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[fn2187]

As I have been reading the book of Joshua, I have been taken aback by God's command to have the Israelites devote every man, woman, and child to destruction (in most instances) as they conquered Canaan. Continually we read that God is a compassionate and kind God and that all His ways are righteous, yet he orchestrated such terrible events.

I understand that the Canaanites were an exceedingly sinful people, yet let's consider the psychological impact of killing someone else. God commanded his people to strike defenseless women and children down multiple times. The men who killed these people may have developed post-traumatic stress symptoms from such an act (remembered their victims' screams and so on). Not only did this act of war kill thousands of people who did not have a chance to repent (to my knowledge), how many men were negatively affected by this command of God?

[jimwalton]

I'm glad to talk about this. We can go back and forth as much as you want to figure it out—ask whatever other questions come up. Let me lay some groundwork first, and then I'll speak more specifically. It wasn't what it sounds like, but we'd have to know the culture to get that.

There some parts of our culture that you sort-a-gotta be there to get it. For instance, we may talk about " 'Old Glory." Someone several thousand years from now may go, "Whaaaat?" But we know it's a reference to our American flag. It's not obvious in the words; you'd have to be there.

Let me give one more. In front of our grocery story there's a sign that says "No Standing." We understand that has nothing to do with standing, despite that the clear English words are "NO STANDING"! We know it's about that you can't park your car there. The English words don't matter; the cultural context is what explains it to us.

Football teams stand in the circle in the locker room and yell, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" Yeah, just our sports rhetoric. It means "Win a decisive victory."

God was not telling them to kill the women and children. This was their warfare rhetoric. It was bravado. When they said, "Kill all the women and children!" it meant they were to win a decisive victory. Yes, the language is used in Josh. 10.40-42; 11.16-23; yet they readily acknowledge that it wasn't literally true (Judges 1.21, 27-28). They weren't even killing all the people, let alone the women and children. On the one hand, Joshua says he utterly destroyed the Anakim (Josh. 11.21-22), but then he gives Caleb permission to drive them out of the land (Josh. 14.12-15; cf. 15.13-19). What it proves it that "kill them all" was an idiom of warfare that meant "We won a decisive victory." No people groups were being wiped out. The women and children weren't targets. This was pretty typical of the whole region in this era. Let me give you some examples from what we know from other cultures.

• Egypt’s Tuthmosis III (later 15th c.) boasted that "the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) not existent." In fact, Mitanni’s forces lived on to fight in the 15th and 14th centuries BC. See? "We killed everybody and everything" was what they SAID, but it wasn't what they DID.
• Hittite king Mursilli II (who ruled from 1322-1295 BC) recorded making "Mt. Asharpaya empty (of humanity)" and the "mountains of Tarikarimu empty (of humanity)." Not true; just rhetoric.
• The "Bulletin" of Ramses II tells of Egypt's less-than-spectacular victories in Syria (1274 BC). Nevertheless, he announces that he slew "the entire force" of the Hittites, indeed "all the chiefs of all the countries," disregarding the "millions of foreigners," which he considered "chaff."
• In the Merneptah Stele (ca. 1230 BC), Rameses II's son Merneptah announced, "Israel is wasted, his seed is not," another premature declaration. Even here they're claiming they killed all the children. It just wasn't true, and didn't happen. Just they way they talked.
• Moab's king Mesha (840/830 BC) bragged that the Northern Kingdom of "Israel has utterly perished for always." Not true. The women and children weren't killed. Israel was still around for another century. The Assyrians devastated Israel in 722 BC.
• The Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (701-681 BC) used similar exaggeration: "The soldiers of Hirimme, dangerous enemies, I cut down with the sword; and not one escaped."

We know for a fact that the people groups that Joshua claims were "utterly destroyed from the earth" continued on, such as the Anakim I have already mentioned. The same is true of the Amalekites of 1 Sam. 15 (the Amalekites were a people group for about 1000 years after being "totally destroyed"), and all of the Canaanite groups. The point was not to kill them all in a genocidal frenzy, but to win a decisive military victory over their armies and politicians, drive all rebels from the land, assimilate those who were willing (such as Rahab), and to destroy the false religious practices that would corrupt the people of God.

So here's the cultural situation of the times:

1. Israel was not a brutal, bloodthirsty people. The only time(s) the Israelites were commanded by God to fight offensive battles (to conquer cities) was during the conquest. Beyond the land of Canaan, they were never commanded to expand their boundaries, build an empire, wipe out people groups, etc. They weren't that kind of people, and they were not to act with such brutality.

2. The goal of the conquest was not genocide ("kill 'em all"), but occupation. Repeatedly the commands of God are to drive the Canaanites from the land (Ex. 23.30 as one example of many). The point was never the killing.

3. It was God's intent to bless all the nations (Gn. 12.3 and others). It’s not the Canaanites as people that the Lord hates, but their godless perversions and lying religion. Dt. 7.5-6 is very clear that the point is truth, not killing. If they would turn from their false gods, they were welcome to join Israel.

