The Taking of Vows

Joshua and the Israelites believed a lie, and they entered into a treaty. Without seeking the counsel of the Lord and without searching out the wisdom of God, the elders of Israel fell into this trap, trusting in their own wisdom, trusting in their own judgment, and agreed to the terms of the treaty that the Gibeonites had asked for. They did this unwittingly, and they also did it unwisely. They neglected the counsel of the Lord. That's a serious failure in judgment on their part, a trap that we can all too often fall into ourselves.

Today on Renewing Your Mind, we return to Dr. R.C. Sproul's series in the book of Joshua, and we'll learn some difficult lessons about unwise vows. One of the problems that we face in our culture today that has become a very serious issue is the breakdown of our whole system of contracts and covenants that are based upon solemn promises on sacred vows and holy oaths. And when we look at the Old Testament Scriptures, we see that God takes promises and oaths and vows very seriously. But we live in a culture today that just seems to play loosely with promises.

We've seen the disintegration of the institution of marriage, where there's a willy-nilly violation of vows that take place all the time. Now today, as we continue our study of the book of Joshua, we come into a startling episode in the conquest of Canaan that involves this whole question of promises and of vows. Now let's turn our attention to the ninth chapter of the book of Joshua, where we read beginning in verse 3 this comment that is taking place after the initial victories that the people of Israel have had against Jericho and Ai and others. And we read in verse 3, when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they worked craftily and went and pretended to be ambassadors. And they took old sacks on their donkeys, old wineskins torn and mended, old and patched sandals on their feet, and old garments on themselves, and all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country. Now therefore, make a covenant with us.

Now, do you see what's going on here? This is a cleverly devised ruse by the inhabitants of Gibeon, which is located about eight miles from the city of Jerusalem. These people were not from a distant country, but they were part of the local population, and this group realized after they had heard all of the stories that were circulating through their land of the overwhelming might of the conquering army of the Israelites, that they were terrified that their city and that their region would just simply be radically obliterated by this assault force that is now invading Canaan. So they saw they had no chance to defeat the Israelite army, and so they came up with this cleverly devised plan to pretend that these men who represented the region were from a foreign nation, from a foreign nation, not from Canaan, and that they would try to elicit from the general in charge of the Jewish army a covenant of peace.

And so in order to accomplish this, they got all dressed up in old garments, and the only wineskins they brought were old wineskins that were worn out falling apart, and their shoes were ragged, and the only provisions they brought with them were some bread that was moldy and gave the outward appearance of having been aged over a period of time, fitting with the whole story that they were telling of having traveled a great distance. And so they come up to Joshua with their lie, with their deception, and asking if Joshua would enter into a covenant agreement with them. And in verse 7 we read, Then the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you dwell among us, so how can we make a covenant with you? But they said to Joshua, We are your servants. And Joshua said to them, Who are you, and where do you come from? And so again they responded, From a very far country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God.

For we have heard of His fame and all that He did in Egypt, and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sion, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth. Therefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, Take provisions with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say to them, We are your servants. Now therefore make a covenant with us.

So they couch this deception in religious terms, saying, We've heard of the great feats of your God Yahweh, and how He delivered Jericho and Ai into your hands, and even on Transjordan, on Transjordan, the victories that you had there, and we've heard of what God did for your people in the land of Egypt. And all we want to do is enter into a treaty with you that we might be your servants. We want to serve you. We want to serve the God of Israel, and we want to have a peaceful relationship to you.

And so they continued the lie. The bread of ours we took hot for our provisions from our houses on the day we departed to come to you. But now look, it's dry and moldy. And these wineskins which we filled were new, and see, they are torn. And these are garments, and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey. So then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, but they did not ask counsel of the Lord. So Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live, and the rulers of the congregation swore to them. Now what's going on in this couple of verses that I just read is this, that the fact that the Jewish soldiers ate the proffered provisions, even though the bread was dry and moldy, was part of the ritual of the treaty agreement.

