appears to be a right one. But the princes of Israel shrank back from breaking the oath which, as is emphatically stated in Jos 9:19, they had sworn by Jehovah the God of Israel, not because they assumed, as Hauff supposes, “that an oath simply regarded as an outward and holy transaction had an absolutely binding force,” but because they were afraid of bringing the name of the God of Israel into contempt among the Canaanites, which they would have done if they had broken the oath which they had sworn by this God, and had destroyed the Gibeonites. They were bound to observe the oath which they had once sworn, if only to prevent the sincerity of the God by whom they had sworn from being rendered doubtful in the eyes of the Gibeonites; but they were not justified in taking the oath. They had done this without asking the mouth of Jehovah (Jos 9:14), and thus had sinned against the Lord their God. But they could not repair this fault by breaking the oath which they had thus imprudently taken, i.e., by committing a fresh sin; for the violation of an oath is always sin, even when the oath has been taken inconsiderately, and it is afterwards discovered that what was sworn to was not in accordance with the will of God, and that an observance of the oath will certainly be hurtful (vid., Psa 15:4).
(Note: “The binding power of an oath ought to be held so sacred among us, that we should not swerve from our bond under any pretence of error, even though we had been deceived: since the sacred name of God is of greater worth than all the riches of the world. Even though a person should have sworn therefore without sufficient consideration, no injury or loss will release him from his oath.” This is the opinion expressed by Calvin with reference to Psa 15:4; yet for all that he regards the observance of their oath on the part of the princes of Israel as a sin, because he limits this golden rule in the most arbitrary manner to private affairs alone, and therefore concludes that the Israelites were not bound to observe this “wily treaty.”)
By taking an oath to the ambassadors that they would let the Gibeonites live, the princes of Israel had acted unconsciously in violation of the command of God that they were to destroy the Canaanites. As soon therefore as they discovered their error or their oversight, they were bound to do all in their power to ward off from the congregation the danger which might arise of their being drawn away to idolatry-the very thing which the Lord had intended to avert by giving that command. If this could by any possibility be done without violating their oath, they were bound to do it for the sake of the name of the Lord by which they swore; that is to say, while letting the Gibeonites live, it was their duty to put them in such a position, that they could not possibly seduce the Israelites to idolatry. And this the princes of Israel proposed to do, by granting to the Gibeonites on the one hand the preservation of their lives according to the oath they had taken, and on the other hand by making them slaves of the sanctuary. That they acted rightly in this respect, is evident from the fact that their conduct is never blamed either by the historian or by the history, inasmuch as it is not stated anywhere that the Gibeonites, after being made into temple slaves, held out any inducement to the Israelites to join in idolatrous worship, and still more from the fact, that at a future period God himself reckoned the attempt of Saul to destroy the Gibeonites, in his false zeal for the children of Israel, as an act of blood-guiltiness on the part of the nation of Israel for which expiation must be made (2Sa 21:1.), and consequently approved of the observance of the oath which had been sworn to them, though without thereby sanctioning the treaty itself.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
18. The congregation murmured This entire land had been promised to them for an inheritance. A part of that long-promised inheritance, to which they had for many years looked forward with hope, was now suddenly snatched from them as they were just entering on its possession. The manner in which this had been done aggravated their disappointment, and increased their indignation against the princes who had permitted themselves to be so duped, and the Hebrew people to be cheated out of its divine legacy. Another reason for their murmuring was the imprudence of the chiefs of Israel in entering into a treaty like this without consulting Jehovah.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And the children of Israel did not smite them, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by YHWH the God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.’
True to their treaty-covenant the Gibeonites were spared. Such a treaty was totally binding and unbreakable. But the people themselves were not happy. They wanted to get their own back on these Gibeonites who had made such fools of them, but the princes would not let them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ver. 18. And the children of Israel smote them not, &c. Even though they had not thought themselves bound by their oath, (as some think they were not, since it had been obtained upon a false pretence;) yet it was for the honour of religion that they should shew themselves scrupulous not to violate an engagement which had been entered into in the name of Jehovah. Nothing could be more proper than this prudent delicacy, to give the Gibeonites great ideas of the majesty of the true God, a majesty which would have been degraded in the sight of the Canaanites by a different conduct. Such was the respect of the ancient Hebrews for oaths, that even when they might have found plausible pretences for breaking them, they made it an indispensable duty to keep them faithfully. “Then,” to use the words of a celebrated Roman historian, “men were not arrived at that pitch of indifference and contempt for religion, which is now grown so common: instead of giving themselves the liberty to interpret laws and oaths according to their own interest, each, on the contrary, submitted his conduct to the laws.” Liv. l. iii. c. 20.
All the congregation murmured against the princes It is the disposition of almost all nations to be ever ready to cavil at the conduct of those who govern them. In the present case, the Israelites could not justly reproach their leaders with being actuated by levity, and exposing the nation to fail in its duty, however it might be conducted; but what they most repined at was, evidently, because they could not pillage the cities of the Gibeonites, and enrich themselves with their spoils.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jos 9:18 And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.
Ver. 18. Smote them not. ] But yet bore them on their backs, as we say, and murmured against the princes who were gulled by the Gibeonites, and the people by that means beguiled of the spoil of those great cities.
Because the princes had sworn unto them.] quasi ; an oath is a hedge which must not be lept over for the avoiding of a piece of fouler way. If the Gibeonites had been slain after an oath given for their security, the banks of blasphemy would have been broken down in those heathens that had heard of it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
made a league = solemnised a covenant.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
had sworn: 2Sa 21:7, Psa 15:4, Ecc 5:2, Ecc 5:6, Ecc 9:2
Reciprocal: Gen 24:39 – Peradventure Deu 7:2 – make no Jos 2:12 – swear Jos 6:22 – as ye sware unto her
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jos 9:18. All the congregation murmured against the princes Both from that proneness which is in people to censure the actions of their rulers, and from the desire of the spoil of these cities.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9:18 And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation {l} murmured against the princes.
(l) Fearing lest for their sin the plague of God would have come on them all.