The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 83: The Gibeonite Trickery (2024)

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

Fr. Mike expands on the significance of establishing a covenant relationship, and how the trickery of the Gibeonites can represent the desire to enter into a relationship with God out of fear rather than out of love. Today's readings are Joshua 8-9, and Psalm 126. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

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from Joshua chapters 8 and 9. We're also praying Psalm 126. As always, I'm reading from the revised standard version, the second Catholic edition. The Bible I'm using is actually the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. You also can subscribe in your podcast app and receive daily episodes. If you're wondering, do I record this and re-record this introduction every single time? The answer is yes. And if you skip over it every single time, then you don't know that. But now people listen to it. Now you do. So there you go. That's the truth.

Okay. Once again, we're reading. It's day 83. Gosh, our third day in the conquest in Judges time period. Joshua chapter 8 and chapter 9. Once again, Psalm 126 is our psalm of prayer and praise today. The book of Joshua chapter 8. The capture and destruction of Ai.

And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you and arise. Go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai and his people, his city, and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city behind it. So Joshua arose and all the fighting men to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them forth by night. And he commanded them, behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but hold yourselves all in readiness. And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city.

And when they come out against us as before, we shall flee before them. And they will come out after us till we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say they are fleeing from us as before. So we will flee from them. Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city, for the Lord your God will give it into your hand. And when you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire, doing as the Lord has bidden. See, I have commanded you. So Joshua sent them forth, and they went to the place of ambush, and lay between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. And Joshua arose early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up with the elders of Israel before the people to Ai.

And all the fighting men who were with him went up, and drew near before the city, and encamped on the north side of Ai, with a ravine between them and Ai. And he took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai to the west of the city. So they stationed the forces, the main encampment, which was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city. But Joshua spent that night in the valley. And when the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the men of the city made haste and went out early to the descent toward the Ereba to meet Israel in battle. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. So Joshua and all Israel made a pretense of being beaten before them and fled in the direction of the wilderness. So all the people who were in the city were called together to

pursue them, and as they pursued Joshua, they were drawn away from the city. There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel. Then the Lord said to Joshua, stretch out your javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand. And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city, and the ambush rose quickly out of their place. And as soon as he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and took it, and they made haste to set the city on fire. So when the men of Ai looked back, behold, the smoke of the city went up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that, for the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon their pursuers. And when Joshua and all

Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and struck the men of Ai. And the others came forth from the city against them. So they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. And Israel struck them, until there was left none that survived or escaped. But the king of Ai they took alive and brought him to Joshua. When Israel had finished slaughtering all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.

For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took as their booty according to the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai, and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day. which stands there to this day. Joshua sacrifices and reads the law at Mount Ebal.

Then Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal to the Lord, the God of Israel, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones upon which no man has lifted an iron tool, and they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there, in the presence of the sons of Israel, he wrote upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses which he had written. And all Israel, sojourner as well as homeborn, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded at the first, that they should bless the sons of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse,

according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them. Chapter 9. The Gibeonites' Stratagem. When 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. They gathered together with one accord to fight Joshua and Israel. But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning, and went, and made ready provisions, and took worn-out sacks upon their

donkeys and wineskins, worn out and torn and mended, with worn-out patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes, and all their provisions were dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua in the camp of Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country, so now make a covenant with us. But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you live among us, then how can we make a covenant with you? They said to Joshua, We are your servants. And Joshua said to them, Who are you, and where do you come from? They said to him, From a very far country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him and all that he did in Egypt

and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, Sihon, the king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, who dwelt in Ashteroth. And our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, take provisions in your hand for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, we are your servants.

Come now, make a covenant with us. Here is our bread. It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey. On the day we set forth to come to you, but now behold, it is dry and moldy. These wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they are burst, and these garments and shoes of ours are worn out from the very long journey. So the men partook of their provisions and did not ask direction from the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live. And the leaders of the congregation swore to them.

At the end of three days, after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they dwelt among them. And the sons of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Jephirah, Beiroth, and Kiriath-Jerim. But the sons of Israel did not kill them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them. This we will do to them, and let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swore to them. And the leaders said to them, Let them live.

So they became hewers of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, as the leaders had said of them. Joshua summoned them, and he said to them, Why did you deceive us, saying we are very far from you when you dwell among us? Now, therefore, you are cursed, and some of you shall always be slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. They answered Joshua, Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all

the inhabitants of the land from before you. So we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing. And now, behold, we are in your hand. Do as it seems good and right in your sight to do to us. So he did to them, and delivered them out of the hands of the sons of Israel, and they did not kill them. But Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, to continue to this day in the place which he should choose. Psalm 126, A Harvest joy, a song of ascents. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us.

We are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negev. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. He that goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you. We just give you thanks, Lord God, because you are good and your deeds are good. And that's what we need to be reminded of again and again. Lord God, in the course of our daily lives, we seek out your counsel and desire to only do those things that are in your will, only those things that you are calling us to do. And we also desire to live in the freedom of that obedience, live in that freedom of belonging to you and choosing to say yes to you with everything we have. Help us to do that with your grace, with your salvation, with your mercy and your power.