4. We also have to understand that in those days the cities were fortresses surrounding governmental and cultic structures, not dwellings for the population. They were forts, not cities, so to speak. When commands were given to conquer cities, it was the rulers and soldiers the army was after, not the population. In the agrarian society of the Canaanite city-states, more than 90% of the people lived in the countryside as farmers, and less than 10% of the population lived in the cities. The cities were mostly fortresses and governmental centers. Almost exclusively, when a city was attacked, it was military action against military personnel and the rulers of the region, not against the general (and innocent) population. It was impossible, without nuclear weaponry, to wipe out all the citizenry. There was never an attempt to wipe them out. The idea was never to kill the women and children, but the king and his soldiers.

5. The Conquest in Joshua is not what many people imagine. Joshua entered the land on the east over the Jordan River, and then cut a swath through the center of Canaan (Jericho, Ai and Shechem, Joshua 6-9), separating north from south. Gibeah surrendered (Josh. 9), and they were not killed (see! It's not about the killing). At that point an alliance of cities from the south attacked Joshua (Josh. 10), and the Israelites won, and they inherited all those cities without killing men, women, or children. Now they controlled the southern hill country. Joshua then turned and attacked Hazor in the north and burned it (Josh. 11), and an alliance of northern cities attacked him. Joshua won, and all of the hill country of Canaan was now in Israelite hands. That was the extent of it (Josh 11.16, 23, etc.). They inherited cities they never built and crops they never planted (Joshua 24.13). They never gained the valleys and plains until under the monarchy, as nation-states attacked David and he won. There was no genocide. They killed soldiers (Josh 11.12-14) and their king, but the "totally destroyed them" is warfare rhetoric, not historical fact.

The ultimate goal was that God would have a people, set aside for relationship with Himself, that he could covenant with to reveal Himself to and redeem them from sin. All comers, Israeli and foreign, man and woman, slave and free, were welcome. All rebellious, wicked, and deceivers were not.

As you can see, the call to "kill 'em all" was language of victory, not genocide. "The moral of the story," as Dr. Paul Copan says, "is not to stop at a surface reading of these terms and assume God’s immorality."

The plan of God was a three-stepped plan, with each subsequent step only being necessary if the first two failed.

STEP 1: Incorporate the Canaanites into Israel as full members of the community, and worshippers of the true God. There was no reason to wait until the Day of the Lord to have the people worshipping the true God (Zech. 14.16-20; Rev. 22, et al.). The Lord will take any who come to him; the invitation is always open, and no sincere seeker is refused. Any Canaanite who surrendered would become part of the Israelite community, as Rahab shows us.

STEP 2: Lacking surrender, the object of the army was to drive the Canaanites from the land, not slaughter them (Ex. 23.30-31; 33.2; 34.11, 24; etc.). Let them go somewhere else to live, and let Israel have the land that was theirs to possess. Anyone who would leave was free to go.

STEP 3: If they won't surrender, don't want to join you, and refuse to leave, the only option is to engage them in battle. The land belonged to Israel, not the Canaanites. But the point was still not genocide, but to kill the soldiers, supplant the rulers, and take possession of the land. The civilians were not harmed.

God communicated in the language of the culture, their typical Near-Eastern warfare rhetoric. Everyone in their era knew what it meant: secure a total victory. We need to read the text through ancient eyes, not through modern ones of a different culture, era, and language.

I hope this helps. Feel free to respond and to ask whatever further questions you have.

> Not only did this act of war kill thousands of people who did not have a chance to repent (to my knowledge), how many men were negatively affected by this command of God?

Getting a handle on the number of people involved is difficult more than 3,000 years later. Jericho at the time was little more than fort covering 6-7 acres. It had been a greatly fortified city several centuries earlier, but had been conquered. It's difficult to know all that remained of its former greatness, but archaeology tells us the stone wall was about 15' high, topped with a mud brick wall another 8'. There were houses built on the wall. It's hard to know how many soldiers were in it, but it may only have been in the hundreds, possibly up to 1000, but it's hard to say.

We haven't decisively identified Ai yet, but the Bible says it was smaller than Jericho. The Bible says it was a small town with few men (Josh. 7.3) Probably only a few hundred soldiers.

Hazor was huge for the day. It was two cities conjoined. The upper city (probably where the king lived and his palace and soldiers) was 25 acres, and the lower city was 175 acres, making it one of the largest cities in the whole fertile crescent. Joshua 11 tells us that a coalition of kings assembled against the Israelites (11.4)/ It's impossible to know how many soldiers. Joshua won, killing the soldiers (11.8)—though we certainly can't guarantee there were "no survivors left"; that's warfare rhetoric again. Then he turned back towards Hazor to kill its king (11.10). Roger Dalman says, "This text doesn’t indicate the percentage of Hazor’s population that fled from the city before it was destroyed." Joshua 11.11 says "Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself." It's very difficult to know who was killed and how many. We know (1) there is a lot of exaggeration in ancient warfare records, (2) that the city was burned (you can still see the soot on the rocks at the site), and (3) they statues of gods and kings were decapitated and the ritual vessels were smashed (consistent with the idea that God was trying to break down their false religions, not slaughter the people).

It's simply impossible to know the demographic statistics of the battle.

I know I've written a long reply, but I want to be thorough and address your question. There's much more to say (like the definition of "cherem, the verb translated "totally destroy." Didn't even get to that because the post is so long already. Feel free to respond.