Lesson Guide:

“The book of Joshua contains some disturbing scenes. Serious questions are raised by the concept of a divine or holy war portraying a group of people with a God-given mandate to destroy another group.”

Context:

United Nations:


Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II:


In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:


1. 1. Killing members of the group;

   2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

   3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

   4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
   5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.


https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

Questions:

What were God’s intentions toward the Canaanites?
And what exactly did God ask Joshua to do?

Note:

The following list traces my own attempts to answer these questions. But I cannot claim to provide the answers. I confess that I began by being bewildered. To a great degree, I remain bewildered.

Texts:

God Himself will drive out Canaanites:


Exodus 23:27

I will send my terror ahead of you and create panic.
I will make all your enemies turn and run.


Exodus 23:28

About Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites?
I will send terror ahead of you.


Exodus 23:30

I will drive them out a little at a time…


Exodus 23:33

They must not live in your land…


Question:

Must they live elsewhere, or must they no longer live?


Exodus 33:2

About Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites?
And I will send an angel before you to drive out…


Exodus 34:11

About Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites?
I will go ahead of you and drive out…


Deuteronomy 7:1

About Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites?

The Lord your God….he will clear away many nations ahead of you…


Deuteronomy 7:19

Remember the great terrors the Lord your God sent….
The Lord your God will use this same power against all the people you fear.

Deuteronomy 7:20

And then the Lord your God will send terror
(“The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.”)


to drive out the few survivors still hiding from you!


Question:

Is this dispossession, displacement, or a mop-up completion of extermination?


Israel will drive out Canaanites:


Exodus 23:31

I will hand over to you the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you.


Numbers 33:52

you must drive out all the people living there


Deuteronomy 9:3

He will subdue them so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out, just as the Lord has promised.


Deuteronomy 12:2

“When you drive out the nations that live there….


God will annihilate Canaanites:


Exodus 23:23

Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites?
For my angel will go before you…And I will destroy them completely.


Deuteronomy 9:3

But recognize today that the Lord your God is the one who will cross over ahead of you like a devouring fire to destroy them.


Deuteronomy 12:29

When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land,


Deuteronomy 31:3

But the Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy the nations living there,…


Deuteronomy 31:4

The Lord will destroy the nations living in the land…


Joshua 24:8

Finally, I brought you into the land of the Amorites on the east side of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I destroyed them before you.


Israel will annihilate Canaanites:

Deuteronomy 7:2

You must completely destroy them… and show them no mercy.


Deuteronomy 7:16

You must destroy all the nations…
Show them no mercy…


Deuteronomy 7:23

But the Lord your God will hand them over to you.
He will throw them into complete confusion until they are destroyed.


Deuteronomy 7:24

He will put their kings in your power, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you, and you will destroy them all.

Deuteronomy 20

For distant towns, offer a choice between extermination and slavery?


10 As you approach a town to attack it, you must first offer its people terms for peace.

11 If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor.


12 But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town.


13 When the Lord your God hands the town over to you, use your swords to kill every man in the town.


14 But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the plunder from your enemies that the Lord your God has given you.


Questions:


If you were a woman or child who has just witnessed the slaughter of your husband or father, would you gratefully become “plunder,” to be “enjoyed” by Israelite warriors?


Would you happily switch your religious allegiance to Israel’s God, and devote yourself to worshipping Him?


15 But these instructions apply only to distant towns—


Deuteronomy 20


For near towns, there is no choice— only total extermination?


15 —not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter.


16 In those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing.


17 You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Question:

Why will Israel perform these mass annihilations?


18 This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.


Questions:

And did their mass killings of Canaanites in fact prevent the Israelites from becoming worshippers of pagan idols?


Did not Israel’s own history already long experience in idol worship?


19 When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them?


Question:


Is this a judgment of relative worth?
Yes, do kill all the people; but spare the fruit trees.


20 You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food. Use them to make the equipment you need to attack the enemy town until it falls.


Deuteronomy 31:5

The Lord will hand over to you the people who live there, and you must deal with them as I have commanded you.


Joshua 24:8

I gave you victory over them, and you took possession of their land.


God will destroy Canaanite Worship Settings:


(No such actions are recorded.)


