Joshua 9:3. The inhabitants of Gibeon] “Gibeon was a city situated, as its name indicates, upon a hill. It was about forty stadia from Jerusalem, according to Josephus, Ant. vii. 11. 7 (50 according to his Bell. Jud. ii. 19. 1), on the road towards Beth-horon and Lydda. In size it surpassed Ai, being one of the royal cities, though then without a king. Its constitution was republican, under the government of elders; the republic embracing, in addition to Gibeon, the towns of Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim” (Keil).
Joshua 9:4. Went and made as if they had been ambassadors] “They went and travelled as ambassadors,” or “they started on their journey as ambassadors” (Keil). “They did not pretend to be ambassadors, for they were ambassadors; the pretence consisted in their saying that they came from a distant land” (Capellus). Wine bottles] Heb., wine skins.
Joshua 9:5. Clouted] From Saxon olut (Swed. klut), “a fragment of cloth,” “a patch,” also “a cuff, or blow, with the hand.” In both of these senses, the word is still often used in some of the provinces. Chaucer, Ascham, Spenser, Shakspeare, and other old writers, repeatedly use it with the sense given to it in the text. Mouldy] “Spotted,” or “crumbled,” i.e., falling to pieces because dry from being old.
Joshua 9:6. The camp at Gilgal] Reasons have already been given for the conclusion that this was not the Gilgal in the plains of Jericho, but “Gilgal beside the plains of Moreh” (cf. Deuteronomy 11:30; Genesis 12:6), between Bethel and Shechem. It is apparently the same place which is mentioned in 2 Kings 2:1-2, as having Bethel below it. It is highly improbable that Joshua would have taken the entire body of the people back from Mount Ebal to the Gilgal of the first encampment, and thus have abandoned for a time the altar and the pillars containing the law, which it had been deemed of such importance to turn aside from the war and erect.