The before-cited Rabbi of Gerona [Nachmanides] reckons [that], since after the division of the land their work for wood and water was required by anyone, it could be refused to no one; but that, for it, a wage had to be given them by all. But because they served the tabernacle and altar both before and after the division of the land, this note of Abulensis pleases me (before q. 44): “Concerning these too, although nothing is expressed [as to] what should be given them for [their] sustenance, yet it is to be believed [that] they gave something: because, since they were in the daily ministration of the Lord’s altar, they could not have leisure for their own works of agriculture. Just as, therefore, certain rights [dues] were assigned to the Priests and Levites, by which they might be sustained (concerning which Num. 5:2; 18:2; Deut. 18) — so to the Gabaonites some [things] would be assigned for sustenance, which the princes afterward had appointed, namely from the alms and gifts given into the sanctuary. For, according to the Apostle, he who serves the altar ought to live from the altar (as is written, 1 Cor., ch. 9). But the Gabaonites served the altar, supplying it [with] water and wood for its needs; therefore they ought to live from the altar
(col. 977)
[therefore they ought] to live from the altar; that is, from some revenues or proceeds of the sanctuary.” Yet God appointed nothing concerning these, but only concerning the revenues of the Priests and Levites — because at the time when God established the law in the desert, the Gabaonites had not yet been assigned as ministers; otherwise he would have commanded something to be given them.