When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou,
Moses tells Israel what waits across the Jordan: seven peoples hold the land, and each one is larger and stronger than Israel. That raises two questions — how could a small nation take such a land, and why would God drive out these peoples at all?
Why seven nations? One writer reads the number as deliberate.
Seven nations here display the complete power of the enemy, only to show the power of the Lord supreme above it.
Israel carried weapons, but the account of the conquest never credits them. Attacking or defending, Israel won the same way.
Did the men of Jericho or the forces of the seven nations, each greater and mightier than Israel, come against them? The Lord says, "I gave them into your hand." Did Israel attack first? Even then they did not win by sword or bow. They won because "I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you." In wars, defensive or offensive, the Lord alone brought the victory.
This was no land grab. One writer points to what these peoples had made of the land.
Those nations had filled the land with gross corruption. That was more than enough to strip them of any decent claim to keep it. In Abraham's day the cup of their sin was not yet full (Gen. 15:16); but it was overflowing when Israel's armies came upon them as God's executioners. Does anyone doubt whether it was right to dispossess those nations to make room for the Lord's chosen people? It is enough to quote Leviticus 18:25: "the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants."
God had not acted in haste, and the judgment taught Israel as well.
God had tolerated these nations for many centuries. In His mercy He waited before He drew the sword of justice. And whenever Israel carried out the divine judgment, sparing no one, they had an object lesson in the holiness and righteousness of God.
These commands have troubled readers for centuries. One writer does not soften them. He turns instead to the people judging them.
They are not prepared to say, "Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!" They cannot justify God in all His ways. In fact, they are sitting in judgment on Him. They presume to measure the workings of divine government by the standard of their own shallow thoughts. They scan the infinite by the finite. In short, they measure God by themselves.
So why demand total separation? The answer here says more about Israel than about the Canaanites.
Why were the people to keep the sharpest separation from the Canaanites? Why were they to refuse, with firm decision, to make any covenant or form any marriage alliance with them? Why were they to pull down their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves? Simply because they were a holy people. And who had made them a holy people? The Lord. He had chosen them and set His love on them. He had redeemed them and separated them to Himself. So it was His right to say what they were to be and how they were to act. This was never a case of "Stand by yourself, I am holier than you." The Lord did not choose them because they were more in number — they were the fewest of all peoples. He chose them because He loved them and would keep the oath He swore to their fathers.
Israel never finished the task, and the cost ran for centuries.
Their later history shows what this failure cost. It was the main reason they kept dabbling in idolatrous things. That dabbling brought their own judgment and dispersion under the Assyrians and Babylonians. They did not judge and destroy the evil completely, so they caught its infection and fell under its power.
Commentators read these peoples as a picture of a conflict Christians still face.
The Canaanites were the future enemies of the chosen people, already in the land. They were Satan's instrument to shut out those whom God had called, if that were possible, or at least to expose and corrupt them. According to Ephesians 6 they stand for our own foes: the world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. Our conflict is with them.
One writer brings that fight into the present.
This is a picture of believers today. We are responsible to destroy the deception of evil spirits — deception that opposes the truth of the Word of God and would rob us of our rightful inheritance. We must not in any way compromise with satanic pressure.
- Cause — The seven nations lost the land because their sin was now full. The land itself was vomiting them out.
- Gift — Israel did not earn the land or win it. The Lord brought them in, cast the nations out, and won every battle Himself.
- Ground — God demanded total separation. Israel was the fewest of all peoples, not the best; He had chosen, redeemed and set them apart as His own.
- Failure — What Israel spared, infected them. Incomplete judgment on the evil ended in idolatry, exile, and dispersion.
- Reach — Commentators see in these nations the enemy at full strength, and a fight for our own inheritance. No compromise is safe.
and when Jehovah thy God shall give them up before thee and thou shalt smite them, then shalt thou utterly destroy them thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.
Israel is about to enter a land that other nations already hold. God's order is blunt: defeat them, destroy them, make no treaty, spare no one. Few verses raise sharper questions. How can a good God command this? What does it say to anyone reading it now?
