Joshua 9
Dear RTB’ers,
The Gibeonites. One key verse today; I’m sure it jumped off the page for all of you: So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the LORD. (v. 14) No doubt multiple thousands of sermons have been preached on this chapter and the Israelites’ mistake of not first seeking the Lord. And it’s a good caution. Yesterday I posted about making plans and seeing successes. What I did not say (I left it up to all of you) was that all of our plan-seeking needs to be submitted to the Lord. He alone, our Creator and Redeemer, knows what’s best for us, in what direction we should go.
So Joshua and the leaders did not seek the Lord. That doesn’t mean that they were cursed because of that failure. Many chapters down the road we will see that Israel pays the price for not seeking God. However, in the present instance, the Lord smiles on them with a good outcome: But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the LORD, to this day, in the place that He should choose. (v. 27) We will see in II Chronicles 1 that the place that He should choose (for the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting prior to the building of the Temple in Jerusalem) was, in fact, Gibeon.
Blessings!
See also: March 6 (2023) / Joshua 9-11