Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation
had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation
murmured against the princes.
"The Israelites smote them not," sc., with the edge of the sword, "because the
princes of the congregation had sworn to them," sc., to let them live (v. 15); but,
notwithstanding the murmuring of the congregation, they declared that they might not
touch them because of their oath. "This (sc., what we have sworn) we will do to them,
and let them live ( hachayeeh (OT:2421), inf. abs. with special emphasis instead of
the finite verb), lest wrath come upon us because of the oath." Wrath (sc., of God), a
judgment such as fell upon Israel in the time of David, because Saul disregarded this
oath and sought to destroy the Gibeonites (2 Sam 21:1ff.).
But how could the elders of Israel consider themselves bound by their oath to grant to
the Gibeonites the preservation of life which had been secured to them by the treaty
they had made, when the very supposition upon which the treaty was made, viz., that
the Gibeonites did not belong to the tribes of Canaan, was proved to be false, and the
Gibeonites had studiously deceived them by pretending that they had come from a
very distant land? As they had been absolutely forbidden to make any treaties with the
Canaanites, it might be supposed that, after the discovery of the deception which had
been practised upon them, the Israelitish rulers would be under no obligation to
observe the treaty which they had made with the Gibeonites in full faith in the truth of
their word. And no doubt from the stand-point of strict justice this view appears to be
a right one. But the princes of Israel shrank back from breaking the oath which, as is
emphatically stated in v. 19, they had sworn by Jehovah the God of Israel, not
because they assumed, as Hauff supposes, "that an oath simply regarded as an
outward and holy transaction had an absolutely binding force," but because they were
afraid of bringing the name of the God of Israel into contempt
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