Why did the Israelites take the Canaanites as slaves instead of destroying them as they were instructed?

Joshua 17:7-13. The cities of Manasseh are next enumerated, and once more the refrain is heard, "Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities … did not utterly drive them out" (vers. 12, 13). "Yet it came to pass when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute." Their strength exposed the secret of their inability, they "could not," because they "would not" drive them out; they preferred to make a gain of these heathen rather than obey God; and so it happened that, after a time, Israel learned all the abominations of the Canaanites, and served them as a punishment for their sins. The shortsighted principle of making terms with the enemy, in disobedience to God, ended in the tributaries becoming thorns in their eyes and pricks in their sides, and at last their masters. When faith in God, with its arduous life, is exchanged for compromise with evil and for a course of self-seeking, the reaping day will discover, by its sorrowful fruits, the bitterness of departing from God.

When Israel became strong enough they put the Canaanites under tribute, thus making them pay for what gains they made, but did not drive them out (v. 28). This was compromise with the enemy, not obedience to God.

Ephraim failed to drive out the Canaanites from Gezer, so they were also exposed to the painful results of having an enemy within (v. 29). The same was true of Zebulon and two specific cities, though Zebulon compromised by putting the Canaanites under tribute also (v. 20). If we look beneath the surface, shall we not likely find that this spirit of making merchandise of the things of God is tolerated because of our own selfishness?

Besides, it was accustoming Israel to feel, by that flagrant example, what iniquity, corruption, idolatry, rebellion were against God. Their having to do it was of moral importance for their souls and ways: sharp discipline; but what of the cause? If God so judged the Canaanites, would He spare Israel? There was the reflection it was intended to produce on their consciences. And God, as we know, was far more unhesitating in dealing with His own people when they yielded to any of these enormities. In point of fact their own ruin was largely due to the fact that the children of Israel failed to carry out the will of Jehovah as to the Canaanites, perhaps yielding to sloth and cowardice, to amiability in some cases, though, I have no doubt, far more frequently because they were not really up to His mind in the matter. Thus they spared themselves far more than they spared the Amorites, and God was forgotten by them.

The first case was of course the flood. Mankind was then wiped off the face of the earth with the exception of eight souls. The second occasion was the destruction of the cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah, when only righteous Lot and two daughters were saved. On these two occasions the destruction was an act of God — by water and by fire and brimstone. In both cases human corruption had risen to such a height that it could not be further tolerated. This was now the case with the Amorite nations. Some four hundred years previously Abraham had been told, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15:16), but now evidently it was "full," and God purposed to wipe them out as He had previously done with the antediluvian world, and then with Sodom, only this time using Israel to do it, and hence, as we shall see, using men to do His strange work of judgment, failure came in, and the work was not thoroughly done, as when God acted by the forces of nature.

Israel then were to have been the executioners of God's judgment on these utterly corrupt peoples, and their extermination was designed to have a salutary effect as regards themselves. It would have prevented their making these marriages with daughters of the various peoples, which was the surest way by which they would catch the infection of their awful idolatrous systems. Their subsequent history shows how their failure in this matter largely accounted for their own constant dabbling in idolatrous things, which ultimately brought about their own judgment and dispersal under the Assyrians and Babylonians. Failing in a complete way to judge and destroy the evil, they caught its infection and fell under its power. The separation enjoined was a natural rather than a spiritual one, but a complete necessity, as God well knew.

Look at the order, and see the necessary progress of evil: first, there is the failure to drive out the enemy; secondly, they bring them into servitude and make them tributary; thirdly, there is intermarriage, linking themselves with them; fourthly, there is the adoption of their false gods, and the departure from God; and lastly, there can be but one result, God hands them over to an enemy to make them taste what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from Him.

Israel's failure called for strong reproof. The angel of the Lord, who is the Lord Himself, not a messenger from God, but the messenger, came from Gilgal to Bochim (v. 1).Gilgal speaks of the self-judgment of sin in the flesh, but Israel had neglected this after settling in the land. If we too neglect the self-judgment that is necessary for a walk with God, the result will be Bochim, meaning "weeping."

He tells Israel, "I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers, and I said, I will never break My covenant with you." Certainly God was true to His Word, but Israel had covenanted to obey God's law, which included the command that they should make no covenant with the inhabitants of Canaan. But they had not obeyed. He asked them why? But they had no answer (v. 2).

Therefore they must suffer the results of this disobedience (v. 4). Since they would not cooperate with God, He would not drive out the inhabitants of the land, but would leave them to cause constant distress and trouble, exposed to the snare of being deceived by the idolatrous worshipers of Canaan.

And now we find the pronounced judgment of God upon this wide-spread departure from His plain command. The angel of Jehovah who had in Joshua's day taken His place with them at Gilgal as Captain of the Lord's host, now comes from Gilgal to Bochim ("weepers") to announce to them His acceptance in righteous government of their own decision. They would not drive out the nations, and so He would not; and the consequences of this, again and again predicted, would come upon them. The people weep and sacrifice to Jehovah; but there is no real repentance: and this first step downward is soon followed by another in which the breach between them and Him is consummated.

Now it is important to notice in this connection that the enemies at whose hands the Israelites suffered oppression from time to time, were those they had left alive in the land in consequence of their own disobedience to God, and lack of confidence in Him. So long as they went on in dependence upon God, no enemy could stand before them; they were granted successive victories, but it was entirely on account of their unfaithfulness that these enemies were left in the land: "The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He said, Because that this people has transgressed My covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto My voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died." (Judges 2:20-21.)

The power and the presence of God had not forsaken Israel up to the time of Joshua's departure. It was always available wherever there was faith to utilise it. But another secret is now disclosed as to the reason why God did not drive out these nations: "That through them I may prove Israel whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not. Therefore the Lord left those nations without driving them out hastily; neither delivered He them into the hand of Joshua." (Judges 2:22-23.)

This unfaithfulness, indeed, foreseen of God, was the reason why God left some of the nations in the midst of His people to prove them. The presence of these nations was in itself a proof of Israel's lack of energy and confidence in the power of God, who nevertheless would have preserved them from their subsequent disasters. But in the wisdom of His counsels, God, who knew His people, left these nations in their midst, as a means of proving them. Israel will be fully blest only under Messiah, who by His might will bring in their blessing, and by His might will preserve it to them.

Things under the hand of Joshua are now closing. The land has been partly conquered and wholly divided. A strange condition, as I have already noticed. But so it is. The unconquered parts are left that Israel might be tested, whether indeed they would be obedient or not; the Lord being pledged by His servant to prove Himself able and ready to conquer what remained still in possession of the Canaanites, and make it actually His people's, if they did but stand in their allegiance to Him. But Joshua warned them that if they went back from following the Lord, then the unconquered people should be plagues to them, scourges in their sides and thorns in their eyes, until they themselves were destroyed from off that land which had now been given them.