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In Joshua 9
● notice that the seven peoples that banded together and the Gibeonites, like Rahab (2:10), were responding to what they had “heard” (1:1, 3), one group to fight and the other to plot deception,
● collect all of the details of the Gibeonite “cunning” (4): the four-fold “worn-out” (4, 5) and the food that is “dry and crumbly” (5),
● notice that the planned deception has two parts, the affirmation of origins in a “distant country” (6) and a desire to “make a covenant” (6),
● recognize the minimal interrogation- “Perhaps you live among us” (7) thereby making a covenant impossible- and the prepared response: “a very distant country … we have heard (a report that sounds much like Rahab’s) … make a covenant … dry and crumbly” (9-13), which ends in covenant making (15),
● read where the congregation “murmurs” against the leaders when the deception is discovered,
● register the fate of “some” (23) of the Gibeonites to be servants, “cutters of wood and drawers of water in the house of my God” (23),
● consider these possible lessons from this chapter: Deception awaits; and covenants bind, happily or not, and
● see buried in the midst of the story of interrogation a telling detail: “but they did not ask counsel from the Lord” (14).
Thank you,

Randy Tumlinson