Commentaria in Josue
You will ask whether Josue could lawfully make a covenant with the Gabaonites and give them life, since God had forbidden the Hebrews to make a covenant with the Chanaanites (such as were the Gabaonites) and had commanded them all to be slain? Exodus 23:32. I answer that Josue could lawfully make a covenant with them, two conditions being supposed. The former was that the Gabaonites should cede their cities, fields and dominions to the Hebrews, for these had been given to them by God, and therefore submit themselves to them as servants. The latter, that they should become proselytes, and, abandoning their idols, take up the same worship of the true God, and so pass over into one Church and commonwealth with the Hebrews. For the reason why God had commanded them to be slain was that they were idolaters and wicked, and there was danger lest they draw the Hebrews to their idols and crimes. God gives this reason, Exodus 23:32 and 33, and Deuteronomy 7:4. But when this danger ceased, God permitted them to be spared and their life granted; and the Gabaonites furnished both: for they offered themselves as servants, and acknowledged their God, and offered themselves ready to embrace his religion; therefore Josue could spare them. That this is so is clear first because in like manner the Hebrews gave their word to Rahab the Chanaanite, that they would save her and all her kin and relations, and kept the word given, because Rahab with her household had submitted herself to the Hebrews, and was prepared to embrace their faith and religion. Why could not Josue in like manner grant life to the Gabaonites?
Second, because Josue in fact spared the Gabaonites, after their guile was detected and he knew them to be Chanaanites, and wished the faith given and sworn to them to be kept. But he could not have done this, if this covenant had been unlawful and forbidden by God.
For no promise, even if sworn, is binding and valid which is opposed to God and to the law and command of God. For no one can bind himself or promise that he will violate the law of God or act against it.
Third, because God severely punished the posterity of Saul, and commanded them to be crucified, 2 Kings 21:4 and following, because Saul had slain the Gabaonites against the faith given by Josue. God therefore willed that the faith given to them should be ratified and religiously kept.
Fourth, because God, Deuteronomy 20:10, commands the Hebrews to offer peace to their enemies, and if they accept it, to make a covenant with them. Under these the interpreters hold that the Chanaanites also are comprehended. For that God in the same place, verses 15 and 18, makes a difference between the Chanaanites near at hand and other nations dwelling far off, seems to be only in this: that he wills the Chanaanites to be slain altogether, lest they draw the Hebrews to their idols, whereas among the other nations he wills women and children to be spared. This will be clearer from what is to be said on verse 19.
17. GABAON, AND CAPHIRA, AND BEROTH, AND CARIATH-JARIM.—The names appear to have been given to those cities of the Chanaanites for various reasons, taken from the situation of the place, its nature and character, and likewise from the advantages and disadvantages which neighbouring things brought them. Thus Gabaon, a Chanaanite word, signifies a summit, because this city was situated on a mountain; Caphira signifies a lion’s whelp, because it had inhabitants strong as lions; Beroth signifies wells, which were there excellent and abundant; Cariathiarim is the same as city of forests, because of their abundance there. So Arias. Properly Gabaon is the same as hill of iniquity and sorrow, says St. Jerome in the Hebrew Names, because Gabaon before Josue was a wicked city, and therefore full of sorrows, until Jesus preserved and saved it.
19. WE HAVE SWORN TO THEM IN THE NAME (by the name) OF THE LORD THE GOD OF ISRAEL, AND THEREFORE WE MAY NOT TOUCH THEM.—It is asked whether this oath of the princes given to the Gabaonites, to preserve their lives, bound them to keep the faith they had given. That it did not bind is held by Abulensis, Masius, Arias, Magalhaes, Serarius, and St. Augustine here, Question 13.
