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The Canaanite Conquest: A Paradigm for Christian Violence?

Difficult Passages in the Bible, The Existence of God

by Todd Borger –

In the debate concerning the alleged inherent violence in the religion of Islam, the question has been raised as to whether Christianity is also inherently violent.

A primary example of this supposed inherent or systemic violence in Christianity is found in the Old Testament stories about Israel’s occupation of the Promised Land. How do we explain the atrocity of the extermination of the inhabitants of the Promised Land? On the one hand, Israel did not merely wage war against the opposing armies, but extended the battle to include women, children, and even livestock.1 This sort of warfare, even in the midst of a time and culture in which warfare was brutal, was not carried out as a regular practice.2 On the other hand, God’s role in the tragic tale presents us with a more severe problem, for it is God who commanded Israel to carry out this extreme warfare.

An easy solution to the problem is that Israel did not commit these acts that are recorded in the Old Testament. Another solution is that the God who commanded this extermination is the Old Testament God of wrath, and not the New Testament God of love or grace. We must reject both of these solutions, however, because they do not give full credence to the inerrancy of the Scripture. We must accept the historical narrative as presented in the Old Testament even when that narrative is unpleasant to us. We must also accept the portrayal of God in the Scriptures, which includes statements of God’s grace in the Old Testament and God’s wrath in the New Testament.3

THE CANAANITE CONQUEST IS NOT PARADIGMATIC: FIVE ARGUMENTS

We can look at the Canaanite conquest from several different angles, but however we look at it, the answer to the question of whether it was intended as a perpetual command continues to be negative. The Bible’s instructions regarding the Canaanites were not normative but were intended to address a particular situation. They should not be understood as representing a paradigm of violence for Israel or for the church.4

  1. The command to exterminate the Canaanites did not represent normal
    warfare in the Bible.

The basic command to Israel to exterminate the inhabitants of the Promised Land can be found in Deuteronomy 7:2: “and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them” (ESV).

Deuteronomy 20:10-18 provides a fuller description of this kind of warfare and is instructive for two reasons. First, it sets apart the specific warfare carried out in the conquest of the Promised Land from all other warfare. Second, it provides us the rationale for the extermination of the inhabitants of the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 20:10-15 describes what might be called normal warfare, or as the text refers to it, war as it was waged against “all the cities that are very far from you”:

“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.” (ESV)

This normal pattern for warfare begins with suing the enemy for peace. A rejection of that offer would result in siege warfare with the goal of putting to death the enemy militants—all males. Women, children, and livestock, however, are taken as the spoils of war. It is recognized in this command that it is Yahweh who has granted victory.

A very different situation is given in Deuteronomy 20:16-18 in regard to the warfare against the cities of the Promised Land. In this passage we see the description of the war of extermination that is associated with the nations of the Promised Land:

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 that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God. (ESV)

This passage explains the rationale behind this distinctive command. It is a religious protection for Israel, so that they do not fall into the sin of idolatry. This emphasis on religious purity for Israel is paramount in Israel’s life with God. And it was Israel’s failure in this regard that later doomed her to exile.

There is another rationale behind the command to exterminate the Canaanites that becomes evident when we look more carefully at the concept of herem. The Hebrew root hrm appears in nominal and verbal forms. The verbal form is used in the passage above translated as “you shall devote them to complete destruction.” Its primary meaning is found in the concept of setting a person or thing aside as devoted to the Lord. This setting aside, or consecration, normally results in the destruction of that which has been consecrated. This concept is foreign to our modern thinking and defies the logic of modern sensibilities even in the church. The destruction of the consecrated thing would seem to eliminate any possibility that it could then be used by the Lord. But this thinking is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of religious practices in ancient Israel.5

  1. The Bible is careful to explain that the extermination of the Canaanites is due to their own sin; it was not an arbitrary decision on the part of God or Israel.

