Now therefore you are under a curse and will perpetually serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”
The matter is here settled between Joshua and the Gibeonites, and an explanation of the league agreed upon. We may suppose that now, not the messengers who were first sent, but the elders of Gibeon, and of the cities that were dependent upon it, were themselves present and treated with, that the matter might be fully compromised. I. Joshua reproves them for their fraud, Jos 9:22.
Commenting on Joshua 9:22-27
Now therefore ye are cursed,.... Appear to be the posterity of cursed Canaan, and, notwithstanding the artifice used, should not be exempted from the curse denounced on Canaan: "a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren", Gen 9:25; as these Gibeonites were; they became the servants of the Levites, who were servants to the priests; and they seemed to be spared in Providence...
Now therefore ye [are] cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. (l) For the use of the tabernacle and the temple when it will be built.