The first reason is that this covenant and oath was extorted by the fraud and guile of the Gabaonites; the second, that an error as to the person intervened in it: for Josue and the princes thought they were making a covenant and swearing, not with the neighbouring Chanaanites, but with strangers and remote people, say Arabs or Syrians, such as the Gabaonites falsely pretended to be, and intended to bind themselves to these only. For an oath, as Sylvester, Lessius and the rest teach, follows the nature of its act or contract, and must be understood according to the conditions and restrictions which are understood in such an act or contract. But here that condition is understood: “If you are not Chanaanites.” Wherefore, since the Gabaonites were Chanaanites, the Hebrews intended that they would not make a pact with them, nor a covenant, and consequently would not bind themselves to them by oath. The third, because the deed itself was against the law of God, which commands all the Chanaanites to be utterly destroyed, Numbers 33:52; Deuteronomy 20:16. Nevertheless the princes thought themselves bound by this oath: from which error you may gather how great in that age was the reverence and religion toward the divine name; and God, whom they had neglected to consult, permitted them to err, that from it he might draw forth the salvation of the Gabaonites, and show his clemency toward them. The Israelites were, however, bound by a renewed agreement, because, recognizing the fraud a little after, they ratified the former pact and the faith given to them, God impelling them to it; for that it pleased God that they should be spared who of their own accord sought peace, and that the faith given should be kept, winking at the law of death passed against the Chanaanites, is plain from the fact that God most gravely avenged the violation of this covenant by Saul, 2 Kings 21:1. This opinion is probable.
The contrary opinion, however, is more probable, namely that this covenant and oath bound Josue and the Hebrews to keep faith, and to maintain the life given to the Gabaonites, as Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius, Cajetan, St. Ambrose (book 3 On Duties, chapter 10), Gratian (book 22, question 4, last chapter), and at length and soundly Suarez (book 2 On Oaths, chapter 18), who cites St. Thomas, Bonaventure and Richard. The reason is:
First, because God had permitted, indeed as it were commanded, that the Chanaanites be spared if they themselves sought peace, ceded their cities to the Hebrews and embraced their religion, as I showed on verse 15. But the Gabaonites furnished all these things. Therefore they could, indeed out of charity ought, to be spared, and a covenant made with them. Scripture signifies this sufficiently, chapter 11:19, where it says: “There was not a city that delivered itself to the children of Israel, except the Hevite who dwelt in Gabaon; for they took all by fighting. For it was the sentence of the Lord that their hearts should be hardened, and that they should fight against Israel, and fall, and deserve no clemency, and perish, as the Lord had commanded Moses,” as if to say: God therefore commanded the Chanaanites to be destroyed because they obstinately resisted the Hebrews; but because the Gabaonites, who were Hevites, did not do so, but sought peace, God therefore willed that it be given them.
Second, because this guile of the Gabaonites was not about the substance of the matter, or about that which the oath required in order to be valid, but only about an accident, namely the nearness or distance of their dwelling; therefore it did not vitiate or annul the oath, nor the sworn covenant. It would have been about the substance if they had wished to retain their cities and their idolatry and so make a covenant with the Hebrews: for this was forbidden by God, and therefore the Hebrews could bind themselves to it by no oath; but now, since they offer their lands to the Hebrews and desire to embrace their religion, they furnish the substance of the covenant permitted, indeed commanded, by God; nor does guile violate or destroy it. Wherefore this was not an error as to the person, but about some accident of the person. For the Hebrews wished to make a covenant with the Gabaonites present before them; but they erred in an accident, thinking that they dwelt far off, not near, which does not vitiate the covenant: just as if someone contracts marriage with a woman present, he contracts validly even if he errs and thinks her an Italian when she is a German.
You will say: Josue did not intend to contract with the Gabaonites except on this condition, that they were not Chanaanites. I answer, add: or did not remain Chanaanites, that is, if they wished to persist in the hostility, infidelity and impiety of the Chanaanites. But the Gabaonites had now renounced these three, and desired to pass over into friendship, religion and piety. Wherefore they are now to be reckoned not Chanaanites, but rather Hebrews and proselytes, with such as whom Josue desired to make a covenant.