A Deceitful Covenant
This article talks about:
- Deception of the Gibeonites
- Importance of Seeking God's Counsel
- Lessons of Discernment and Caution
-By Pnina-
When I think of lies, deception, and betrayal, many biblical passages come to mind. Starting in the book of Genesis with the snake in the Garden of Eden, throughout the stories of the Patriarchs, into the books of Joshua and Judges There are also many examples from the time of the kings. In the New Testament, we also have several examples. It shows how we humans never change from that moment in the Garden of Eden when man first sinned until today. We lie, deceive, and betray.
None of us can claim that he never told a lie, whether (as we often want to tell ourselves) for a good purpose or not. We are all guilty of not always telling the truth. The concept of deception, "the concealment or distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading someone," is also found in many biblical passages, one of which is in the book of Joshua.
The people of Israel crossed the Jordan River and started their conquest of the promised land. From their camp in the Jordan Valley, they moved to the hill country and took over the local settlements as God instructed them. In chapter 8, we read about the conquest of Ai, after which Joshua builds an altar for the LORD on Mount Ebal.
Today, some 3000 years later, the remains of a large, fieldstone-made structure filled with ashes stands on Mount Ebal. This remarkable structure is dated to the time of the Israelite conquests and is the only structure from that time period on the entire hill. Its remarkable architecture, which has no direct parallels, the place, and the ashes of animal bones led its discoverer and excavator, Adam Zertal, to the understanding that this must be the altar Joshua built and the place where, some 3000 years ago, the people of Israel stood and heard the words of the Torah, as it says in Joshua 8:34–35. "And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing, and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them."
Though Joshua repeated the Torah given to the people of Israel and spoke it aloud in front of the entire people and even to the sojourners who joined them, it did not take long before Joshua and the other leaders were betrayed because the people already forgot about those very words.
In Joshua chapter 9, we read about the Gibeonites, a group of people located not far from Ai and Jericho in four different towns: Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiryath-Yearim. They are part of the Hivites, a tribe in the land of Canaan mentioned in the Bible.
Gibeon itself is located about 10 kilometres north of Jerusalem, along the road from Jericho in the east to the Mediterranean coast in the west. As the adjacent Beth Horon Pass is the best passageway to the Judean and Ephraimite hill country, one who conquers Gibeon could easily get south to Jerusalem or north to Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem and attack those places. The easy control of the roads made Gibeon a very strategic town, despite its relatively small size in the time of Joshua.
The Gibeonites understood the importance of their location, and the quickly spreading news about the destruction of the neighbouring town of Ai that some of them possibly saw frightened them. They understood that the Israelites would inherit the land and later admitted to Joshua that they were sure "…that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you—so we feared greatly for our lives" (9:24).
Therefore, they decided to act with cunning. The only way to escape a certain death was to make a covenant with the Israelites, who would not want it if they knew who stood in front of them. Thus, the Gibeonites came up with a sly plan to tell the Israelites that they came from a faraway land to make a peace agreement.
When the Gibeonites came to Joshua, he was in Gilgal east of Jericho. Though we don’t know its exact location, we do learn that the Israelites, after crossing the Jordan, encamped here and set up the twelve stones that they took from the Jordan here as a sign. From this Gilgal, they set out on their battles to conquer the land. The exact site of Gilgal, usually understood as a heap or a circle of stones where people gathered for cultic purposes, is not easy to identify. Several sites from Joshua’s time in the Jordan Valley that fit the description have been found in the past decades.
Four sites, in the form of a large footprint, have been identified and dated to the period of the conquest of the land by the Israelites. The largest of them is located some 30 kilometres north of Jericho, where a large natural theatre enables people spreading out on the mountain to clearly hear a person standing at the foot of the hill speaking.
No signs of living spaces have been found around this ‘footprint’, and it was identified by the archaeologist Adam Zertal as a ‘gilgal’, a gathering place. It does not fit the description ‘east of Jericho’, but it might give an indication of what these Gilgals looked like. Also, as the number of the people of Israel was great, we can imagine that their encampment spread out over the Jordan Valley between Jericho and the Jordan.
Though their distance to the Israelite camp in the Jordan Valley is no more than a day’s journey, the Gibeonites arrived at Gilgal in old, worn clothes and patched sandals. Their donkeys carried torn and mended wineskins, and their bread was dry and crumbly. This miserable outlook, of course all set up, did its work.
Initially, the Israelites were a little hesitant when those foreigners suggested making a covenant and asked them if they were living "among them'. Nevertheless, the conversation afterwards convinced the Israelites that they indeed came from a distant country. Though Joshua and the other leaders must have thought about the words they read not long before on Mount Ebal, they ignored them and did not ask counsel from the Lord, who told them: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—seven nations more numerous and mightier than you—and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." (Deut. 7:1-6).
