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The Craft of the Gibeonites

Joshua 9
In the ninth chapter of Joshua, we have
a very singular illustration of the terror
which the wonderful success of the
Hebrew arms inspired.
There was an important city called
Gibeon, a few miles to the north of
Jerusalem, the inhabitants of which,
expecting that their turn would speedily
come, and despairing of being able to
hold out against the invincible host,
resolved to try to escape the doom which
hung over them. In ordinary cases, they
would have thought of submission to the
invading force. But they knew that the
submission of no Canaanite city would
be accepted. Coupling this with the
knowledge, that the Hebrews were not
forbidden to enter into treaty with, and
accept the submission of distant nations,
they resolved to save their lives, at least,
by inducing the invaders to enter into a
treaty of alliance with them, under the
pretence of belonging to a far country.
For this purpose, they would send to the
camp of Israel an embassy, invested
with every circumstance tending to
confirm the intended delusion, by
affording every indication of their
having made a long and weary journey.
Let us examine for a moment the nature
of their equipment, and look to the
articles of which it was composed. These
we find to be the same which are still
required for a journey in the East.
First, they took old sacks upon their
asses. What were the sacks used for?
Interpreters seem at a loss with regard
to these sacks, having no clear notion
of their use. It appears to us, that they
were the same as the large bags, usually
of hair, in which the orientals pack
away, for convenient transport on the
backs of animals, all the baggage and
commodities required for the journey,
excepting only water-bags and large
kettles. Beds, boxes, provisions, pots,
packages of goods, all are carried in such
bags, slung over the back of the animal,
one hanging at each side. Being a good
deal knocked about and exposed to the
weather, these saddle bagsas one
might call them but for their sizesuffer
in a long journey; and hence the
Gibeonites took old bags, to convey the
impression that a long journey had been
made.
The wine bottles which they took with
them are also said to have been old, and
rent, and bound up. At present, in
Western Asia, we do not meet with
wine-bottles, but only water-bottles
wine being interdicted by the Moslem
law, and therefore, although enough
used, not being publicly carried about
and in the farther, pagan East, the vine
does not grow, and neither wine nor
wine-bottles are used. The bottles were
of leather, or rather of skins, like those
in which water is now, and was indeed
formerly, carried about. Classical
antiquity has afforded many
representations of these wine-skins, for
the use of them was by no means
confined to the East. At the present day,
the same kind of bottles are used for
keeping, as well as for conveying wine,
in Spain and in the Christian country of
Georgia beyond the Caucasus, where, at
the city of Teffis, we beheld them for the
first time; and found at once every
example of the ancient wine-bottles of
skin, to which there are so many
allusions in Scripture. This, indeed, we
imagine to be the native country of the
vine: for here only have we beheld it
growing wild in the thickets beside the
rivers, affording small but very pleasant
grapes. The people here have no casks,
but preserve their wine in earthen jars
and leathern bottles. The latter are made
of the skins of goats, oxen, and
buffaloes, turned inside out, clipped
with the scissors, washed, and rubbed
over with warm mineral tar or naphtha.
The openings are closed with a sort of
wooden bung, except at the feet, where
they are only tied up with a cord. The
wine is drawn at one foot, merely by
opening or closing the noose. It is a very
strange and whimsical sight in the eyes
of a stranger, to behold oxen and
buffaloes full of wine lying in the wine-
booth or about the streets, with their
legs stretched out. These skins, however,
are very convenient for home use or for
carriage; for they may be found of all
sizes, some very small, the skins of
young kids, holding only a few of our
bottles. It is thus seen how such bottles
might be rent, and the rents mended
temporarily by being tied up; and the
nature of the bottles explains the caution
of our Savior against putting new wine
into old bottles, lest the bottles should
be burst by the wine.