We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay. So we have Joshua chapters eight and nine, and of course we have the redemption of the battle of Ai. And that's great. Kind of an interesting chapter where we just kind of get this strategy that Joshua has of having an ambush, you know, leading the people, drawing the people out of the city of Ai while the larger troop of Israel sneaks in, not sneaks in, but goes in the open door after all the citizens of Ai go out. So it's kind of this, basically, this military strategy that gets revealed to us in chapter eight. And then chapter nine, we have the little sneaky, sneaky sneaks of the Gibeonites. Whereas you can note that all of the other kings beyond the Jordan Hill country, you have the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites,

Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites. They all are, they're getting together because they're realizing that here are the Israelites who are powerful. And here's the Lord God who's fighting with them against all these people. So they're, they kind of banded together, but there's this one group of people, the Gibeonites, who are saying, you know, we get it. Rather than be destroyed, we are going to trick the Israelites into making a covenant with us. And exactly that's what they do.

You know, they dress up as if they've come from a long, long journey, even though they only live a couple of days away. And as Israel, it says so clearly, it says so interestingly, it says that the men partook of their provisions and did not ask direction from the Lord. That's chapter 9, verse 14. So they partook of their provisions and did not ask direction from the Lord. And so they didn't ask the Lord, is this the right thing to do?

They just believed the people, believed the Gibeonites who were tricking them and entered into covenant with them. And there's something really powerful about that when it comes to us and it comes to our big decisions in life, where it comes because remember, covenant is establishing a family bond. You're saying, I am yours and you are mine. It's not just kind of a, oh sure, here's a contract. It is a deep, deep relationship that is unbreakable.

And so without even asking the Lord, is this a good idea or is this a foolish idea? They just do it. Now they find out that it was a trick and even better, they say, okay, well, we're going to honor even a bad covenant, even a covenant that we were kind of tricked into, not kind of, even a covenant that we were tricked into. We're going to honor it and we are not going to destroy you. And we're not going to treat you as essentially foreigners. But in this culture, you are going to, in our midst, what happens is

there's going to be, because you tricked us, there's going to be some consequences. And those consequences are hewers of wood and drawers of water and stuff. And yet what's really remarkable is this, it's a lot like Rahab. I remember reading a commentary that talks about this. Here's Rahab who is, you know, living in Jericho. She's the harlot, but she houses the spies. And she and her family get preserved, and they actually become a part of the people of Israel. So that even Rahab is noted in the New Testament as being a part of that family line when it comes to Jesus. But very similarly, the Gibeonites, they're brought into the family story. They're brought into the story of salvation. Later on, we have Gibeon becomes a priestly city. It's where the Ark of the Covenant stayed often

in the days of David and the days of Solomon. We can read that in 1 Chronicles. At least one of David's mighty men at the middle of 1 Chronicles is a Gibeonite. God spoke to Solomon at Gibeon. So Gibeonites, they're brought into the covenant, even if they came into the covenant kind of backwards, kind of sideways. The fact that Joshua and the people of God honor the fact that they made a covenant, even deceptively entered into, is actually a word of hope for the Gibeonites. There's a price, and that price at first is, you know, kind of a second-class citizenship, essentially, in the people.

But even the Gibeonites are saying, we'll do that. Whatever you think is right, we're going to take that because that's better than better than being killed. And so often that's us is the last word. So often that's us when it comes to entering into relationship with God. So often the reason we're saying yes to Jesus, this might not be you, but too often the reason we say yes to Jesus because like, well, it's better than going to hell, I guess. And yet what God wants from us, wants for us is not simply, I want to be able to spare

you from eternal separation from me in hell. But God is saying, what I want from you is I want you to live as my sons and daughters. I want you to live as family during this life and live forever as family in eternity. And so often we just say, yes, not because we want to be part of God's family, but because we just want to escape pain. We want to escape destruction. We want to escape hell. And so in that ways, maybe we're kind of like the Gibeonites who were brought in because they just didn't want to be destroyed. But as time passed, many of those Gibeonites, even there's prophets who came from Gibeon, and there's examples of great things that God does with the people of Gibeon as they become more deeply and deeply a part of his family. The same thing is true for us, that we might have said

yes to the Lord out of a mercenary heart, right? Out of a desire to spare ourselves. But the more and more we get to know his heart, the more and more we get to know who he is, the more and more we're drawn to be living as full members of his family, knowing that there is a father in heaven who loves us, that there is our Lord Jesus who is our brother as well, and that we are brothers and sisters. And that's one of the reasons why we can live in joy

and we can continue to pray for each other because as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the father, we are part of this family. And whether we came into this family unwillingly or whether we came into this family because we wanted to avoid other things, as I said, like hell, the fact is we're family. And so we need each other and we need to pray for each other. So please keep praying for each other. Pray for me. I'm praying for you. My name is Father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.