So, then, the people of Israel were obligated by the agreement to let the people of Gibeon live. Soon, the leadership started to receive complaints from the people, but there was no way to break their oath without causing God’s wrath to come upon them. And thus, the leaders decided to give the Gibeonites a special position as servants of the Israelites: "But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, to this day, in the place that he should choose." (Josh. 9: 27). This special task brought the Gibeonites as close as one can get to the altar where sacrifices were offered to the LORD.
Maybe it is because of this special service that God did not punish the Gibeonites severely for their act. Moreover, He even protected them, as we read in Joshua 10. Five Amorite kings came against Gibeon. The Gibeonites quickly informed Joshua and asked for his help because they had a covenant, and Joshua, with God’s help, struck the enemy. Even large stones were sent from heaven to kill the army of the Amorites (Josh. 10:11).
The story of the Gibeonites and the Israelites, which began with deception, ended in a good way. Over the course of history, Gibeon gained more importance and played a significant role in the history of Israel. It is among the cities of Benjamin and the Levites (Joshua 18:25 and 21:17). David defeated the men of Abner ben Ner at Gibeon (2 Samuel 2:12), Solomon received the gift of wisdom at Gibeon (1 Kings 3:4–15), and it became the seat of the tabernacle of God (1 Chronicles 21:29). Until today, the remains of Gibeon were a reminder to us of the biblical account and how God can turn any situation to good.
The first story of the Gibeonites and the Israelites might feel far from our reality. However, important spiritual lessons can be drawn from this episode. The most obvious might be the lack of counselling with God before making a big decision, as we see in verse 14.
However, more lessons can be drawn from this passage. The first is discernment. Discernment of what is true and what is not, and what spirit is behind a word, a situation, or a person. The New Testament teaches us about this spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:10), and for sure it is one we need in our daily lives.
More than ever, lies are made to seem like truth, and many are deceived by what the world has to offer. Therefore, the second lesson is of equal importance: to have God’s commandments always in our thoughts and on our hearts.
Joshua, who not only saw the miracles God did for His people, but also just read out aloud to them all the commandments, did not take the prohibition of making a covenant with the locals very seriously. The outcome had far-reaching consequences.
We also should have God’s word on our minds, as the psalmist says in Psalm 119:97–98, "Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me." Had Joshua only remembered this, the outcome of the Gibeonites’ trick might have been very different. And if we remember this, our lives will change dramatically, as our enemies will not be able to overcome us.
This shows us another lesson, namely, that the (spiritual) leadership does not always act correctly. Joshua was the leader of the people, but the text clearly indicates that he was not the only one making the decision to agree on a covenant with the foreigners. "The leaders of the congregation swore to them," says verse 15. Who those leaders were is not told, but they also must have heard the words of the law on Mount Ebal. They should have corrected their main leader, Joshua, and told him to ask the Lord about the situation.
Instead, they also lacked discernment, and we do not read about a single voice opposing the act of making a covenant. The common people, though, complained, knowing the agreement with the Gibeonites was against God's instructions. This shows us how important it is to have individual discernment, granted by the Holy Spirit.
This brings me to the last lesson that we can draw from this story. That is, the enemy is very astute, and, more importantly, he knows God's word and even believes it. The Gibeonites told Joshua that they came because they heard what the LORD had done, and they believed it; otherwise, there would have been no need for them to try to escape the Israelites.
If the Gibeonites thought they would be stronger than (the God of) the Israelites, they would not have undertaken all the effort to come to Gilgal. However, someone claiming to believe God’s word does not make him necessarily a good party for a covenant! As James 2:19 reminds us, believing something does not make the difference between us and other people or even demons: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!"
We are distinct from others when we live out and practice the word of God in all our decisions: "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). In that way, living according to God’s commandments, we can stand firm against the enemy. Yeshua taught us that "the sons of this world are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light" (Luke 16:8).
Outer appearances and nice and even religious talk might deceive us very easily. Therefore, we should act only after investigation and counselling with the Lord. We should "trust in the Lord with all our heart, and not lean on our own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5).
But, even if we fail, our God is merciful. He continued to bless the Israelites, and because of Gibeon, he showed his greatness to the people of Israel several times. Even today, He shows us his mercy, giving His people a home in the land He promised—a land full of places reminding us of His goodness and great deeds.
Blessed be our God, whose mercy endures forever!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pnina has been living in Israel for the past five years while also studying Biblical archaeology. She likes to explore the land of Israel, uncover its past, and enjoy the variety in nature, people, and stories that the land is blessed with.