God’s plan for the descendants of Abraham included a specific place to dwell. This promise is made early and is repeated to the patriarchs throughout the Genesis narrative. The first expression of the promise comes in Genesis 12:1 in which God instructs Abram to leave his land and go to a land that God will show him. God then affirms the promise in Genesis 12:7 when Abram arrives in the land of Canaan.6 In God’s affirmation of this promise to Abram in Genesis 15, several themes intertwine to help explain not only the judgment of the Canaanites but also the generations of Israelite slaves in Egypt:

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (Gen. 15:13-16 [ESV])

The Lord desires to give the Promised Land to the descendants of Abram, but in order to do so justly, he must wait until the sin of the Amorites—used here as a representative nation, as the Canaanites are used elsewhere—is complete, or deserving of punishment. The Lord tells Abram of the 400 year period of enslavement in Egypt and explains that this hiatus is because (using the Hebrew particle ki) he must wait for the sin of the Amorites—used here as a representative nation, as the Canaanites are used elsewhere—is complete, or deserving of punishment. The Lord tells Abram of the 400 year period of enslavement in Egypt and explains that this hiatus is because (using the Hebrew particle ki) he must wait for the sin of the Amorites to be complete.

On the other hand, the Old Testament is very clear in its rejection of the idea of a moral superiority of Israel:

Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, “It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,” whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. (Deut. 9:4-6 [ESV])

Israel does not have a righteousness based simply on their election. Rather, God calls them a stubborn or “stiff-necked” people.

We are faced then with a difficult situation as we view God’s work, intentions, and character in this narrative of promise and fulfillment. We are told that God is promising this new nation a portion of land, a land that will have to be taken by force from its native inhabitants. In order to justify that destruction, moreover, this same God sends his chosen people into 400 years of slavery. And finally, we find that the moral separation of the two nations is not so great. An initial reading does not paint the God of Israel in a very favorable light, even in regard to his own people. A cohesive account of Scripture and of God’s plan of salvation for the nations, however, will help us to unpack this problem.

  1. However Israel understood the command to exterminate the Canaanites, they only carried out the command during one narrow time of history; they apparently did not see it as an everlasting injunction.

That Israel failed, even initially, to carry out this command is clear from the beginning of the book of Judges. We are told that the tribe of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites (1:21), Manasseh did not displace the inhabitants of several cities (1:27), and the same was said of Ephraim (1:29), Zebulun (1:30), Asher (1:31), and Naphtali (1:33). The result of this failure to rid the land of its inhabitants was just as the Lord said to Moses in the earlier passages of Deuteronomy. The people of Israel fell prey to the sin of idolatry and began following after the gods of the Canaanites. This sin of idolatry followed Israel all the way to the destruction of the Northern Kingdom at the hand of the Assyrians and the Southern Kingdom at the hand of the Babylonians. What is interesting in this regard is that Israel never tried to revert to a previous state and attempt to rid the land of those native inhabitants. It would appear, although this is an argument from silence, that Israel viewed the command given to Joshua and his generation as a unique and unrepeatable phenomenon.7

  1. Israel had a competing ethic in regard to its treatment of the foreigner living among them.

 

We must view God’s commands about warfare in light of other commands regarding the treatment of foreigners. Life was not all destruction or slavery for the alien. Rather, Israel’s law demanded of the Israelite: “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 22:21 [ESV]). The law immediately following places the foreigner in the same category as the widow and orphan as those who are outside the normal lines of authoritative protection in force at the time, and who thus need special protections. Likewise the laws in Leviticus carry a repeated theme: “You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the LORD your God” (Lev. 24:22 [ESV]). This protective treatment of the foreigner is played out beautifully in the short book of Ruth. Ruth the Moabite istaken into a Hebrew family through marriage. After the death of her husband, she is left a foreign widow living in Israel. The rest of the story tells of the protection and eventual marriage she receives from the Hebrew Boaz. This story bears special significance since it introduces us to Ruth not only as a foreigner who identifies herself with Israel, but also as an ancestor in the line of David, and as specifically noted in the introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, she becomes an ancestor in the line of Jesus.

