Prophets, Yeshua, 9:9, 9:11: And they said to him, “From a very distant land have your servants come, because of the Name of the Lord your God, for we have heard of His fame, and all that He did in Egypt.”

And our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us saying, Take provision in your hand for the journey, and go towards them, and say to them, ‘We are your servants; and now make a covenant with us.’

After the capture of the cities of Jericho and Ai, everyone began to fear the Israelites, and the kings who were nearby gathered together to fight the Israelites.

And only the inhabitants of Gibeon acted cunningly. They pretended to be poor people who came from afar, and Joshua entered into an alliance with them that he would not touch them. Therefore, when he entered the city of Gibeon, he did not destroy it.

And then ordinary Israelis murmured: “Why didn’t we destroy this city?” To which they received the answer: “We have entered into an alliance with them.” That is, they mistakenly determined that these desires, their intentions are not hostile.

Question: Why if someone comes from afar they are not to be touched? What do you mean by near and far?

Answer: Near and far are determined not by distance but by ideology, by the anti-egoistic higher desire. The ideology of the Israelis is drawing together and worshiping one God, one power, the property of bestowal and love—“love your neighbor as yourself.”

All other kinds of forces, and there are a great many of them, are egoistic. Naturally, they are opposite to altruistic desires, they cannot be corrected, and they must be destroyed. First and foremost, the closest ones.

And the fact that the Israelis were mistaken and did not destroy the inhabitants of Gibeon who deceived them is only because they entered into a treaty with them. This is sacred: you promised, you must fulfill it. And although the inhabitants of Gibeon achieved this by deception, they thereby protected themselves from destruction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/26/21

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