testimony.”  “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle.  For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.”  Josh. xix. 19, 20.  That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had “favor” shown them, and would not have been “destroyed utterly.” The great design was to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, and jurisprudence and their system of religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents.  In a word the people were to be denationalized, their political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, images groves and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute.  Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah’s purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared.  All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land[C]; or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death. “And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth as they taught my people to swear by Baal; THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE.”

[Footnote A:  Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God.  We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation.  If God had strictly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save themselves was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it.  If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without rebuke?  Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war?  What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites?  Was that more binding than God’s command?  So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God’s command.  When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in “his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah,” God sent upon Israel three years famine for it.  When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, “The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered,” &c. 2 Sam. xxii. 1-6.]