By accepting their offer of food and eating with them, this was an ancient Near Eastern custom of celebrating the pact or the treaty that they had just agreed to make with the people. Now we're told in the text that the elders of Israel were involved in the decision, that Joshua was involved in the decision, but the one person who was not involved in the decision was God. Without seeking the counsel of the Lord and without searching out the wisdom of God, the elders of Israel fell into this trap, trusting in their own wisdom, trusting in their own judgment, and agreed to the terms of the treaty that the Gibeonites had asked for.

They did this unwittingly, and they also did it unwisely. Now I stress that for a reason because the broader concern that we have here, apart from the isolated instance of this event in the broader history of the conquest of Canaan, is the theological significance that is involved here. As I said earlier, it brings us face to face with this whole question of the taking of vows and the making of promises and the swearing of oaths. We don't always think before we vow. We don't always seek the face of God before we make promises. We often trust on our own understanding. We often enter into agreements impetuously, and I think everybody who's listening to my voice right now can think of events in their own lives where they have done just that. We call this the rash vow or the rash promise, promise, the vow or the promise that is made without careful prior consideration.

Well, let's read on in the story and see what happens. In verse 16 of chapter 9 of Joshua, we read this, And it happened at the end of three days, after they had made a covenant with them, that they heard that they were their neighbors who dwelt near them. Then the children of Israel journeyed and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Shephara, Biroth, and Gireth-jearim. But the children of Israel did not attack them, because the rulers of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel, and all the congregation complained against the rulers.

Now why would they complain? We remember from our earlier studies of Joshua that the land of Canaan was under the divine ban, and the command of God to Joshua was to institute the harem. And you will remember that the term harem, H-e-r-e-m, refers to the concept of holy war that we meet here in these times of the conquest of Canaan, where God in giving the promised land to His people, to a nation that He had chosen from all of the nations of the world, and consecrated them to Himself, saying, "'You shall be holy, even as I am holy.'" To manifest that sacred selection or election of this group of people from all of the nations of the world, God took great pains to maintain the purity of this group. And He told them that they were to be holy, meaning to be set apart or consecrated or in simple language to be different from all of the cultures and all of the nations that surrounded them. And we also know in the subsequent history of Israel that perhaps the most damaging problem that occurred in the nation later was the problem of what was called syncretism.

And syncretism involves the blending or merging together of pagan elements of culture with the culture that God had established with His people by a holy covenant. We read the history of the kings, and we read the history of the Jewish people beginning to follow after Baal. We remember the titanic epic confrontation that the prophet Elijah had with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. All of these events that happened later happened as a result of an abiding pagan influence that remained in the Promised Land after God had commanded Joshua and his troops to remove all vestiges of pagan culture and pagan influence from this new land.

But here we encounter an event that disrupts the whole program. Joshua's mandate is to annihilate the Gibeonites. But he didn't know they were Gibeonites, and they came to him with this pretext of being ambassadors from a foreign land, and they tricked him, and they fooled him, and they fooled the elders of Israel so that Joshua and his troops now, when they come near to Gibeon, they discover that the ambassadors were representing the Gibeonites and not some foreign nation. So, do you see the moral dilemma Joshua faces? On the one hand, he has a duty to perform under the mandate of God, but now on the other, he has sworn an oath to protect these people. This is the second time we've seen this take place in the conquest of Canaan. The first one was in the case of Joshua swearing a vow through his troops to the family of Rahab to not kill Rahab and her family. So, when Jericho was destroyed, that one tiny little family that one tiny little family was singularly spared because of the promise and the vow that had been made to Rahab that her family would be protected.

Now, in a larger scale, we have this same kind of situation emerging. Verse 19, then all the rulers said to all the congregation, we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel, now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them, we will let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swore to them. And the rulers said to them, let them live, but let them be woodcutters and watercarriers for all the congregation as the rulers had promised them. And Joshua called for them and spoke to them, saying, Why have you deceived us, saying, We are very far from you when you dwell near us? Now, therefore, you are cursed, and none of you shall be freed from being slaves, woodcutters, and watercarriers for the house of my God. And so they answered Joshua and said, Because your servants were clearly told that the Lord your God commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you, therefore we were very much afraid for our lives because of you and have done this thing.