Israel Will Destroy Canaanite Worship Settings:

Exodus 23:24

You must utterly destroy them [the gods of these nations] and smash their sacred pillars.


Exodus 34:13

You must break down their pagan altars, smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles.


Numbers 33:52

You must destroy all their carved and molten images and demolish all their pagan shrines.


Deuteronomy 7:5

You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.


Deuteronomy 7:25

You must burn their idols in fire.


Deuteronomy 7:26

Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be destroyed, just like them. You must utterly detest such things, for they are set apart for destruction.

Deuteronomy 12:2

…you must destroy all the places where they worship their gods—


Deuteronomy 12:3

Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Completely erase the names of their gods!

Question:

Does the book of Joshua record that Israel in fact smashed and burned any Canaanite idols or worship sites?

Possible answer:

No such actions are reported in the book of Joshua.
This activity is first told of Gideon, in the book of Judges, 6:25+.

But according to the book of Joshua, Israel certainly smashed and burned a lot of people.

Question:

What was the main purpose behind all this expulsion and/or mass slaughter?

Text:

Deuteronomy 7:16

You must destroy all the nations the Lord your God hands over to you. Show them no mercy, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you.

Question:

And in the book of Joshua, how often did the Israelites show mercy to Canaanites?

Possible answer:

Apparently two times only: to Rahab of Jericho in chapter 6, and to the Gibeonites, in chapter 9.

Question:

And in either of these cases, did extending mercy to Canaanites entrap those who had shown mercy?

Possible answer:

No, it seems not.

Rahab married into the nation of Israel, becoming an ancestor of David, and thus of Jesus.

The Gibeonites became dedicated to providing supplies for God’s worship.

When Israelites returned from captivity, Gibeonites were among those who volunteered to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall (Nehemiah 3:7).

Question:

And after Joshua died, did the Israelites continue to perform total annihilation of Canaanites?

Possible answer:

No, not in the books of Joshua, Judges, nor in the historical books that follow.

King Saul claimed to have exterminated the Amalekites.
The prophet Samuel himself killed King Agag.
But in the much later book of Esther, we meet a surviving descendant, Haman, the Agagite.

Question:

What are we to learn from these stories, which can seem to us needlessly violent and ugly?

Your personal answer?

Lesson Guide:

“God appears in the Old Testament as the sovereign Lord of the universe;


therefore, everything that happens must, somehow, be related to His direct or indirect will.”


Questions:


What does the first line above imply?


Once we accept the first-line statement as true, does the “therefore” conclusion necessarily follow?


When do you suppose God determined that he would/must control “everything that happens?

“
Did God instead, lay down His own life, so that we could partly decide what will happen?

Lesson Guide:

“God’s original purpose for the Canaanites was not annihilation but, instead, dispossession.”


Comment:


I have studied the book of Joshua for more than six months, reading it many times, and yet have been unable to find “God’s original purpose” identified in the book.


Question:


What options did God have for dealing with Canaanites, besides their mass extermination?

What if?

If God wished simply to drive out the Canaanites, instead of slaughtering them,


might God have made greater use of non-lethal methods, such as stinging insects, “hornets,” or “terror?”
—Deuteronomy 7:20, Joshua 24:12.

Directed by Adolph Hitler, between 1941 and 1945, Germany exterminated over six million Israelites.

How could that happen?


To protect the lives and property of Christians, churches declined to condemn these mass murders.


Many Christians participated personally in the killings.
Yet some Christians gave their own lives to protect the victims.

A more recent genocide:

In 1994 in Ruanda, Christians of the Hutu tribe murdered over 500,000 Christians of the Tutsi tribe.


Seventh-day Adventists were among both the victims and the perpetrators.

Questions:

When is genocide a terrible evil?
And when is genocide a righteous duty?

Background:

In the territory formerly occupied by Canaanites, many different ethnic groups have since tried to displace all other groups from “their” territory. Several of these have claimed that in their efforts to destroy all others, they are merely following the direction of God, as remembered in their own religious literature.

Question:

Do you believe that God is, or should be, more actively blessing one group, to exterminate all others?


What is the basis for your belief?

And a concluding question:

Joshua, Israel’s leader in the book of Joshua, and Jesus, of Nazareth, share the same name. In your own opinion, did these two famous leaders accurately portray the same God?

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.