NOTES for Jos 9:1-27
The inhabitants of Gibeon decided to give up 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 practical: by cunning, they managed to bargain for relatively favorable terms of surrender. The Gibeonites lacked only one thing, but it was the main thing: the 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 work in the service of the altar, thereby giving them an opportunity to serve the Lord in this way. If so, then the possibility of coming sincerely to the God of Israel was not closed even to the Gibeonites.