Joshua 9:4 they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

◄ Joshua 9:4 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

English Standard Version
they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins, worn-out and torn and mended,

New American Standard Bible
they also acted craftily and set out as envoys, and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out and torn and mended,

King James Bible
They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;

Holman Christian Standard Bible
they acted deceptively. They gathered provisions and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

International Standard Version
they took the initiative by preparing their provisions shrewdly: they took tattered sacks for their donkeys, worn-out, torn, and mended wineskins,

American Standard Version
they also did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine-skins, old and rent and bound up,

Douay-Rheims Bible
Cunningly devising took for themselves provisions, laying old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles rent and sewed up again,

Darby Bible Translation
then they also acted with craft, and they went prepared as on a journey, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine-flasks, old and rent and tied up;

Young's Literal Translation
and they work, even they, with subtilty, and go, and feign to be ambassadors, and take old sacks for their asses, and wine-bottles, old, and rent, and bound up,

Cross References

Matthew 9:17
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

Joshua 9:3
And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai,

Joshua 9:5
And old shoes and clouted on their feet, and old garments on them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy.

Joshua 9:13
And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.

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Acted Acting Ambassadors Asses Bottles Bound Cord Craftily Deceit Delegation Donkeys Embassadors Envoys Journey Kept Loaded Patched Prepared Ready Rent Resorted Sacks Skins Together Torn Wine Wine-Bottles Wineskins Work Worn Worn-Out

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Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

9:3-13 Other people heard these tidings, and were driven thereby to make war upon Israel; but the Gibeonites were led to make peace with them. Thus the discovery of the glory and the grace of God in the gospel, is to some a savour of life unto life, but to others a savour of death unto death, 2Co 2:16. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay. The falsehood of the Gibeonites cannot be justified. We must not do evil that good may themselves to the God of Israel, we have reason to think Joshua would have been directed by the oracle of God to spare their lives. But when they had once said, We are come from a far country, they were led to say it made of skins, and their clothes: one lie brings on another, and that a third, and so on. The way of that sin is especially down-hill. Yet their faith and prudence are to be commended. In submitting to Israel they submitted to the God of Israel, which implied forsaking their idolatries. And how can we do better than cast ourselves upon the mercy of a God of all goodness? The way to avoid judgment is to meet it by repentance. Let us do like these Gibeonites, seek peace with God in the rags of abasement, and godly sorrow; so our sin shall not be our ruin. Let us be servants to Jesus, our blessed Joshua, and we shall live.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

4. They did work wilily—They acted with dexterous policy, seeking the means of self-preservation, not by force, which they were convinced would be unavailing, but by artful diplomacy.

took old sacks upon their asses—Travellers in the East transport their luggage on beasts of burden; the poorer sort stow all their necessaries, food, clothes, utensils together, in a woollen or hair-cloth sack, laid across the shoulders of the beast they ride upon.

wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up—Goat-skins, which are better adapted for carrying liquor of any kind fresh and good, than either earthenware, which is porous, or metallic vessels, which are soon heated by the sun. These skin bottles are liable to be rent when old and much used; and there are various ways of mending them—by inserting a new piece of leather, or by gathering together the edges of the rent and sewing them in the form of a purse, or by putting a round flat splinter of wood into the hole.