 

  1. The biblical narrative including both Testaments reveals a salvific purpose for the Canaanites.

The broader trajectory of both Testaments shows another side to the issue of God’s purpose for the Canaanites. The biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation reveals a very specific and clear purpose for the nations. Very simply, the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that all families of the earth would be blessed through his seed finds fulfillment in Christ. Christopher Wright has suggested that we ought to read the whole biblical narrative through this lens.8

There is one account in the New Testament where a Canaanite person is explicitly mentioned. In Matthew 15, Jesus retreated to Tyre and Sidon with his disciples, where he was approached by a Canaanite woman, and the following exchange ensued between the woman and Jesus:

And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word.

And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matt. 15:22-28 [ESV])

In the discussion between Jesus and the woman about lost sheep and dogs eating bread from the table, a deeper narrative is trying to emerge. Note that the woman calls out to Jesus using the title “Son of David.” By using this title she is showing deference to the messianic place of Jesus in Israel’s story. She is thus showing awareness of Israel’s history and culture. Would it go too far to say that she was aware of God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:3? Whether or not she was aware of that specific promise, we should note the flow of the conversation. In reply to her request that Jesus heal her daughter, Jesus replies that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. He is specifically limiting his ministry at that moment with that statement. Then he continues with his statement about taking the bread from the children and giving it to the dogs. At this point the woman shows a boldness that might be rooted in a knowledge of God’s promises to Abraham about blessing the nations. She retorts that even the dogs get crumbs from the masters’ table. Her answer must have been based on a knowledge and understanding of God since Jesus replies, “Great is your faith!” He then heals her daughter.

At the end of Matthew we read Jesus’ final statement about the nations. He makes it explicit in the Great Commission that his followers are to be found in all nations. This theme is continued in the book of Acts and finds its fulfillment in the book of Revelation. What Jesus does in Matthew 15, then, is to make a short cut in God’s plan for the nations by healing this Canaanites woman’s child. It is true that he came for the lost sheep of Israel, but that plan was eventually to be extended to include all nations, including this Canaanite woman.

CONCLUSION
The Old Testament makes clear that the war of extermination as carried out against the Canaanites was not the normal method of warfare practiced by Israel. This particular war was fought in this way to protect the religious purity of Israel. The destruction of Canaan was not carried out capriciously, but rather God sent his own people into Egypt for 400 years for the purpose of waiting until the sin of the Canaanites deserved just punishment. We find that after the conquest and the failure to exterminate all the people as God required of Israel, Israel never again tried to resurrect this war of extermination. Additionally, not only was the war of extermination not practiced, but a competing ethic of inclusion and care for the foreigner was practiced according to the law. Finally, the ministry of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament reveals the larger trajectory of God’s plan for the nations, begun with Abraham, continued through the ministry of Jesus and concluding in the book of Revelation. Thus, we can say definitively that the Canaanite conquest in no way signals a paradigm of violence for modern-day Christians.

Todd Borger is Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Notes
1See an example of the command from God in Deuteronomy 20:16-18, which will be discussed below. The most famous example of Israel’s practice of extermination is found in the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6 and the summary statement in verse 21.

 2Norbert Lohfink, “ Mrh haram; … ..Mrh herem,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 189-193, surveys some of the ANE literature. While he does find some parallels to some aspects of Israel’s wars of extermination, he finds nothing like a regular pattern of this type of warfare.
3Both of these responses incidentally play into the hands of Muslim apologists, who claim that our Scriptures have been falsified and who claim that we worship more than one God.
4For literature on the general issue of warfare in ancient Israel, see Peter Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978); Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991 [1958]); Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (New York: Oxford, 1993); T. R. Hobbs, A Time for War: A Study of Warfare in the Old Testament, Old Testament Studies (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989); Millard C. Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottsdale, PA: Herald, 1980.
5The system of animal and other sacrifice in Israel carried several functions. Some sacrificed animals and grains were meant to provide food for the priestly class, who otherwise would have no means of sustenance (See Lev. 6:16, 26; 7:6, 9, 15). But some of the sacrifices, meant to be totally devoted to the Lord, were not to be eaten. They were to be totally burned up on the altar. The second type of sacrifice relates by analogy to the herem war.

