![]() War was God’s attempt to organize a new order based on His principles of justice and love, a land in which peace and security would prevail. A holy people required a holy place to live. God was executing judgment against sin and impenitent sinners.Ī second reason for the extermination of Israel’s enemies is that if they remained in the land, they would have become instruments of corruption for His people (Deut. By the time of the conquest the sins of the Amorites had reached “its full measure,” indicating that God does pass judgment on the nations and their commitment to moral values and proper religious practices (cf. ![]() Hundreds of years before, the Lord had said to Abram: “In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Gen. Their moral and religious corruption had reached an intolerable level. God Himself provided the reason: they were sacrificing their children to their gods, involved in sorcery and witchcraft, and consulting the spirits of the dead (Deut. Interestingly, the Old Testament makes a special effort to demonstrate that God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was not arbitrary or controlled by expansionistic interests. This was clearly the case in the ancient Near East. Morally Justifiable Warfare: Those who go to war intend to win at any cost, and this by itself makes the extermination of the enemy an intrinsic part of warfare. There is no biblical support for the practice of “holy war.”Ģ. Once the conquest was over, the Israelites were only to be involved in self-defense. The Lord didn’t expect this to be a permanent characteristic of Israelite warfare. brings you into the land you are entering to possess. Often God reminded the Israelites of this responsibility, introducing His intentions by saying, “When you cross the Jordan into Canaan. Time Frame: The biblical text indicates that the extermination of the Canaanites was basically limited to a period of conquest. I will limit my comments to three important arguments.ġ. We cannot concentrate on a few verses that provide a biblical response we have to take into account the Scriptures’ teachings concerning God, evil, human society, and war and also reject simplistic solutions (e.g., the Old Testament view of God being different from the one in the New Testament the biblical writer’s use of pagan notions, etc.). I can only outline a few elements that should be taken into consideration. This is a difficult question, and there is no quick answer. I’ve always had difficulty understanding the extermination of the Canaanites by the Israelites under God’s orders.
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