What about God’s commands to destroy nations?
Question 1116
Few passages in Scripture trouble modern readers more than God’s commands to Israel to destroy the Canaanite nations. When God instructs Joshua, “You shall devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them” (Deuteronomy 7:2), we face what appears to be divinely mandated genocide. How can the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who tells us to love our enemies, command the extermination of entire peoples, including women and children?
The Texts in Question
The commands appear primarily in Deuteronomy 7 and 20, with their execution narrated in Joshua 6-12. The Hebrew term is חֵרֶם (cherem), often translated “devoted to destruction” or “put under the ban.” Everything under cherem was to be utterly destroyed, given entirely to the Lord. No plunder could be taken, no survivors spared. The Amalekites, Canaanites, Hittites, and other peoples were subject to this judgment.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18 is explicit: “But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices.”
This is not a case of overzealous Israelites exceeding their mandate. God Himself commanded it. We cannot soften this by blaming human violence.
Essential Context
Several factors, while not removing the difficulty entirely, provide essential context:
The sin of the Canaanites: The destruction was not arbitrary but was specifically connected to the Canaanites’ wickedness. Genesis 15:16 tells Abraham that the conquest would be delayed until “the iniquity of the Amorites is complete.” The nations were not destroyed because of their ethnicity but because of their sin. Leviticus 18 catalogs these sins: child sacrifice to Molech (Leviticus 18:21), bestiality (18:23), homosexual practice (18:22), and incest of every variety. Archaeological evidence confirms widespread ritual prostitution, child sacrifice, and practices abhorrent even by ancient standards. When God warns Israel, “Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves” (Leviticus 18:24), He describes real practices attested in the historical record.
A long period of patience: The 400-year delay mentioned in Genesis 15 represents extraordinary divine patience. God waited until the sin had reached a point beyond remedy before executing judgment. This was not a rash act but one delayed for centuries.
Judgment, not genocide: The destruction of the Canaanites was an act of divine judgment executed through Israel, not an ethnic cleansing for Israel’s benefit. Israel itself would face the same fate if it adopted Canaanite practices, as the prophets later made clear. And indeed, Israel did face exile and destruction when it turned to idolatry. The standard was sin, not ethnicity.
Corporate solidarity: The ancient world understood identity corporately in ways we struggle with today. The family, clan, and nation functioned as unified entities. Parents and children, for better or worse, shared the same fate. This was the universal assumption of the ancient Near East, not a peculiarly Israelite notion. Divine judgment falling on a corporate entity included all its members.
Protection of the faithful remnant: Rahab and her family were spared because she believed in Israel’s God (Joshua 2, 6). The Gibeonites, though deceitful, were incorporated into Israel’s community (Joshua 9). The command was not absolute in the sense that no Canaanite could ever be saved but that the Canaanite religious and social system was to be utterly destroyed. Those who abandoned it and turned to Israel’s God could be preserved.
The Unique and Unrepeatable Nature
These commands were specific to a particular time, place, and purpose. They were not a model for ongoing warfare or religious violence. Israel was given this mission as a nation under direct theocratic rule, executing God’s judgment on peoples whose sin had reached its full measure. This situation does not recur in Scripture. No New Testament text authorises Christians to engage in holy war. Indeed, Jesus explicitly forbade Peter from taking up the sword in His defence (Matthew 26:52).
The church is not Israel. We do not have a land to conquer, enemies to destroy, or nations under divine ban. Our warfare is spiritual (Ephesians 6:12). Our weapons are not carnal but mighty through God (2 Corinthians 10:4). The Canaanite conquest was unique in redemptive history, preparing the way for Christ by establishing Israel in the promised land. It does not establish a pattern for Christian conduct.
The Larger Picture of Divine Judgment
What happened to the Canaanites was terrible, but it was not out of character with divine judgment throughout Scripture. The flood destroyed all humanity except Noah’s family. Sodom and Gomorrah were incinerated. Egypt lost its firstborn. The earth will open and swallow Korah and his followers. And at the end of history, all who reject Christ will face eternal separation from God.
If we accept that God judges sin, that He has the right to end human lives, and that eternal hell awaits the unrepentant, then the destruction of the Canaanites, while horrific, is not categorically different from these other acts. The method is different, but the principle is the same: sin brings death, and God has the right to execute judgment.
The real question is not why God destroyed the Canaanites but why He does not destroy all sinners immediately. The answer is His patience and mercy, giving time for repentance. But patience has limits. The Canaanites reached those limits. So will this present world.
Conclusion
The commands to destroy the Canaanites remain difficult, and we should not pretend otherwise. But they are not inexplicable given what Scripture tells us about sin, judgment, and God’s holiness. They represent a unique historical situation that does not recur and does not model Christian practice. They remind us that we serve a holy God who takes sin seriously, even as they point us to the cross where that holy wrath was poured out on the only truly innocent one, so that we who deserve judgment might receive mercy.
“The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty.” Numbers 14:18
Bibliography
- Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.
- Copan, Paul and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014.
- Hess, Richard S. Joshua. Tyndale Old Testament Commentary. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1996.
- Longman, Tremper III and Daniel G. Reid. God Is a Warrior. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995.
- Merrill, Eugene H. Deuteronomy. New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994.
- Piper, John. “The Conquest of Canaan and the Destruction of the Canaanites.” Desiring God, 2010.
- Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.
- Wenham, Gordon J. Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
- Wright, Christopher J.H. The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008.