Matthew Poole and continuators on Joshua 9:21

21 And the princes said unto them, Let them live (but let them be hewers of wood, and drawers of water unto all the congregation ) as the princes had promised them .

i. e. Let them be publick Servants, and employed in the meanest Offices and Drudgeries (such as this was, this one kind being put for all the rest, as it is Deut. 29. 11.) for the use and benefit of the Congregation, to do this partly for the Sacrifices and Services of the House of God, as it is expressed v. 23. which otherwise the Israelites themselves must have done; partly for the Service of the Camp or body of the People; and sometimes upon occasion, even to particular Israelites: whence they are made Bond-men, which is mentioned as a thing distinct from their Service in the House of God, v. 23. And so they are in effect stripped of all their Possessions, whereby the main ground of the Peoples Quarrel was taken away.

Or, because or seeing that (as▪ the Hebrew word sometimes signifies) the Princes (i. e. we our selves, they speak of themselves in the third person, which is very frequent in the Hebrew Language) had promised it to them, to wit, that they should live; and confirmed their Promise by an Oath. So the Princes speaking here to the People, alledg the Promise or Oath of the Princes, when they met among themselves, and apart from the People. And this change of persons may possibly arise from hence, because some of the Princes who were present in the Assembly of the Princes, might now be absent upon some occasion. And this clause relates not to the next words, which are fitly enclosed within a Parenthesis, but to the foregoing clause, let them live, because the Princes have promised them their Lives.

Marginal references: Ver. 15.