In further confirmation, their shoes
were old and clouted. For shoes read
sandals, such being in most cases
denoted by the word translated shoes
in the authorized version. Now,
although little more than a sole of some
kind, fastened to the foot by thongs, the
sandals might need clouting or patching,
as may be seen by the figures of ancient
Egyptian sandals, to which those used in
Syria were probably similar, unless,
from the greater roughness of the
country, we may suppose them to have
been of stouter make and materials. Of
such we have not only figures in
sculpture and painting, but actual
specimens in cabinets of Egyptian
antiques. They are seen to vary
somewhat in form. Those worn by the
upper classes and by females, were
usually pointed and turned up at the
toes like skates, and indeed like the
Eastern slippers of the present day. They
are mostly made of a sort of woven or
interlaced work of palm leaves and
papyrus stalks, or other similar
materials, and sometimes of leather, and
they were frequently lined with cloth. In
Syria they were probably more
exclusively of hide. They were seldom
mended, being of so little value that they
could be easily renewed when the worse
for wear. We have seen a man make
himself a new pair out of a piece of skin
in a few minutes, for sandals are not
wholly disused in the East. The mere
fact, that articles so easily renewed, were
patched in this instance, was well
calculated to suggest a long journey, in
which the convenience of purchasing
new ones, or materials for making new
ones, had not been foundwhence, and
whence only, they had been obliged to
make their old ones serve by patching. It
was a singular thing to see sandals
clouted at all, and only a journey could
explain the fact.
The garments of these pretended
ambassadors were also old. It behooves
ambassadors in the East to do credit to
their master, and show becoming
respect to those to whom they are sent,
by making a clean and decent, or even a
splendid appearance. This was so
essential, that their appearance with old
and travel-stained clothes could only,
upon any common principle, be
explained by the assigned reason, that
they had come direct from a long
journey; and as the place to which they
came was a camp and not a town, they
had not the opportunity of repairing the
damage to their attire which the journey
had occasioned.
Lastly, their bread, which they affirmed
to have been hot from the oven when
they left home, had become dry and
mouldy by the length of their journey.
This transaction conveys a somewhat
erroneous impression. The Hebrew
word translated mouldy is the same
which is rendered by cracknels in
1Ki_14:3. This is an obsolete word
denoting a kind of crisp cake. The
original term (nikuddim) would seem,
from its etymology, to denote something
spotted or sprinkled over; and it is
supposed, from the old Jewish
explanations, to denote a kind of biscuit,
or a small and hard-baked cake,
calculated to keep (for a journey or other
purpose) by reason of their excessive
hardness and freedom from moisture; or
perhaps by being twice baked, as the
word bis-cuit expresses. Not only are
such hard cakes or biscuits still used in
the East, but they are, like all biscuits,
punctured to render them more hard,
and sometimes also they are sprinkled
with seedseither of which
circumstances sufficiently meets the
etymology of the word. The ordinary
bread, baked in thin cakes, like
pancakes, is not made to keep more than
a day or two, a fresh supply being baked
daily. If kept longer it dries up, and
becomes excessively hardharder than
any biscuit that we ever knew. It was
this kind of common bread that the
Gibeonites produced, and indicated its
hardnesshard as biscuitsin
evidence of the length of the journey
they had taken.
The device of these Gibeonites was
managed very skilfully The evidence
thus furnished seemed to the Israelites
so strong, that although aware of the
danger of being imposed upon, they
entered into a covenant of peace, and
bound themselves by the oath of their
elders to its observance. A few days after
the error into which they had been led
was discovered. The people were then
indignant at the conduct of their leaders
in this businessespecially seeing that
they could have guarded themselves
from all mistake by consulting the
Divine oracle. This especially they ought
to have done in regard to the first treaty
of any kind into which, as a people, they
had entered. This came of trusting too
much to appearancesof leaning too
much to their own understandingsand
fancying that it was impossible to
mistake such plain evidence as the
guileful Gibeonites produced. We do
not, however, suppose that the people of
Israel had that thirst for blood which
some have ascribed to them on account
of the displeasure they expressed on this
occasion. It is far more likely that they
regretted being thus deprived of the
spoil of one of the richest cities in the
neighborhood; and they may not have
been without apprehension that such an
infraction of the law given them
respecting the conquest of the land,
might not be unvisited by some tokens
of their Divine Kings displeasure. Such,
however, was the respect felt by all the
Israelites for the oath which had been
taken, that no one supposed there was
any other course now to be followed but
to spare the lives and respect the
property of the Gibeonites; yet, to
punish their deception, it was directed
that they should henceforth be devoted
to the service of the tabernacle, and be
employed in the servile and laborious
offices of hewing the wood and drawing
the water required in the sacred offices,
from which the Israelites themselves
were thenceforth relieved. It is not to be
supposed that the whole or the greater
part of them, were thus employed at
once. A certain number of them
performed it in rotation, while
remaining in possession of their city and
of their goods.

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