* cursed.
This may refer to the original curse pronounced against the
descendants of Canaan: both of them seem to have implied
nothing else than perpetual slavery. The Gibeonites were
brought, no doubt, under tribute; performed the meanest
offices for the Israelites; being in the same condition as the
servile class of Hindoos, called the {Chetrees;} had their
national importance annihilated, and yet were never permitted
to incorporate themselves with the Israelites.
* See on
Ge 9:25,26 Le 27:28,29
* none of you be freed. Heb. not be cut off from you. hewers.
In the East, collecting wood for fuel, and carrying water, are
the peculiar employment of females. The Arab women of
Barbary, and the daughters of the Turcomans, are thus
employed. Hence Mr. Harmer concludes, that the bitterness of
the doom of the Gibeonites does not seem to have consisted in
the labouriousness of the service enjoined them, but its
disgracing them from the characteristic employment of men,
that of bearing arms, and condemning them and their posterity
for ever to the employment of females.
21,27
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