Joshua 9:5

5 threadbare sandals on their feet, tattered clothes on their bodies, nothing but dry crusts and crumbs for food.

Joshua 9:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 9:5

And old shoes and clouted upon their feet
Which being worn out, were patched with various pieces of leather:

and old garments upon them;
full of holes and rents, ragged and patched:

and the bread of their provision was dry [and] mouldy;
having been kept a long time, and unfit for use; or like cakes over baked and burnt, as the Targum and Jarchi: the word for "mouldy" signifies pricked, pointed, spotted, as mouldy bread has in it spots of different colours, as white, red, green, and black, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it; or it signifies bread so dry, as Ben Gersom notes, that it crumbles into pieces easily, with which the Vulgate Latin version agrees; or rather through being long kept, it was become dry and hard like crusts, so Noldius F9; or very hard, like bread twice baked, as Castell F11.


FOOTNOTES:

F9 P. 379. No. 1218.
F11 Lex. col. 2395.

Joshua 9:5 In-Context

3 The people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai
4 and cooked up a ruse. They posed as travelers: their donkeys loaded with patched sacks and mended wineskins,
5 threadbare sandals on their feet, tattered clothes on their bodies, nothing but dry crusts and crumbs for food.
6 They came to Joshua at Gilgal and spoke to the men of Israel, "We've come from a far-off country; make a covenant with us."
7 The men of Israel said to these Hivites, "How do we know you aren't local people? How could we then make a covenant with you?"
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.