and old and patched shoes on their feet, and old garments on them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and was become moldy.
And they made this covenant or peace treaty with the Gibeonites, and they swore unto them by God that they would have sort of a mutual defense pact that they would be allied together.So as the children of Israel moved on from Ai, they started coming into the area of the kingdom of the Gibeonites, these cities. So as they started to deploy the troops to attack the cities, the men said, "Oh no, no you can't do that."They said, "What do you mean?"They said, "We've just made a pact with you, and you've sworn to us by God that you would not attack us." So they honored the pact that they had made. They realized that they had been deceived. But they honored the pact that they had made with the Gibeonites; however, the people began to murmur against Joshua because of his strategic blunder.It is interesting to note that this is really the second mistake that Joshua made as a leader. The first mistake was in the case of Ai where they sent up only a few thousand troops, and the men of Ai came out against them and defeated them. Now how that when Joshua cried unto the Lord, the Lord told him the reason for the defeat was because of the sin that was in the camp. That one of the children of Israel had taken of the accursed thing out of the spoils of Jericho, which were all to go to God. So Joshua then sought the Lord, got rid of the sin, and the Lord directed them then on how the conquest of Ai should go.Now the problem with Ai was his failure to pray and seek counsel from God before they deployed the troops to attack the city. The same problem existed here. It was a failure to pray and inquire of God concerning the Gibeonites. They just looked at the outward circumstances. They saw the dry, moldy bread and the ragged clothes, and they just were deceived.Now had they sought counsel from God, had he come to Eleazar the high priest and inquired of the Lord concerning these people, the Lord would've shown to them that these people were fakes. They would've realized that these men were just seeking to disguise themselves as having come on a long journey. But in reality they were fakes, but the Lord would've revealed that. They inquired not of the Lord. Their mistake was that of failure to seek God's counsel. It got them into an ungodly alliance.How many times we found ourselves in ungodly situations because we failed to seek God first. Oh, for sure when we get into these conditions, then we seek God like everything. But if we would only seek God first, we could be spared so many of these tragic experiences that we encounter in life. So the failure to seek God's guidance led them into this alliance with the Gibeonites.But having once made it, they honored it. However, Joshua called them and said, "All right you guys why did you deceive us like this?"They said, "Hey, we knew that God was with you, that God was turning the land over to you, and we feared for our lives, and we felt that the only way we could survive was by this little ruse."Joshua said, "All right but as a result of this you fellas are gonna have to be the hewers of wood and become our servants."They said, "That's fine, we'll agree to that, we'll be your servants. We will serve you but we're just glad to be alive." So the people of Gibeon, and the cities of Gibeon were spared.Now the names of the city of the Gibeonites are listed there. In the listing of the names in verse seventeen, the last name Kirjathjearim is an interesting name and city, because it was at Kirjathjearim that the Ark of the Covenant was kept up until the time of David when he moved it from there to Jerusalem. So one of the cities of the Gibeonites became the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.Now when these five kings heard that the Gibeonites had made this league with the children of Israel, then they decided to attack the Gibeonites, more or less, as traitors. So they came against the Gibeonites. Chapter 12Now that was a tragedy that they did leave unconquered territory, because they left it, it did become a problem later on to them. Now in chapter eleven it gives a list of the names of the kings that were in this land that they destroyed, or that they, that they had come against. So chapter twelve gives you a roster of the kings that they defeated.Chapter 13In chapter thirteen,