The order is not a sudden outburst. It comes after long delay. Israel carries it out but does not choose it.
The reason for this has been explained again and again. Their sin was now full, though in Abraham's time it was not yet full. (Genesis 15) The land itself was spitting them out for the vile things they did. In this Israel was only carrying out God's judgment. Israel was not serving its own anger or its own greed for land. God could have destroyed them Himself by plague or famine. Instead He chose Israel to do it, and so taught His own people the most solemn lesson they could learn — how holy He is, and what sin is before Him. They would come under the same terrible judgment themselves if they followed the Canaanites into that sin. The Canaanite gods of lust and murder were what that sin fully produced and expressed.
Another writer sets this beside two earlier judgments, and marks one difference:
The first case was of course the flood… The second was the destruction of the cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah… On both occasions the destruction was God's own act — by water, and by fire and sulphur… This time He used Israel to do it. And since men were now doing His strange work of judgment, failure came in, and the work was not done thoroughly, as it was when God acted by the forces of nature.
Some readers stumble here and end up judging God. One writer names what that amounts to:
They dare to measure how God governs by the standard of their own shallow thoughts — to size up the infinite with the finite. In short, they measure God by themselves.
These two bans protected Israel from a danger worse than defeat. That danger was marriage into those nations.
It would have stopped them marrying the daughters of these peoples, and that was the surest way to catch the infection of their dreadful idol worship. Their later history shows how this failure explains much of their constant dabbling in idols, which in the end brought about their own judgment and scattering under the Assyrians and Babylonians. They did not judge and destroy the evil completely, so they caught its infection and fell under its power.
The reason is not what Israel was in itself. It is what God had made them.
Why were they to refuse firmly to make any covenant, or any marriage alliance, with them?… Simply because they were a holy people. And who had made them a holy people? The LORD. He had chosen them and set His love on them. He had redeemed them and set them apart for Himself. So it was His right alone to lay down what they were to be, and how they were to act.
Israel broke this command almost at once. How they broke it is the lesson.
They had hardly set foot in the land of Canaan before they made a covenant with the Gibeonites. Even Joshua himself fell into the trap. The ragged clothes and mouldy bread of those crafty people fooled the leaders of the people, and made them act flat against God's plain command. If the authority of God's word had ruled them, it would have kept them from the grave error of making a treaty with people who should have been completely destroyed. But they judged by what their eyes saw, and had to reap the consequences… They reasoned on what they saw, instead of obeying what they had heard.
Centuries later Israel was still excusing peace where God had forbidden it, arguing that the passage of time had softened the case:
They might try to excuse themselves by saying the lapse of time had made a difference, and the Amorites were no longer what they used to be; but the excuse could not stand before God's plain command… There is no surer road to learning the way of the wicked than to make leagues with them.
This text has been pressed into service to justify personal hatred:
To support this they pointed to passages such as Deuteronomy 7:2, where God forbids Israel to join with the Canaanites. He commands them to show no mercy to them, but to destroy them. This led to the conclusion "…and hate your enemy"… So out of the command to love, which fulfils the law according to Romans 13:10, men had made its exact opposite.
Commentators also see here an enemy that believers still face:
Seen as a picture, the Canaanites stand for Satan's agents — the spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, the rulers of the darkness of this world, whom we must wrestle with now… With these there can be, and there ought to be, no terms, no compromise, and no stopping of the fight at any time or in any circumstances.
- Ripe — the blow fell only when Canaan's sin was full. Israel acted as God's executioner, not as a conqueror grabbing land.
- Instructive — God could have used plague or famine. He used Israel's own hands, to teach them "what sin is before Him."
- Protective — no treaty and no mercy kept Israel from marrying into those nations, and marriage was the road into idol worship.
- Grounded — the reason is not Israel's merit but God's claim. He chose them and redeemed them, so He sets how they live.
- Obeyed or reasoned away — at Gibeon, Israel judged by what it saw instead of by what God had said, and paid for it.