Michael G. Hasel
In the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Deuteronomy 20:16, 17.
Several issues have been raised regarding the destruction of the nations by Israel during the conquest. The first is ethical. Why did God instruct Israel to destroy men, women, and children, as well as cattle and everything that breathes? The second has to do with the character of God. How does this action relate to a loving God who notices when a sparrow falls and who sent His Son to die for all humanity? Does the Old Testament portray a God of vengeance while the New Testament portrays a God of love and grace? Finally, why did God use Israel to exact these actions against the Canaanites?
Divine love and justice – Several general observations are in order as we look at these passages. First, God’s principle of love cannot be understood apart from justice. Love without justice cannot exist. A God who is not just becomes no better than the capricious man-made gods of the surrounding nations. Second, God in His omnipotence understands the motives of the heart. Although God is longsuffering with humanity, there comes a time when justice must prevail and sin must be eradicated. This act of divine justice occurred at the Flood (Gen 6-9) and will take place again at the end of time when the wicked are destroyed (Rev 21-22). In both cases, God, in His justice and in love for His faithful, roots out evil so that humanity can live peacefully with one another and with their Creator.
A time of probation – The instructions found in Deuteronomy 20 are part of the laws of warfare outlined in this chapter. They constitute the instructions of God to Israel as they are about to enter into the Promised Land. These instructions must be understood within the context of that event in history and within the broader history of the Canaanites.
For more than two hundred years, from the time Abraham left Haran until Jacob entered Egypt, the patriarchs and their families were God’s witnesses among the Canaanites, but the inhabitants of Canaan refused to accept the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thus, the destruction of the Canaanites is the outcome of their choice to reject God and their descent into “every evil” and the inherent result that comes from living apart from God. It had been predicted through Abraham that his descendants would be exiled and oppressed for four hundred years before God would lead them out of Egypt. The reason for the long delay is explained in Genesis 15:13-16: “for the iniquity of the Amorite [Canaanite] is not yet complete.” Other translations read, “had not yet reached their full measure.” In other words, God waited for centuries while the Canaanite nations slowly filled up their own cups of destruction by their behavior. Ultimately God’s justice demanded that the outcome of their choices would result in self-destruction. The destruction of the nations in Canaan was not a precipitous act of vengeance; it was the final result of a gracious and loving God who provided every opportunity for them to change their ways (see Balaam in Numbers 22), but who, in the end, could not tolerate their wickedness.1
The extent of their degradation becomes clear from Canaanite texts describing worship practices that included child-sacrifices and sacred prostitution.2 The decisions they made affected so-called innocent lives. Even women and children were affected by the depth of evil. It was not God’s will that such atrocities continue. It was not because the Israelites were superior that He brought them into Canaan, it was “because of the wickedness of these nations” (Deut 9:5) that the Canaanites would be dispossessed. For that reason Deuteronomy 20 and similar texts clearly indicate that Israel was specifically to destroy all the altars, sacred pillars, Asherim, and graven images “in order that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods” (Deut 20:18).
The role of Israel – If divine retribution was God’s plan, it still does not explain why He used the Israelites to destroy the nations before them. A broader contextual analysis indicates that it was never God’s intention to use the Israelites as the primary agent of destruction. In Exodus 23 God set out His plan for the conquest, “But if you will truly obey his [angel] voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them” (Exod 23:22, 23).
The text clearly indicates that if Israel obeyed and did all that God said, God would do the rest. He would destroy their enemies. Their responsibility was to demolish the Amorite gods and “break their sacred stones to pieces” (Exod 23:24). Deuteronomy 1:30 reaffirms that “The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes.” This is precisely what God had done in the past. When the children of Israel complained to Moses at the Red Sea, Moses responded, “Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today … The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still” (Exod 14:13, 14 NIV). Indeed, Deuteronomy 7:18-22, referring to the Red Sea experience, gives precisely the same promise: “But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt… . The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.” God was going to drive out these nations “little by little” (v. 22). This was God’s ideal plan for Israel.
Yahweh’s War – But did not God instruct Israel to “utterly destroy” them in these passages? The term that is translated here “utterly destroy” is the Hebrew term cherem. It means “curse” or “that which stands under ban” or “that which is dedicated to destruction.”3 God had dedicated these nations and their gods to destruction because they had violently and persistently opposed Him. Although some scholars have interpreted this destruction as a “Holy War” it was more precisely a “Yahweh War” in the sense that God himself was the one fighting against the forces of evil and working out divine retribution. Israel was to place these nations and their belongings under a ban, meaning that they were to give them over to God for judgment. They were to be completely separated from them. Israel was to take no spoils. They were to make no covenant with them. They were not to intermarry with the enemies of God in order to prevent being influenced by their wicked ways. Instead, Israel was to work with God, their supreme Leader in the theocracy, to bring about His will.
Israel’s choice – In the end, even though God’s ideal plan was for Israel to be still in order to see the deliverance of the Lord, God worked with Israel. They chose to be the conquerors themselves and to militarily slay those whom they would dispossess. Once they inherited the land, they did not completely conquer it so that the Canaanite still occupied many cities and territories (Josh 13:2-5; Judg 1:19-35). But God worked with Israel’s choices and accompanied them even when they took matters into their own hands. Even so, at the end of his life, Joshua could say, “And the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Thus I gave them into your hand … but not by your sword or your bow. And I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant” (Josh 24:11-13).
1 On the iniquity of the Canaanites, see PP 492.
2 John Day, “Canaan, Religion of” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David N. Freedman, 6 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1:834, 835.
3 On the term cherem, see Michael G. Hasel, Military Practice and Polemic: Israel’s Laws of Warfare in Near Eastern Perspective (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2005), 26-28.