Joshua 9 shows us the plan of a group of Canaanites to avoid destruction. They use cunning to make a treaty with Israel. Though Israel should never have made the treaty and they sinned in doing so, they are nevertheless not allowed to ignore the promises they have made and as a result the Gibeonites are spared from annihilation. Though this chapter does not tell us much about who the Lord is, it does show us what God expects from his people, giving us a negative example of what happens when we don’t ask the Lord for advice (deception), and a positive example of the importance of keeping oaths (Psalm 15:4).
1 As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, heard of this,