Was God Morally Justified in Commanding Israel to Destroy the Canaanites?
Q&A • In the answer that follows, I explore the justification of God’s command for Israel to conquer Canaan by tracking the outworking of (1) God’s redemptive promises to Abram and (2) God’s just judgment upon the Canaanites’ wickedness, framing the question in light of both divine justice and mercy.
Read time: 6 min
Upon rescuing the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage, God commanded Israel not only to enter the land of Canaan but to destroy its inhabitants. “[I]n the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes” (Deut. 20:16-17; see also 7:1-2). Not surprisingly, for many, Israel’s conquest of Canaan is an example of genocidal atrocity at God’s command and therefore cause for dismissing both the Christian Bible and its God. Certainly, such a narrative conflicts with our Western sensibilities and intuitive sense of morality. In what follows I will argue that two aspects of its context justify the morality of God’s command for Israel to destroy the Canaanites: (1) the promises of God to Abram and (2) the wickedness of the Canaanites.
First, the promises of God to Abram justified Israel taking the Canaanite’s land.
In Genesis fifteen, God entered into a covenant with Abram, the forefather of the Israelites. There, God promised to give Abram’s descendants the land of Canaan. “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (Gen. 15:7). Furthermore, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18-20). This promise of the land indicates that God—the maker and rightful possessor of all the earth and its inhabitants—had purposed hundreds of years prior to Israel’s conquest to sovereignly give them Canaan for an inheritance. This fact firmly situates the conquest in the redemptive-historical purposes of God. Moreover, it was in fulfillment of his covenant with Abram (later Abraham) that God sent the promised Messiah (Matt. 1:1; Gal. 3:16). This major detail in the very least establishes that far from arbitrary, imperialistic bullying, Israel’s taking of the land was fulfilling prophecy, realizing promises made centuries before to their patriarch, and ultimately setting the stage for the arrival of Messiah.
Second, the wickedness of the Canaanites justified their destruction.
Another crucial aspect of the context of Israel’s destruction of the Canaanites is that God had long before chosen to judge the Canaanites for their wickedness (Deut. 9:5-6). Israel was simply God’s chosen instrument. After telling Abram that the nation of Israel would for a time be enslaved in Egypt, God promised,
“And [Israel] shall come back here [to Canaan] in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Gen. 15:13-16).
In other words, the timing of the conquest of Canaan was contingent upon the iniquity of the “Amorites” (the largest of the Canaanite nations) becoming fully ripe for judgement.
God, who revealed himself as long-suffering (Ex. 34:6), gave the Canaanites centuries to change their ways. Later, in the story of Jonah, we see God’s kindness in stopping short of destroying the wicked city of Nineveh when they repented (Jonah 3:10). To better understand the Canaanite’s wickedness in Israel’s day, note that the Bible compares Ahab, Israel’s most wicked and murderous king, to the Amorites (1 Kg. 21:25-26). Clay Jones lists and documents the sins that lead to the Canaanites’ judgment in his article, “Killing the Canaanites: A Response to the New Atheism’s ‘Divine Genocide’ Claims.” They celebrated idolatry, child sacrifice, incest, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality.[1]
As a noteworthy aside, although the Canaanite children were tragically victimized by the sins of their parents, they should not be seen as being punished in any way for the sins of their parents in this life or the next (Ez. 18:20). Many Christian traditions hold that the souls of those who die in infancy or childhood are redeemed by Christ’s blood and enter paradise upon death (2 Sam. 12:23). Any horrors they experience as victims of other’s sins pale in comparison to the glory they experience in heaven (Rom. 8:18). And in the New Creation Christ will personally wipe away every tear (Rev. 21:1-4). Though tragic was their manner of death on earth, their salvation in Christ more than redeems their sorrows and even spares them the risk of growing up to rebel against God to their own destruction.
The Canaanite’s judgment, furthermore, is rooted in God’s own perfect justice and love (Nahum 1:3). God’s justice is an extension of his character. Few people would want to live in a world without ultimate justice. And God was judging the Canaanites. God’s justice is both punitive (surpassing the limits of human punishment) and restorative, in that he restores all creation and redeems those who put their trust in him (Job 19:25-26). But not only does God’s justice demand that evil be punished but also his love. His good design for human flourishing requires that all perversions be stopped eventually and at a time of God’s choosing. What loving father would not intervene if his child were harming someone else, and even more so if someone were harming his child? Christopher Brooks, in Urban Apologetics, explains that
“The ancient Israelites were to understand the harshness of God’s judgment as being directly connected to His disgust with the diverse and perverse… practices of the… Canaanites of the time, as well as His loving desire to preserve Israel as a nation unto Himself.”[2]
As Creator, moral law Giver, and loving Judge, God destroying the Canaanites—as difficult as it can be for humans to emotionally comprehend—was his sovereign, just, and loving prerogative. ❖
References
Clay Jones, “Killing the Canaanites: A Response to the New Atheism’s ‘Divine Genocide’ Claims,” equip.org, accessed July 20, 2019, https://www.equip.org/article/killing-the-canaanites/.
Christopher W. Brooks, Urban Apologetics: Why the Gospel Is Good News for the City (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publication, 2014), Kindle edition, 85.