And now here we are in your hands. Do with us as it seems good and right to do to us. And so he did to them and delivered them out of the hand of the children of Israel so they did not kill them. And that day Joshua made woodcutters and watercarriers for the congregation, for the altar of the Lord, in the place which he would choose even to this day. Now, remember, when these men came posing as ambassadors, part of the agreement they elicited from Joshua was this. They agreed to be the servants or the slaves of Israel. That was part of the covenant. That was part of the agreement. And they're saying, We will keep our side of the bargain. We will be your woodcutters and your water bearers, and we will be slaves to your community as we have promised.

As for you, you do to us what you think is right and proper. And in saying that, they reminded Joshua of their own knowledge of what God had promised to the people of Israel. So they had some awareness of the law of God and of the religion of the people of God. Now, as soon as the congregation saw that this group was being allowed to go free, they were terribly upset and distressed, and they complained to Joshua, and they complained to the elders and said, Wait a minute. Joshua said, Wait a minute. What are we doing here?

We're supposed to conquer these people. So the elders then had to explain the dilemma. And once the elders explained the dilemma to them, then there was agreement among the people that the promise that the elders had made and that Joshua had sworn had to be kept.

Now, what's the point of all of this? In our day, we make promises with our fingers crossed so that if the thing that we hadn't anticipated comes to pass after we've entered into the agreement, we run out of the agreement. I read almost every day in the newspaper, in the sporting pages, about some athlete who is now asking to renegotiate his contract because he's had a better season than he thought he would have, and he realizes now that his market value has increased significantly from the day he first entered into his agreement. We don't just see this in the sporting world. We see it in the workplace every day, where somebody agrees to certain remuneration and employment stipulations, and as soon as they get the job, they earnestly try to get.

They're not there very long, and they're demanding changes in the terms of their contract. And this has become acceptable behavior. Do you remember the story of Jephthah's daughter? Where Jephthah swore a rash vow that the first person that came through the door, he would sacrifice to the Lord. And after he made the vow to his uttermost horror, the person who walked through the door was his own daughter. Now, the Bible cautions us, not only through the story that we've read here today in Joshua, but in countless places in Scripture, to be very careful about taking vows and oaths and entering into solemn pacts and agreements. For this reason, as the Bible tells us, it is better for us to be able to vow than to vow and not pay.

Because if I don't take my vow seriously, and you don't take your vow seriously, God does take it seriously. That's a sobering message from Dr. R.C. Sproul. It's a lesson from his series on the book of Joshua, and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Saturday. Thank you for being with us.

I'm Lee Webb. We return to this series each Saturday, but if you've missed any messages along the way or if you'd like to continue study on your own, we'll be glad to send you all 10 messages for your gift of any amount. Again, it's titled The Book of Joshua, and it's available on an MP3 CD. You can make your request when you call us at 800-435-4343, or you can give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org. And let me take just a moment here in our 50th year of ministry to thank you for your generous support. Your gifts allow us to continue creating teaching series like the one we heard today. I hope you'll make plans to join us again next Saturday for another lesson from the book of Joshua. And as we say goodbye, here's a final thought from R.C.

R.C. What happens when we make a promise and we find out after we make the promise that things are not exactly what we thought they were or thought they would be? What would you do if you're in Joshua's situation here? Would you say to the Gibeonites, wait a minute, wait a minute, you tricked me, you fooled me in the terms of this covenant, and so therefore I am released from my duty to fulfill it? Wouldn't that be our temptation if we found out after we entered into an agreement that we had been tricked into the agreement? But what we have here is a model of integrity, a model of people who understand how absolutely significant vows, promises, and covenants are in the presence of God. The whole relationship we have to God is based upon His covenant promise to us. And the whole basis of sin, every time we sin, we break the law, we're breaking our promise about the terms of the covenant relationship that we have with God. That's why the Bible says all of us are covenant breakers. And it's because of covenant breaking that human beings are violated every single day. And God is not like that. And so even when He's put in this terribly compromising situation, Joshua remains faithful to the word of his promise. He blew it. The elders blew it. They were unwise, but they were now bound. And they said, we will keep the promise that we have made, no matter how much it costs us. That's what God wants from His people.