Now therefore you are cursed, and there shall never fail to be of you bondservants, both wood cutters and drawers of water for the house of my God.
Ancient Near Easterners regarded all treaties as sacred agreements. [Note: Davis and Whitcomb, p. 63.] If Israel had violated this oath she would have brought great reproach on herself and her God. Israel’s leaders were wise not to break their promise. [Note: See F. Charles Fensham, "The Treaty Between Israel and the Gibeonites," Biblical Archaeologist 27:3 (1964):98-100.] Later in Israel’s history King Saul put some of the Gibeonites to death in his misguided zeal, and God sent a famine on Israel as punishment (2 Samuel 21:1-2).