NOTES for Jos 9:1-27

The inhabitants of Gibeon decided to give up their resistance. They understood that they could not withstand the Israelites and preferred to submit to those who were stronger. Their calculation was entirely rational and practically sound: through cunning, they managed to bargain for relatively favorable terms of surrender. The Gibeonites lacked only one thing, but it was the most important: a desire to accept the God of Israel as their Lord. Although the Gibeonite envoys declared that they had come to the Israelites in the name of the Lord, at that moment this was a diplomatic ruse.

And yet Joshua assigned them to work in the service of the altar, thereby giving them an opportunity to serve the Lord in this way. If so, then the Gibeonites too were not denied the possibility of coming sincerely to the God of Israel.