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lords of the towns and provinces of Canaan were not all united, so as to make a common and vigorous attack. Before the league had been entered into, the inhabitants of Gibeon, one of the largest towns in the central part of Canaan, together with the smaller neighbouring towns that were dependent upon it, attempted to anticipate the danger which threatened them by means of a stratagem, and to enter into a friendly alliance with the Israelites. And they succeeded, inasmuch as Joshua and the elders of the congregation of Israel fell into the snare that was laid for them by the ambassadors of the Gibeonites, who came to the camp at Gilgal, and made the desired treaty with them, without inquiring of the Lord. “This account,” as O. v. Gerlach says, “is a warning to the Church of God of all ages against the cunning and dissimulation of the world, which often seeks for a peaceable recognition on the part of the kingdom of God, and even for a reception into it, whenever it may be its advantage to do so.”
Jos 9:1, Jos 9:2 form the introduction to chs. 9-11, and correspond to the introduction in Jos 5:1. The news of the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Jordan had thrown all the kings of Canaan into such despair, that they did not venture to make any attack upon Israel. But they gradually recovered from their first panic, partly, no doubt, in consequence of the failure of the first attack of the Israelites upon Ai, and resolved to join together in making war upon the foreign invaders. The kings of Canaan did this when they heard, sc., what Israel had hitherto undertaken and accomplished, not merely “what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai” (Knobel): that is to say, all the kings across the Jordan, i.e., in the country to the west of the Jordan (היּרדּן עבר, as in Jos 5:1), viz., “upon the mountains” (not only the mountains of Judah, as in Jos 10:40; Jos 11:16, etc., but all the mountains which run throughout the whole length of Canaan, as in Deu 1:7 and Num 13:17 : see the explanation of the latter passage); “in the lowlands” (shephelah, the low-lying country between the mountains and the sea-coast, which is simply intersected by small ranges of hills; see at Deu 1:7); “and on all the coast of the Great Sea towards Lebanon,” i.e., the narrow coast of the Mediterranean Sea from Joppa up to the Ladder of Tyre (see at Deu 1:7). The different tribes of the Canaanites are also mentioned by name, as in Jos 3:10, except that the Girgashites are omitted. These gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and Israel with one mouth, or with one accord (1Ki 22:13).