Asked Not Counsel (Joshua 9:14)

2024-03-15

And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the LORD. (Joshua 9:14)

The Gibeonites fooled Joshua and the princes into thinking they were from far away and not Canaanites appointed to destruction. When the Israelites made a league with them, these Hivites could never be touched by Israel.

There are two things. First is that because Israel did not ask counsel of the Lord, they became entangled in an alliance they should not have been. Hundreds of years later, the Gibeonites were still a distinct group inside of Israel: “now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them” (2 Samuel 21:2). If we do not make decisions that are dependent on the Lord, there could be generations of people that are affected.

The second thing is that perhaps this was from the Lord to save them. Though they were a mighty people, they may have feared the Lord unlike their fellow Canaanites. They did not band with the other kingdoms, but they humbled themselves despite their might. “...because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty” (Joshua 10:2). “And they answered Joshua, and said, Because it was certainly told thy servants, how that the LORD thy God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you, therefore we were sore afraid of our lives because of you, and have done this thing” (Joshua 9:24).