Did God Command the Hebrews to Commit Genocide, Part 2

Last month, we looked at the nature of God’s judgment via the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Jonah’s pronouncement of judgment on the city of Nineveh, as a template for the conquest of Canaan. This study revealed five principles common to all three cases:

1. In each case, the judgment was based on the extreme evil of the subject group, not their race or nationality.
2. In each case, God exhibited great patience, giving the subjects ample time to repent.
3. In each case, God issued a warning or warnings to the people targeted for judgment.
4. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God exhibited great leniency by His willingness to spare the many because of the righteousness of a few.
5. God exhibited His divine mercy by sparing Nineveh when they repented, even though Jonah did not specify this condition in his prophecy. In Jeremiah 18:7, 8, God extended that offer of mercy to all nations.

This month, we will look at God’s instructions concerning the conquest of Canaan, along with some examples from the conquest, to determine if they indicate the commission of genocide or the five principles listed above.

Leviticus 18-20 contains a long list of immoral practices common among the Canaanites, which the Israelites were not to do. The passage begins:

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘I am the Lord your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt, where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 18:1-4).[1]

What follows is a catalog of forbidden practices, including incest, bestiality, adultery, child sacrifice to the Canaanite god Molech, homosexuality, idolatry, divination, prostitution, and spiritism. Deuteronomy 20:16-18 commands the Israelites to destroy the cities of the Canaanites “so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God” (v. 18).

We should note, as Deuteronomy 20:18 points out, that all these sins were associated with Canaanite mythology. For example, the god Baal supposedly had sexual relations with his mother, Asherah, as well as his sister and his daughter. Baal was also depicted having sex with heifers, thus encouraging bestiality.

Archeologist William F. Albright notes that the Canaanites continued these practices longer than their surrounding nations:

We are as yet in no position to say that the Northwestern Semites were more ‘depraved’ (from a Yahwist point of view) than the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites, but it is certainly true that human sacrifice lasted much longer among the Canaanites and their congeners than in either Egypt or Mesopotamia. The same situation seems to hold for sexual abuses in the service of religion, for both Egypt and—on the whole—Mesopotamia seemed to have raised the standards in this area at a much earlier date than was true in Canaan.[2]

Clearly, God’s judgment on the Canaanites did not concern their race or nationality, but rather their immoral practices, as we indicated last month at the close of Part One of this column.

Before the Israelites reached Canaan, the Lord gave them instructions in several passages of the Pentateuch concerning how the war should be conducted. One of those passages is Exodus 23:20-33. There the Lord declares that He would send an angel to lead Israel into battle, that He would be “an enemy to your enemies” (v. 22), and that He would “destroy them” (v. 23). Additionally, God says He would throw the Canaanites into confusion and send hornets to “drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you” (vv. 27, 28). Moreover, God promised to drive them out gradually, so the land wouldn’t become desolate before the Israelites were numerous enough to take possession of it (vv. 29, 30). Next, God specified the boundaries of the Promised Land, “from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates” (v. 31). Finally, God declared, “You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They (the Canaanites) shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you” (vv. 32, 33).

Notice that in this passage, God repeatedly says He would “drive the Canaanites out of the land.” There is no indication, in these verses, that God intended to annihilate them.

However, another passage, Deuteronomy 7:1-6, says,

And when the Lord your God delivers them before you, and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you (vv. 2-4).

In this case, the Lord directs Israel to “utterly destroy” the Canaanites. The Hebrew word here, herem, indicates that someone or something is banned by God and designated for destruction. Does this passage, then, call for the extermination of the Canaanites? Not necessarily. In Deuteronomy 9:3, which we cited in last month’s column, Moses writes, “So be aware today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over ahead of you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them, and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and eliminate them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.”

The same word, herem, is used here to say that God will “destroy” the Canaanites before the Israelites drive them out. Returning to Deuteronomy 7, verses 22-25 promise:

And the Lord your God will drive away these nations from you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will turn them over to you and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. And He will hand over their kings to you, so that you will eliminate their name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. The carved images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be trapped by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

A third passage of instructions, which we touched on earlier, is Deuteronomy 20:1-20. Here, the Israelites are told how to deal with pagan cities outside of the Promised Land (vv. 10-15) versus Canaanite cities in the Promised Land (vv. 16-18).

For cities outside of Canaan, the Israelites were to make an offer of peace (v. 10). If the offer were accepted, the city would provide forced laborers for Israel (v. 11). If the offer were rejected, Israel was to take the city by force, killing the men in the process, and taking the women, children, and livestock for themselves (vv. 13, 14).

On the other hand, the Israelites were instructed to “not leave alive anything that breathes” in the Canaanite cities (v. 16) and to “utterly destroy them” (herem) (v. 17). The reason for this slaughter was “so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God” (v. 18). Does this, then, constitute a clear case of God commanding genocide?

To Be Continued