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Knowing an infinite God, part 4

I explained earlier how Noah’s curse upon Canaan brought about divine judgment 828 years later when Joshua crossed the Jordan and began to conquer Jericho. However, the nature of Noah’s curse was that Canaan was to be a servant to Shem and the God of Shem (Genesis 9:26). How, then, could Canaan become a servant if the children of Shem killed all of them? Obviously, there is more to the story than most people understand.

I also showed that if the Israelites had been able to hear the word at Mount Sinai, they would have received the sword of the Spirit with which to conquer Canaan. This sword would have caused the Canaanites to repent and to submit to Joshua’s rule. However, by rejecting the word, Israel was left with only physical swords that were too dull to divide soul and spirit and to expose the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

The heart of God was expressed in the Abrahamic calling to be a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:3), not to kill them but to baptize all nations (Matthew 28:19). Baptism is a manifestation of New Covenant death and resurrection (Romans 6:3).

The Gibeonite Deception

I have also shown how God did not allow the Israelites to kill or expel all of the Canaanites from the land. This was partly because Israel could not possibly manifest the heart of God using an Old Covenant sword, and partly to test (and expose) the hearts of the Israelites so that they might deal with their own internal shortcomings.

We are also given the example of the Gibeonites, who made a covenant of peace with Joshua in Joshua 9. The Gibeonites heard about Joshua’s conquest of Jericho and Ai and determined not to suffer the same fate. So they sent a delegation to Joshua, pretending to be from a far country (Joshua 9:9), asking to make a covenant of peace. Although their method was deceptive, they agreed to become Joshua’s servants. In Joshua 9:11 the delegation told Joshua,

¹¹ So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, “Take provisions in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them and say to them, ‘We are your servants; now then, make a covenant with us’.”

Joshua 9:15 says,

¹⁵ Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.

Later, when the deception was discovered, Joshua told them in Joshua 9:23, 24,

²³ Now therefore, you are cursed, and you shall never cease being slaves, both hewers of wood an drawers of water for the house of my God.” ²⁴ So they answered Joshua and said, “Because it was certainly told your servants that the Lord your God had commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land before you; therefore we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and have done this thing.”

The conclusion of the story is seen in Joshua 9:27,

²⁷ But Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord to this day, in the place which He would choose.

The Gibeonites were “cursed” to become servants of Joshua and “the altar of the Lord.” This fulfilled Noah’s curse. Seen in New Covenant terms, these Canaanites were cursed to become bondslaves of Jesus Christ, even as Paul himself claimed to be (Romans 1:1). They became part of the nation of Israel, living and working wherever the tabernacle was located. In this way, they served “the Lord, the God of Shem” (Genesis 9:26).

Recall the story where the Ark of God was taken by the Philistines and held in the temple of Dagon for about 7 months. God plagued the Philistines during that time, and so the Philistines ultimately decided to return the Ark to the Israelites. When the Ark was returned, it was not placed in its original location, because Shiloh had been destroyed. Instead, the Israelites set up the Ark in the town of Kireath-jearim (1 Samuel 7:1), one of the Gibeonite cities (Joshua 9:17). This is remarkable, of course, but realize that the Gibeonites had been serving at the tabernacle for centuries. God then honored them by placing the Ark of His presence in their town.

Most Bible commentators focus on the deception and even criticize Joshua for not discerning the deception. They fail to recognize the difference between God’s will and God’s plan. It was God’s will to destroy the Canaanites, including the Gibeonites, and to make no covenant with them (Deuteronomy 7:2); but it was God’s plan to spare them and make them voluntarily serve the God of Shem. The apparent contradiction is rooted in the fact that the Canaanite genocide did not truly represent the heart of God, nor could genocide fulfill the terms of Noah’s curse.

Yet we can understand this only if we see the difference in methodology between the Old and New Covenants. The Old Covenant was a temporary covenant, instituted because Israel was unable to hear the word of God coming from the fire on the Mount. Only through the New Covenant could God make Canaan His bond-slave. The “curse” was directed against what Paul calls the “old man” (Ephesians 4:22 KJV; Colossians 3:9 KJV), which is the child of the flesh that must be crucified with Christ.

Protecting the Gibeonites

When Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem heard that the Gibeonites had made peace with Joshua, he gathered a coalition of the willing to attack the town of Gibeon (Joshua 10:1-3). So the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua of their danger, and Joshua fought against the Canaanite coalition. God even caused a violent hailstorm to destroy the Canaanite armies (Joshua 10:11) and lengthened the day to give time for the Israelites to finish the battle (Joshua 10:12, 13, 14).

We see, then, how God protected His Gibeonite servants, even doing miracles to protect them from the king of Jerusalem.

A few centuries later, King Saul persecuted the Gibeonites—no doubt thinking that their original deception warranted some sort of retribution. This sin against the Gibeonites resulted in a 3-year famine in the days of King David, who had to deal with Saul’s sin (2 Samuel 21:1). We read that “Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 21:2). His “zeal” suggests that he had a religious motive, thinking he was doing God’s work.

It appears that Saul had murdered seven Gibeonites, because David was asked to deliver seven men of the house of Saul to the Gibeonites for execution (2 Samuel 21:6, 9). Verse 9 says,

⁹ Then he [David] gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before the Lord; so that the seven of them fell together; and they were put to death in the first days of harvest at the beginning of barley harvest.

The day of barley harvest was the first Sunday after Passover. It was the day that the high priest was to wave the sheaf of barley, prophesying of Christ’s presentation to the Father after His resurrection. Today it is commonly known as Easter.

The Remnant of Canaan

In Romans 11:1-7 Paul discussed how the remnant of grace carried the promise of God, even though the rest of the Israelites were disqualified. In other words, when Israel was cast off, the promises of God did not fail, because they were fulfilled in this remnant of grace. This remnant was a tiny minority, numbering only 7,000 men in the time of Elijah (Romans 11:4, 5), and these were forerunners of the remnant of Judah who had faith in Christ.

In the same way, the Gibeonites represented, as it were, a remnant of Canaan. This remnant was called to fulfill the promise (in the form of Noah’s “curse”) to Canaan that he would become a servant to the God of Shem. This principle tells us that God was not required to spare all of the Canaanites, nor was God required to destroy all the Canaanites in order to fulfill His word.