We will do this to them, and let them live; lest wrath be on us, because of the oath which we swore to them.”
Parallel Translations
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We will do this to them, and let them live; lest wrath be on us, because of the oath which we swore to them.”
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This we will do to them; we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them.
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This we will do to them, and let them live; lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we swore unto them.'
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Joshua 9:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 20:25 It is a snare to a man to make a rash dedication, then later to consider his vows.
- Ezekiel 17:12-21 “Say now to the rebellious house, ‘Don’t you know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and took its king, and its princes, and brought them to him to Babylon. He took some of the royal offspring, and made a covenant with him. He also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land; that the kingdom might be brought low, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping his covenant it might stand. But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and many people. Will he prosper? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the covenant, and still escape? “ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the middle of Babylon he will die. Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts, to cut off many persons. For he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things. He won’t escape. “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘As I live, I will surely bring on his own head my oath that he has despised and my covenant that he has broken. I will spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgment with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me. All his fugitives in all his bands will fall by the sword, and those who remain will be scattered toward every wind. Then you will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’
- Malachi 3:5 I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.
- 2 Samuel 21:1-6 There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” The king called the Gibeonites, and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah); and David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may bless Yahweh’s inheritance?” The Gibeonites said to him, “It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” He said, “I will do for you whatever you say.” They said to the king, “The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh.” The king said, “I will give them.”
- 2 Chronicles 36:13 He also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- Zechariah 5:3-4 Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side. I will cause it to go out,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it will remain in the middle of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.”
- Romans 1:31 without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
- 1 Timothy 1:10 for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 20. This we will do to them, etc. Although,…
20. This we will do to them, etc. Although, according to agreement, they give the Gibeonites their lives, they ratify the whole covenant only in part. For while the Gibeonites were entitled to be made perfectly secure, they are deprived of liberty, which is dearer than life. From this we infer that Joshua and the others had, as in a case of doubt and perplexity, devised a kind of middle course, so as not to make the oath altogether void. The principal object of this device was to appease the multitude: at the same time, while they were indignant at having been imposed upon by the Gibeonites, they punished the fraud, and did not allow impunity to increase their derision. It was a harsh condition, in this arrangement, that the Gibeonites were not only doomed to servile labors but withdrawn from their homes, to lead a vagrant and wandering life. The office of scullions imposed on them was no less mean than laborious, but the worst, of all was to hew wood and draw water, wherever God should be pleased to station the ark.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain This doth not establish rash oaths, but showeth God’s…
This doth not establish rash oaths, but showeth God’s mercy toward his, which would not punish them for their fault.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jos 9:20 This we will do to them; we…
Jos 9:20 This we will do to them; we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them.
Ver. 20. Lest wrath be upon us.] In the twelve tables at Rome it was written, Periurii, poena divina, exitium; humans, dedecus." God punisheth perjury with destruction, men with disgrace. Tissaphernes the Persian being overcome by Agesilaus, desired a truce, and had it, both parties swearing to observe it. This Agesilaus did with great care, but not Tissaphernes. Agesilaus comforted himself and his army with this, that the Persian by his perjury would both provoke God and offend men, and should fare accordingly. {a}
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{a} Nepos, in Vita Agesil.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain This we will do to them,.... Either this favour…
This we will do to them,.... Either this favour we will show them, preserving their lives, next mentioned, or this punishment we will inflict on them, making them hewers of wood, and drawers of water; which though not mentioned directly, was what was upon their minds, and in their design to propose, only they were extremely desirous of sparing their lives, which they repeat:
we will even let them live; this by all means must be done, their lives must not be taken away as the rest of the Canaanites:
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lest wrath come upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them; that is, lest the wrath of God come upon us princes, and upon the whole community, for perjury, a breach of the third command, Exo 20:7, a sin highly displeasing to God; since an oath is made not only in his presence, and before him as a witness, who is appealed unto, but in his name, and is often severely threatened, and sorely punished; and as even the breach of this oath was several hundreds of years after, in the times of David, Sa2 21:1. The Vulgate Latin version therefore reads the words, "lest the wrath of the Lord come upon us": but Abarbinel observes, that it may be understood of the wrath of Israel; for the words may be rendered, "and there shall not be wrath upon us, because of the oath": there need be none, there is no occasion for it, since this was agreed upon on all hands, that the Gibeonites should be let to live; and since it was an act of kindness and goodness, and especially they would have no reason to be angry and wrathful with them, when they heard them out, what they had further to propose to them, to make them their servants, though they spared their lives.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 20. Lest wrath be upon us — By neglecting…
20. Lest wrath be upon us — By neglecting to consult God they had brought themselves into a state of moral perplexity. They were in a strait between their oath and the plain command of God, strengthened by the murmurs of the people.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Lest wrath be upon us. The original is not…
Lest wrath be upon us. The original is not quite so strong: "and wrath will not be upon us (kai ouk estai kay hmwn orgh , LXX).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 the Gibeonites became cutters of wood and drawers of…
the Gibeonites became cutters of wood and drawers of water
"the Gibeonites became woodcutters and water carriers"
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translationWords
wrath
oath
Gibeon
Israel
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.