(2.) They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites.  They still continued to reside in their own cities, cultivating their own fields, tending their flocks and herds, and exercising the functions of a distinct, though not independent community.  They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries.  So far from being distributed among the Israelites, their family relations broken up, and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they seem to have remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries.  When they were attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid—­it was promptly rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in the occupation of their cities, while all Israel returned to Gilgal.  Joshua x. 6-18.  Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years’ famine for it.  David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?” At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of the royal family, five of them the sons of Michal, his own former wife. 2 Samuel xxi. 1-9.  The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a separate people.  There is no intimation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only the “house of God,” or the Tabernacle.  This was established first at Gilgal, a day’s journey from the cities of the Gibeonites; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days’ journey from them; where it continued about 350 years.  During all this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory.  Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent from their cities at any one time in attendance on the tabernacle.

(1.) Whenever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home.

(2.) It is preposterous to suppose that their tabernacle services could have furnished employment for all the inhabitants of these four cities.  One of them “was a great city, as one of the royal cities;” so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction.  It is probable that the men were divided into classes, and thus ministered at the tabernacle in rotation—­each class a few days or weeks at a time.  This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, rendered for the privilege of residence and protection under their government.  No service seems to have been required of the females.  As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition, hypocrisy, and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels and property, if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.