The Justice of God in Destroying the Canaanites

Is God unjust? Today many folks often seem to think so. Skeptics complain that the God of the Old Testament is harsh and capricious. In doing so, they cast doubt on the validity of Scripture. The biblical God frequently stands in stark contrast to the God of popular opinion. We like to think that God is just a kind old man with a long white beard, who sits in heaven wringing His hands with worry, uncertain of how to deal with the ills of humanity. Our mental image of God needs refocused. We need to reexamine the Bible to develop a better, fuller understanding of God. This God is much bigger than we could ever imagine. We cannot tame Him. We cannot make Him fit into our narrow modern box. We must see Him for who He really is.

One of the most problematic areas of Scripture that modern critics have used to cast doubt on the Bible is found in the Old Testament book of Joshua. Joshua describes the Israelite conquest of the land of Canaan. In Joshua, God gives his people several great victories over the area enemy nations. Here they carry out the ban that God gave the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy. Through Moses, God told the children of Israel to utterly destroy these nations—to show them no mercy. This resounds with unfairness to our modern ears. In the 20^th century, we witnessed several genocides in Germany, Rwanda, and Bosnia. It rings hollow to us that a loving, just God would ever command such a brutal destructive means of warfare.

The Main Question

For those for us who accept the Bible as an accurate revelation of God’s character, we must wrestle with the justness of such a command. Is God righteous in commanding and authorizing the nation of Israel to completely destroy the Canaanite people? Or is such a command unfair? To answer this question, we must examine the command in Deuteronomy to see why God is commanding the destruction of the Canaanites and His purposes in his actions toward Israel.

The Command

What exactly did God command the Israelites to do in the book of Deuteronomy? The term “Deuteronomy” comes from two different Greek words that literally mean “second law.” Deuteronomy is the second giving of the Mosiac Law for a new generation. In the book of Exodus, God miraculously delivers Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. Then Moses guides this new infant nation through the wilderness to the foothills of Mt. Sinai. There God gives them the Law, a revelation of God’s character. From there, Moses led the people to the very edge of the Promised Land, Canaan. And here, they fail. They get the report from the spies. They hear that there are giants in the land. They decided that they cannot do it. They turn around and they wander in the desert for forty years. And God says that no one from that generation could enter the Promised Land. Forty years takes place. Everyone from that generation dies. Here is where the book of Deuteronomy comes in. Moses delivers the Law to a new generation that will be faithful to God’s Word.

Moses says:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the LORD your has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally (Deut. 7:1-2a NIV).

These nations were made-up of smaller city-states which were located all throughout modern day Palestine. Each of one of them was polytheistic. Most of them worshiped a god named Baal, who had a wife, the goddess Asherah. Since Baal and Asherah were fertility gods, worship of Baal was very sexual and very immoral. From Leviticus 18, we learn that the Canaanite religion involved homosexuality, incest, bestiality, and even child sacrifice. What we have here is a pagan, wicked, corrupt culture that had taken complete control of the area.

For this reason, in v. 2 God commands Israel to bring complete destruction upon these Canaanite nations, “When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.” See the phrase “you must destroy them totally.” The Hebrew word "herem" which is used here is very difficult to translate. It literally means to exclude, to set apart for a specific purpose. It is often used in the book of Leviticus to refer to a whole burnt offering. There it refers to a sacrifice that has been completely devoted to God. Here in Deuteronomy, God tells Israel to completely set aside these nations for the purpose of God’s judgment—to utterly destroy them.

Quarantine

This Hebrew impression is very similar to our concept of quarantine. In a quarantine, a certain area is set aside for a special purpose. Usually, this is because this area has been contaminated by some sort of pollution. We quarantine an area making it off-limits to healthy people because if they were to enter the area the contamination would be greatly hazardous to their health. When I was growing up in the Scottsbluff-Gering area, there once was a severe train wreck in Scottsbluff that required the authorities to evacuate the whole northwestern end of town. Evidently, this train was carrying Benzene, a chemical that was somewhat hazardous to human health. Instantly that whole area was quarantined. Nobody could enter it. Nobody could go home to gather their possessions. It was off-limits until qualified people with the right equipment were able to enter to clean it up. Until the contamination was removed, the area was a threat to human life.

In the same way, the land of Canaan had been contaminated by a wicked, pagan culture. If left untreated, the area was hazardous to Israel’s spiritual health. We can see this idea very clearly in Leviticus 18. In this chapter, God forbids several different gross sexual sins. He tells Israel:

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you (Lev. 24-28).

In other words, God tells His people that the Canaanites had, spiritually speaking, polluted the land. It was defiled. If left untreated, the land was dangerous to spiritual well-being. Thus, God decided to quarantine the area—to set it aside for complete destruction in order to purify the area. Notice how He warns Israel that if they follow in the ways of the Canaanites, He would do the same thing to them that He did to the Canaanites. They would be vomited out of the land just like the Canaanites.

Sin Insults God

This will not make sense to us unless we realize why sin demands God’s judgment. Sin is an insult to God's glory. God is the most precious, most beautiful being in all of existence. He is the essence of love, the wellspring of joy, and the foundation of justice. We were made to know God and to delight in Him. This will bring us the most joy and satisfaction in life. Sin robs us this joy that we were made for. And more importantly, sin robs God of His glory. For this reason, God has to pour out His judgment on sin.

The Means of the Ban

In Deuteronomy 7, Moses instructs Israel on how this quarantine is to be carried out. He says:

Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire (Deut. 7:2b-5).

