The God of the Old Testament
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So, God waited patiently. God had promised the land to the people, but it was not ready to be given to Abraham at the time that God was speaking to him. There had to be a waiting period until the Canaanites had become utterly corrupted.
So this is a unique command in the history of Israel. And for people to say, “Oh, God why can’t God command us to do that today?” Well, the problem with this is again, for a number of reasons, this is unique. It’s sort of like saying, “Well, God told Abraham or Abram at that time, to leave Ur of the Chaldeans.” To err is human, they say.
So he has to leave Ur to get away from this people and go to the land that God is going to show him. Well, does that mean that, “Oh, if God told Abraham that, what’s to say that we shouldn’t just pick up and move somewhere else, or maybe even to the land of Canaan, to modern day Israel?”
You know, it’s silly for people to say, “Well, this could apply to us today. What’s to say that…” Well, and we know there are plenty of examples in scripture where there are unique commands that are ones for all, and that God has particular purposes in giving those commands.
And so we shouldn’t simply say, “Oh, anybody could do this.” And say, “God told me to do this.” No, there are a number of other things that go along with this. In fact, what I’d like to do is go on to the next point.
The fact that not only does God give this command, but God also gives strong public signs, multi-sensory signs; seeing, hearing, even tasting, for example, manana that the Israelites are eating day after day. They’re feeling the earth shake at Mount Sinai. They’re seeing Moses in Korah’s rebellion when 250 were killed. The earth just swallowed them up.
And what does this do? It reinforces the prophetic credibility of Moses. And then we see the same sorts of signs accompanying Joshua crossing the Jordan and so forth.
These are all publicly demonstrable signs. So the skeptical Israelite soldier, when he hears, “Oh, God is commanding us to kill Canaanites? How do I make sense of this?” Well, then he starts to see these signs and wonders take place that Moses actually turns out to be a credible prophet.
And God is giving all these remarkable signs and wonders to reinforce that point that God is… This isn’t just some sort of a private revelation like Joseph Smith or Muhammad had. These are publicly demonstrable signs that people could see. In fact, you have the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night accompanying, leading the people of Israel wherever they’re going in the wilderness.
No, if you’re a Canaanite and you’re spying, peeping over the hill to see what these Israelites are all about, and you see this big column of fire at night over the camp, take notice. Let it be a warning sign to you. There’s something really freaky going on there. And maybe we better pay attention to this.
In fact, God said in Exodus 23, “I’m going to send my dread ahead of you like hornets.” And so that the dread would come upon the people of the land of Canaan. And sure enough, Rahab said, “We’re shaking in our boots. We saw what your God did, bringing you out of the land of Egypt accompanied by signs and wonders.”
Now, in fact, we read later on in Joshua with the Gibeonites when they make this false treaty with Joshua. They’re saying, “We’ve seen what your God has done.”
We even read later on in I Samuel, chapter four, when the Israelites are battling the Philistines and they bring the Ark into the camp. Do you remember? And the Philistines were getting panicked because they said, “This is the God who brought those Israelites out of the land of Egypt.” And they were frightened about this.
So the word got around. So it wasn’t as though these people were just minding their own business and they had no clue as to what was happening. No, they knew that this Yahweh was doing some remarkable stuff through the people of Israel, and in their midst.
So this is the sort of thing that is a warning sign. And of course, many refuse to heed the warning and pull out. But again, this is the sort of setting that we need to understand. It’s not just some plain old private whispering, God whispering into somebody’s ear. No, this is for everybody to see. In fact, even Israel’s prospective enemies.
Another point to keep in mind is this, when we’re talking about the Canaanites, we are not talking about people who just have weird eccentric habits that just happen to differ from the Israelites, or maybe they’re just, “They’re eating shrimp and pork. Let’s go and wipe them out.”
No, these people are doing things that would be considered criminal acts in any civilized society in our day to day. Incest, bestiality, child sacrifice. You know, these are no mere quirks, certain preferences in morality.
No, these are the sorts of things that really cut to the heart, that reveal the corruption of this people in the land of Canaan. So you have not only that you have in their temples, you have ritual sex, prostitution. Again, it’s all just a society that is bringing with corruption and depravity.
And so God is rightfully bringing judgment upon these people. And so God tells them to go into this land and not to absorb the habits of these people. And you see, this is how it works. We’ll talk about this a little bit, but just a precursor, God’s primary command is to drive out these people.
God says, “You are to drive them out of the land.” And if people are dumb enough, after seeing all these signs and so forth, they’re dumb enough or stubborn enough to stay behind, well then they, in a sense, they’re opening up their lives, they’re opening up themselves up to being put to death.
So here you have this command to drive them out. You see, if you’re driving people out, you are not killing them. David, for example, was driven out of the presence of Saul. Cain was driven from the presence of God. Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden. They somehow survived that driving out.
You see if you’re driving people out, you’re not killing them. And again, this is the main command, and we’ll come back to this. How do we put together the driving out and then the killing?
Well, God has prepared the land of Canaan for the people of Israel to inhabit, to drive out the people. And again, if they are going to remain behind, then they open themselves up to the prospect of death.
But God’s primary goal is to displace the Canaanites so that they will not be a corrupting influence. Remember when the Israelites went into the land of Canaan and they were saying, “These people are more numerous than we are. They’re greater than we are.”
Well, if you’re going to be infiltrating a society that is dominated by corruption, by these Canaanites and so forth, the Israelites aren’t going to stand a chance. So in order to preserve their identity, and also to pave the way for the coming of the Messiah to bring redemption to the world, these people had to be displaced, so that Israel can have its own center of worship, of reinforcing what is right and good and true. And not having to deal with Canaanites, who would be influencing them.
But we need to keep in mind, too, that God tells the Israelites that the land is not their right, as though they somehow deserve this. God said, “I’m going to drive you out.” I’m going to vomit you out, just like the land vomited out the Canaanites. So it’s not as though the Israelites are inherently better than the Canaanites.
God was warning them, and indeed we’ll see that God does the same sort of thing that he did to the Canaanites, with the people of Israel.
Now, as we think through this from a more philosophical point of view, it’s helpful to keep in mind what ethicists will talk about, and that is prima facie duties, as opposed to circumstances where you have supreme emergencies.
So let me give you an example. What is a prima facie duty? A prima facie duty is something that is a general duty, but in certain cases of say supreme emergency, say a Nazi is knocking at your door when you’re trying to hide Jews, overriding say the general demand not to deceive is permissible. Why? Because, you’re protecting innocent human life.
Now this is not situation ethics here. No, there are clear conditions and it’s not, “Oh, I feel like doing this today. Therefore, I’m justified in going ahead and flouting all sorts of moral laws.” No, not at all.
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