6 The land promise is affirmed in Genesis 15:18-21; 17:8; 26:3; 28:4, 13; and 35:12. The land promise also enters into the first divine conversation with Moses in Egypt (Ex 3:8, 17).
7See, for example, the treatment of Canaanites in Ezra 9-10. In this passage Ezra is struggling with the problem that the Israelites and the Israelite priests remaining in Jerusalem after the exile have intermarried with the Canaanites. In a dramatic scene, Ezra orders the priest to divorce their foreign wives. Ezra does not mention the injunction to slaughter the Canaanites as he recounts Israel’s history in his prayer. This might be seen as the first effort to spiritualize or contextualize the conquest narrative. The command to exterminate the inhabitants of the land has been applied in this new context as a command to divorce the women. The question of whether the divorce in this instance becomes a warrant for divorce in other cases should be treated separately.
8 Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2006). In his book, Wright argues for a “missional hermeneutic” (Ibid., 29-70).

9David L. Turner, Matthew, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 387; R. T. France, The Gospel according to Matthew, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 592-93.

Key Biblical Texts

  • Genesis 12:1-3
    • Genesis 15:13-16
    • Exodus 23:27-33
    • Numbers 34:50-56
    • Deuteronomy 7:1-6
    • Deuteronomy 9:4-6
    • Deuteronomy 20:10-18
    • Matthew 15:22-28
    • Matthew 28:18-20
    • John 12:20, 30-32

For Further STUDY

The following questions are designed to facilitate the use of the main articles
in this journal in small group study.

Questions For Gordon Nickel’s, “Violence in Islam according to Muslim Tradition”

  1. Why is Islamic violence a matter of global concern? Why should it concern Christians and the church?
    2. How were the Qur’anic commands to fight unbelievers portrayed in historical Muslim commentary?
    3. How were Muslim raids on caravans and Jewish and Arab settlements justified in Islam’s early history?
    4. What was the role of Muhammad in providing justification for Muslim violence?
    5. How did Muslims treat conquered non-Muslim peoples?
    6. How is the word “jihad” often defined in public discussion today? What do Muslim sourcebooks suggest is the meaning of “jihad”? 7. Why does the Qur’anic line, “There is no compulsion in religion,” not provide evidence that Islam is non-violent?
    8. What do David Shenk and Kenneth Cragg show with regard to a comparison between Islam and Christianity?
    9. How is violence in the Old Testament to be understood? How should the Crusades of the Middle Ages be understood?

Questions for Don Closson’s, “The Verse of the Sword”

  1. What is the foundation for understanding the Qur’an? What is the relevance of this to the question of Muslim violence?
    2. How did Muhammad react when the Jews rejected his prophetic claims?
    3. What are some other examples of Muhummad’s violent character?
    4. What is the doctrine of abrogation? What relevance does it have to the question of Muslim violence?
    5. What duty is required of all Muslims to bring about a “just society”?
    6. How do jihadists define terms like “civilian” and “terrorist”?
    7. What is the view of many Muslims on human rights and equality?
    8. What is meant by the sentence, “Islam is a totalizing ideology”?

Questions For Brigitte Gabriel’s, “Islam’s Contempt for Women” 

  1. What is at least one way the moral character of a culture is demonstrated?
    2. What do the Qur’an and Hadith teach about the treatment of women?
    3. What specific ways are women oppressed in Islam today?
    4. What is an “honor killing”? Why are some Muslim women victims of honor killing?
    5. How are children abused in some Muslim countries?
    6. In what ways is sexual politics weighted in men’s favor in Islam?

Questions for Todd Borger’s, “The Canaanite Conquest”

  1. Why should we reject solutions to the problem of the Canaanite conquest that claim that God never command it or that Israel never did it? 2. What was “normal warfare” according to Deuteronomy 20:10-15? How did it differ from the Canaanite conquest?
    3. Why did God command the extermination of the Canaanites?
    4. What is the relevance to the topic of the fact that the attempt to exterminate the Canaanites is confined to one time in Israel’s history and the biblical commands regarding the treatment of foreigners?
    5. What does the “broader trajectory” of the biblical narrative reveal about God’s purpose for the Canaanites?

(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 10 No. 1 – Is Islam A Religion of Peace?)