The Motivation Question
But all the leaders said to the whole congregation, “We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. Joshua 9:19 NASB
Cannot touch – This is one of those verses that I just can’t figure out. I mean that I find no logical explanation for the excuse offered by the leaders. And investigating the vocabulary and grammar doesn’t make it better. Let me explain why.
First, notice that there is a superfluous pronoun here. The verb “have sworn” in Hebrew is a first person plural. That means it already contains the subject “we.” Like many other languages, the verbal form includes the subject. So why repeat it. The literal sense is more like “we have sworn, we to them.” The most likely motive for this repetition is to add emphasis. After all, there’s no punctuation in Hebrew, so if I want to place emphasis on a particular word, I have to do something out of the ordinary. In this case, I add the superfluous pronoun. But what’s the point here? The leaders are emphasizing that they themselves have made this agreement. “Yes, it was a mistake, but we did it,” is kind of the tone. This is not religious justification. It essentially means, “We are the leaders. We made this decision. Who are you to question it?”
Second, notice the religious justification for not voiding the agreement. “By the Lord, the God of Israel” becomes the rationale for living with this bad judgment. But why should that be the case? Interestingly, the rabbis point out that the “name” of God here is YHVH, not Elohim. Rabbinic interpretation associates YHVH (God’s personal name) with the attribute of mercy. Elohim is associated with justice. If this is the case, then the use of YHVH is telling. What the leaders suggest is that they have acted with mercy according to God’s merciful character. We certainly recognize that the duplicitous Gibeonites appealed to Israelite mercy with their disguise. But if God is the God of mercy, then why wouldn’t God be merciful to the leaders if they rejected the Gibeonite covenant on the basis of false representation? Since their agreement with the Gibeonites is essentially a violation of God’s command concerning the people of the Land, why would voiding it be so difficult? Wouldn’t God forgive this mistake and allow them to fulfill the directive He set in the first place? How can an appeal to the merciful God justify validating the covenant but not be enlisted to rectify the problem?
Finally, we have the verb nāgaʿ (to touch, strike, reach). Rabbinic exegesis associates this verb with plagues and illness. It’s not just human actions. The leaders are essentially saying that under the agreement they are not permitted to do any harm to the Gibeonites and neither is God! The covenant is so strong that neither human nor divine retribution is possible. But immediately following this declaration, Joshua curses the Gibeonites: “Now therefore, you are cursed, and you will never cease to be slaves, both gatherers of firewood and laborers to draw water for the house of my God” (Joshua 9:23). Isn’t this a form of nāgaʿ? Isn’t it forced labor in the same way that Israel was treated in Egypt? Israel might not be able to strike the Gibeonites, but they certainly can make their existence abysmal. It seems contradictory to claim an inability to seek retribution and then curse the tribe for its duplicity. All in all, this story is loaded with difficulties. But maybe Heschel’s comment is the correct approach: “Truth’s friend spoke his dissonant song: meaning is not in answers but in the question itself.”[1]
Topical Index: nāgaʿ, touch, Gibeonites, covenant, Joshua 9:19
