Bible Q&A - the conquest of Canaan and genocide

November 28, 7:23 PMMethodist ExaminerJames-Michael Smith

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"I have been reading about the Israelites' conquring of Canaan and, well, Joshua and the army kill alot of people mercilessly. All the nations that they have to defeat to get the land God destined for them are slautered. Why? Why did the Israelites have to kill everyone? I understand that they were not just going to be given their promise land on a silver platter, but annialating entire nations seems a little harsh. Do you have any insight on this one?"

This is a great question and one that gets asked all the time--especially by those looking to label the God of the Bible as petty, despotic and tyrannical.  How could God order the destruction of entire cities? 

While the passages in Scripture in which Israel engages in "herem" warfare (the term for utter destruction of one's enemies as offerings to one's god/s) are hard passages to read on the part of the faithful who follow the teachings of Jesus that we are to love our enemies, a few things must be noted. 

First, the order to exterminate the enemies of Israel was directed only toward a handful of specific nations (i.e. Amorites, Amalekites, etc.) and only on two occasions in the entire 1,500 year span of the Hebrew Bible--during the initial conquest of Canaan and during the conflict with the Amalekites during Saul's reign.  So the caricature of the God of Israel ordering all enemies destroyed whenever Israel went into battle at any time is simply not true.

Second, the order to commit "herem" was also directed against Israel at times, such as the destruction of Achan and his household for bringing goods that were supposed to be offered as "herem" from the enemy's camp into Israel's camp and hiding them (Joshua 7).  Therefore, the idea that God "played favorites" or gave Israel free reign because they were "chosen" by Him is also incorrect.

Finally, the events of the "herem" warfare passages did not happen in a vaccuum.  They were preceded by the events in Genesis through Deuteronomy, and were always intended to be read and understood in light of then entire Torah's depiction of God, His nature, and His Covenant promises. 

Thus, when trying to understand the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites under Joshua's leadership, we must remember what happened back at the beginning with Abraham (or as he was known then, Abram):

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.  But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.  As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites [i.e. the peoples of Canaan that they are ordered to annihilate] is not yet complete."
      When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."    (Genesis 15:12-21, ESV)

What we see all the way back in Genesis was that Israel would be the instrument which would use in order to judge the Canaanites once they had become evil beyond all hope--that's what it means when it says "the iniquity of the Amorites" will become "complete". 

God doesn't arbitrarily destroy innocent people.  Later in Genesis we read that God is "the judge of all the earth" and "will do what is just" when faced with the possibility that His destruction of the wicked will result in the possible death of the innocent along with them:

Then Abraham drew near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?  Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Genesis 18:23-25, ESV)

God does indeed spare the innocent, while still carrying out His occasional destructive judgment on the wicked; as Lot and his daughters are shortly spared from the destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain in Genesis 18.  We also saw this earlier in Genesis 6-9 where Noah and his family were spared while the wicked were destroyed. 

God used the flood in Gen.6-9 to judge humanity once their iniquity had become complete.  Likewise, in Gen.15 God is telling Abram that He will use Abram's promised seed to enact judgment on those who will become utterly wicked--about 500 years before the events would take place!  Without this knowledge, which the reader should have by the time he or she gets to Joshua, the events of Joshua are inexplicable--or easily caricatured, as skeptics such as Richard Dawkins often illustrate!

(Side note: this is why it's not a good idea to read Scripture in sporadic sections or to skip the earlier books just because one thinks they are uninteresting--you end up missing important parts which are needed to make sense of what you read later!)

Again, it must be noted that not all the people in the land were commanded to be wiped out; only the ones God specifically names.  Israel wasn't allowed to wipe out the Philistines, for instance.  The peoples who were so corrupt in God's eyes that they were beyond saving were the ones who would be destroyed by "herem."  It must also be noted that individuals and households among them who repented, like Rahab and her household (Joshua ch.2), were always to be spared and allowed to live freely among Israel in the land.

Yes, the passages where God commands "herem" are troubling.   But they cannot to be ignored,  repudiated, or attacked as "unchristian" or "less loving" than the New Testament.  Rather, they are to be understood in their specific context--both historically and literarilly.  This isn't a case of dodging the issue or trying to whitewash the dirty spots in the Bible (as some will likely claim).  It's simply the act of reading Scripture responsibly and according to literary and historiographical norms. 

In the end, the "herem" passages also serve to illustrate that God's grace and forbearance, while great (in this case nearly half a millennium!), do not allow sin to go unpunished forever.  There will come a day when God's judgment destroys all who are beyond repentance once and for all--the final "Day of the LORD" (i.e. when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead at his Second Coming).  But this isn't something that we have to be happy about.  In fact, Jesus Himself wept over the impending destruction of Jerusalem as He pronounced God's coming judgment on it in Matthew 23 and Luke 13) and God Himself declares in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that He "takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked" but rather wishes that they would turn from their evil and live (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11, 2Peter 3:9). 

But God is the only one who can be trusted to judge according to what is right.  Thus, when He chooses to destroy, we must trust that the One who wants people to repent, and will go to any and all lengths to see that they have the opportunity to do so (including the shedding of His own blood!), is in fact doing what is ultimately right. 

This isn't always easy to do--especially from our limited vantage point, where we don't have all the facts and don't know the true state of every individual's heart!  It takes faith.  But this isn't a blind faith in an unknown and arbitrary deity.  Nor is it a faith in a vindictive space-wizard who encourages us to engage in holy war.  (These are popular caricatures, but they are based on a lack of understanding or serious engagement with Scripture.)  It's a faith based on the sovereign acts of YHWH, the God of Abraham, the God of Jesus, and His revelation of Himself to His people throughout history. 

Whether we choose to trust God's judgment or rely on our own limited understanding of ancient situations is up to us.

For a fuller treatment of the "herem" passages in Scripture and how to approach them see the following:

Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide - Ed. by Stanley Gundry

Hard Sayings of the Bible - Ed. by Walter C. Kaiser

God is a Warrior - Tremper Longman III & Daniel G. Reid