And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.
The children of Israel smote them not. The moral character of the Gibeonites' stratagem was bad. The princes of the congregation did not vindicate either the expediency or the lawfulness of the connection they had formed, but they felt the solemn obligations of their oath; and, although the popular clamour was loud against them, caused by disappointment, perhaps, at losing the spoils of Gibeon, but especially by displeasure at the apparent breach of the divine commandment, they determined, to adhere to their pledge, because they had "sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel." The people demanded the dissolution of the league, but the princes would not comply. The oath was in their eyes a momentous fact; and it may be remarked, that so much was the old ecclesiastical theology impressed with the sanctity of an oath, that it declared the oath which had been made even to a robber inviolate. The Israelite princes acted conscientiously: they felt themselves bound by their solemn promise; but, to prevent the disastrous consequences of their imprudent haste, they resolved, as a species of atonement for their error, to degrade the Gibeonites to a servile condition, as a means of preventing the Hebrew people from being ensnared into idolatry, and thus acted up, as they thought, to the true spirit and end of the law.