There were basically four parts to the quarantine: no treaties, no mercy, no intermarriage, no idols. Now each of these four parts needs to be understood and qualified within the context of the book of Joshua. Joshua shows us how the quarantine was actually carried out. From the book of Joshua, we can see that there was actually an exception to the rule. Now how do we know that? Primarily, from the story of Rahab. Here we see how the Israelites let Rahab and her family live even through they were Canaanites. Nowhere in the Bible do we find out that what they did was wrong. In fact, the Bible overwhelmingly approves of the fact that Joshua showed mercy to Rahab. Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute that finds grace in the midst of the destruction of the city of Jericho. And later, we find out that she marries an Israelite man. (That shows us that the command to intermarry for religious reasons and not ethnic.) Not only that, but she is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus and is praised for her faith in the book of James.

The Only Exception

So what was the exception to the quarantine? Repentance from sin and faith in the LORD God and in His covenant promises. If a Canaanite turned from this wicked, pagan religion and trusted in the LORD God and His covenantal promises, he would find mercy and grace and become part of God’s covenant people—Israel.

God Is Still the Same

The same is still true today. People live in complete rebellion toward God. They worship things like money, sex, and worldly possessions. This is too idolatry and God is still righteous in His judgment of sin. Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death” and as long someone continues to reject God, to reject Jesus, and refuses to turn from their sins, that individual deserves God’s judgment. There will be no mercy for those who love sin and hate God. There is only one exception, and that’s Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). When someone turns from his sin and embraces Jesus Christ as his Savior and Treasure, that person will find grace and mercy in God’s covenant people.

Chosen to Worship

So God command Israel to quarantine this area by setting it apart for destruction and for His judgment. The area was contaminated by this wicked, sexually immoral culture. The Israelites were to make no treaties, to show no mercy, to not intermarry, and to destroy all Canaanite idols. God did not want them to have anything to do with pagan culture. He knew that if they did not quarantine this wicked religion, it would contaminate them. That is why Moses tells Israel:

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him (Deut. 7:6-10).

The Israelites were God’s chosen people. They were special. They were to set apart to be holy, to worship and have a relationship with the living God. They were God’s treasured possession. And since they were God’s special people, they were made to worship God and to delight in Him. Although this quarantine called for extreme measures, Israel needed to do this in order to avoid contamination. The area had been polluted, spiritually speaking, by the sinful practices of the Canaanites. Therefore, God was righteous in pouring out His justice against the Canaanites in order to purify the land.

Sorrow over the Death of the Wicked

When I was about ten years old, one day my dad checked out the book Old Yeller from the Gering Public Library. It was one of his favorite stories. Every time we watch a movie with my parents, my dad will tell us that he likes movies could really happen. Movies like Old Yeller or It’s a Wonderful Life. Well, one Saturday, my dad spent the whole day reading Old Yeller to my siblings and me. We just loved the story. What I remember most from the story is the discovery that Old Yeller has rabies and has to die. Travis, the teenage boy in the story, ends up having to shoot his beloved dog and burn his body so that rabies does not spread throughout the area. Although it deeply grieved Travis’ heart to destroy his dog, he knew that if they did not destroy the dog, the rabies would endanger the family.

In the same way, I’m sure that God felt the same sort of sorrow in His decision to judge the Canaanites. He created these people. He made them for the purpose of worshiping Him and delighting in Him. However, instead having a relationship with the one true God, they turned to idols and gross sinful sexual behavior. As God says in Ezekiel, “’Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ declares the Sovereign LORD. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?’” (Ez. 18:23). However, now God had to judge the Canaanites. They had consistently rejected God. And their godless religion and wicked culture were hazardous and dangerous to anyone else. Although it must have grieved God’s heart to do so, He had put a ban on them—they needed to be completely destroyed.

We can see this at the very beginning when God first promises this land to Abraham in Genesis 15. In this crucial chapter, God promises Abraham that He is going to make him a great nation and that He’s going to give him the land of Canaan and that He’s going to bless the entire world through his descendants. Look at v. 13-16:

Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure (Gen. 15:13-16).

This is very important. Here God tells Abraham that before he receives the Promised Land of Canaan some things must happen first. His family must first be held captive in Egypt for hundred years. After that, they would come back to possess the land of Canaan. Now God does not just give Abraham the land right then. And one of the reasons that God gives Abraham for this is that “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Throughout the Old Testament, the word “Amorites” is synonymous with the word “Canaanites.” In other words, God is still giving the Canaanites time. He could have destroyed them right then, but their sin was not full measure yet. They deserved judgment right and there, but instead He gives them four generations.

God in the Dock

This makes me wonder how much time God has given us. Are we taking advantage of the opportunities that God has extended to us to repent and change our ways? Often when we read stories in the Bible about God judging people for their sins, we think, “Wow! That is really harsh. God is so mean.” Instead, we should think, “Wow! God is really holy. Sin is such an insult to the character of God.” Stories of God’s judgment should prompt us to repent. They should drive us to our knees before a holy God. However, some people would rather think of themselves as being the judge of God. God is on trial. Listen to this brilliant quote by C.S. Lewis.

The ancient man approached God…as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock.

Oh! How arrogant we can be! How could we think that we could be more loving than the God, who is love? How could we think that we could be more just than the very Being who defines justice? Instead of questioning God’s justice, we should fall to our knees before a holy God in need of His grace.