“Then the five kings of the Amorites—the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon—joined forces. They moved up with all their troops and took up positions against Gibeon and attacked it.”-Joshua 10:5
We have to understand that one of the big reasons why Adoni-zedek was so alarmed that Gibeon had entered into a peace treaty with Israel is because Gibeon was a big and influential city.
It wasn’t some small and helpless tribe that had to rely on other tribes for their survival.
Gibeon was actually a cluster of several cities known as the “the royal cities”.
The Royal cities were where kings made their homes and were the biggest, wealthiest and most protected cities.
If a certain ruler was powerful enough to possess his own standing group of soldiers, the royal cities were where he stationed them.
Therefore, once Adoni-zedek and many of the other kings in Canaan got wind of the fact that such a powerful city like Gibeon had essentially just surrendered to Israel by entering into a peace treaty with them, it both angered and scared them.
And in their panic, their first response was to attack Gibeon.
The alliance formed to go against Gibeon consisted of all the southern cities in Canaan: Jebus (now Jerusalem), Hebron, Yarmuth, Lachish and Eglon.
The initial meeting of the minds to plan the attack on Gibeon was to take place in ironically God’s holy city Jerusalem (again called Jebus at the time),
On foot, Hebron was about 7 hours away from Jerusalem, Yarmuth, located in the southwest, was about 3 hours away, and Lachish and Eglon (two cities in close proximity to each other) were the closest being near the Gaza Strip in the southwestern area of Hebron.
Geographical specifics aside, we can see that these kings had declared a state of emergency and had made a decision to attack Gibeon immediately for their treacherous behavior.
Gibeon must have been quite surprised at just how quickly the other kings in the area reacted to their entering into a peace agreement with Israel.
They were totally unprepared to defend themselves and immediately called upon Israel for help.
One interesting takeaway I’m getting from all this is that when we decide to team up with Israel, we can definitely expect an attack from Israel’s enemies.
Or to put it another way, when we become a part of God’s family (by being grafted into the commonwealth of Israel), the devil immediately goes on high alert and sends his enemy forces to attack us.
However, we shouldn’t fear, because if we are truly a member of God’s family, we will be protected.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
-Matthew 12:30
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