the Fourth Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 1 of 5
Joshua 9:17-27
When faced with Ai, the people had regarded themselves as sufficiently strong. In the presence of the Gibeonites, they considered themselves sufficiently wise. They did not feel the need to seek the LORD’S guidance (v. 14). What confusion results when, too late, they discover the truth. Henceforth they must put up with these Canaanites and we find them linked at a later date in a most humiliating way with the history of Israel (2 Samuel 21). The Gibeonites explain the reasons for their action. Perhaps we ask ourselves the question, what else could they do apart from letting themselves be wiped out by the Israelites. Now the example of Rahab shows that there was still time, confessing themselves as enemies, to place themselves by faith under the protection of the God of Israel, of whose fame they had heard (v. 9). But the people of this world act like the Gibeonites. They hope to avoid judgment by linking their destiny externally to that reserved for God’s people. They wish to escape from the wrath to come and gain assurance concerning death which they dread, but without confessing their true condition, without availing themselves of God’s unmerited favour. As a result, in contrast to Rahab who became the wife of Salmon, a prince of Judah (Matthew 1:5), the Gibeonites remain slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water.
