Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live a long way from you,’ while actually you live near us? 23 You are now under a curse: You will never be released from service as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”
They answered Joshua, “Your servants were clearly told how the LORD your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you the whole land and to wipe out all its inhabitants from before you. So we feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this. We are now in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you.” - Joshua 9:22-25 NIV
There were a lot of different kings and cities in the land which God gave to the children of Israel. Of them all, only the Gibeonites recognized that the power of God was behind Israel and all of their conquests. They realized that God had given the Israelites the land and there was nothing they could do to prevent it from happening. Their only chance for survival was to fall on the mercy of the Israelites and their God.
The other kings thought that if they banded together, they could defeat Israel, but they were wrong, very wrong. Even when they left their people to fend for themselves and huddled together in a cave, they were found and met the same untimely end as the people they left behind, and the one that God intended.
It didn't matter then how powerful they were, and it doesn't matter now. It's a simple matter of "If God be for us, who can be against us." The only requirement is that we hear the voice of the Lord and follow his direction.
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