9:7a

But the men of Israel: The Hebrew phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as men of Israel is more literally “man of Israel.” This is a collective term that is frequently used for the Israelite army. The phrase men of Israel probably refers to the leaders of the Israelites.

said to the Hivites: The Gibeonites were one part of the “Hivite” nation. God ordered Israel to destroy this nation in 3:10. This group of people was also mentioned in 9:1. You should translate the word Hivites the same way you translated it earlier.

9:7b

Perhaps you dwell near us. How can we make a treaty with you?: In Deuteronomy 7:1–7 Yahweh told the Israelites that they must not make any treaties with the people who lived in the land of Canaan. This question shows that the Israelites were suspicious of the Gibeonites’ statement that they came from a far away country. The Israelites wanted to make sure it was true. It may be more natural in some languages to translate this question as a statement. For example:

But maybe you really live near us. We can’t make a peace treaty with you if you live nearby. (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
We (excl.) want to know for sure that you (plur.) do not live near us. We cannot make a treaty with any one who lives in the land of Canaan.

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.