“The people of Israel did not attack them, because the leading officials of the community had sworn to them by Adonai, the God of Israel; but all the community grumbled against the leaders.”-Joshua 9:18
The tables have turned and in an interesting twist of irony, instead of the leaders of Israel scolding the people as it was back in Moses’ day, notice Joshua 9:18 says “the community grumbled against the leaders”.
In response, Joshua summons the Gibeonite leadership and asks them…
‘Why have you deceived us by saying, ‘We come from a place very far away,’ when in fact you are living right here with us'”.-Joshua 9:22
The Gibeonites answer as follows:
“It is because we heard the reports that Adonai your God had ordered his servant Moshe to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from ahead of you. So we were terrified for our lives on account of you; that’s why we did this“.
Well, the Gibeonites finally come clear with the truth and admit the real reason why they lied to Joshua and his leaders is because they had heard of Moses’ instructions that all residents of Canaan were to be killed and were downright terrified.
The Gibeonites wanted to see if there was any way possible a loophole could be found that would allow them to live.
Well, Joshua did find a loophole but it was not a God-approved loophole.
Instead of being destroyed, Joshua told the Gibeonites they would be under a curse and would have to chop wood and draw water for Israel forever.
Why chopping wood and drawing water?
There were two reasons.
FIRST, it was customary for men to chop wood and for women to draw water.
SECOND, chopping wood and drawing water were considered to be the lowest of the low of any duties a laborer could do.
So Joshua was effectively turning Gibeon into servants for Israel (think of a Shabbat goy).
This probably surprised the heck out of the Gibeonites since they were hoping to return back home as if everything was still all hunky dory.
Having said that, as we move deeper into the Tanakh, we’ll find that Israel actually treated the Gibeonites quite well and were never really mean or abusive to them.
In fact, one could go so far as to say that the two parties actually got along quite well.
So what’s the takeaway for today?
The takeaway is this: we’re living in the days of Joshua folks and most believers have absolutely NO IDEA!
Everyone and when I say “everyone” I mean “E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E!” (think of Gary Oldman from The Professional here) are deceived.
Modern secular Israel is utterly blind to what’s going on.
So is the US government.
But you who are reading this right now, you don’t have to be blind and deceived.
Why?
Because all you have to do is have faith in the Word of God.
And not just have faith in it, but OBEY the Word of God no matter how difficult or challenging it may be.
Stay frosty.
Yahweh dimply put a block on the Goim who has stopped loving the truth (even some believers, so they are deceived, blinded and deaf not from Satan but from Yah.