by Peter Enns

First, until you are clear on what the motive is for God’s command to exterminate the Canaanites, you will not feel the true weight of the theological dilemma.

Second, if you are willing to accept Canaanite genocide as compatible with God’s character, to be consistent, you must also accept as compatible with God’s character other troubling issues that come up in those very same passages.

On the first point, let’s be clear on the motive for why God wants the Canaanites annihilated. Look at Deut 7:1-7 and Deut 20:10-20. These are key marching order passages for what God wants the Israelites to do as they enter the land.

Note that in both passages, the reason given for showing “no mercy” (7:2) is not that the Canaanites are particularly bad people, far worse than any other nation (however true that might be). They are wiped out not because they deserve it more.  The motive given in the texts is that any intermingling with the Canaanites runs the risk of turning “away your children from following me, to serve other gods” (7:4).

That is the reason. God wants the inhabitants of Canaan–including women and children–annihilated, so that there is no chance God’s people will be led astray (20:18-19).

This is no abstract matter of “sinfulness deserves punishment.” That is true, but that is not what is happening in these passages, and referring to Gen 15:16 does not make it so. There God says, rather cryptically, that the possession of the land by Abraham’s ancestors must wait 400 years after the exodus, “for the iniquity of the Amorites [Canaanites] is not yet complete.”

Whatever iniquity is building up for the Canaanites, surely its relevance to Canaanite genocide cannot be understood apart from the clear motives given in such places as Deuteronomy 7 and 20. Iniquity is not the reason for the extermination. All nations are iniquitous. The reason is that the iniquity will lead Israel into idolatry.

The Canaanites are wiped out because they occupy the land Yahweh means to give Israel, and sharing the land with Canaanites and their abhorrent religious practices runs the risk of luring the chosen people into spiritual adultery.

If we fail to take seriously the motive for the genocide, we will not be able to grasp or address the theological problem. Conversely, we cannot assign a false motive, even if it seems to make the theological problem a bit more manageable.

Let’s move on to the second point.

We see in Deut 20:10-20 that towns outside of Canaan are treated differently than Canaanite towns. Terms of peace are offered, which would enslave the population. If they refuse, the slavery option is off the table, and the Israelites are to kill the men but keep the women and children as slaves*.* They are “booty” and “spoil” that the victors are to “enjoy” (vv. 10-14).

Those who have no problem defending divinely commanded genocide as consistent with God’s character also need to incorporate forced enslavement into their argument.

If God’s sovereignty, righteousness, justice, and holiness justify the one, they must also justify the other.

Moving along, in Numbers 31, the Israelites go to war against the Midianites. The Israelites “killed every male” (v. 7) and “took the women of Midian and their little ones captive” along with livestock and property as “booty” (v. 9).

So far so bad, but there’s more (vv. 13-18). Moses was angry because the soldiers allowed the women to live. Yes, that is in keeping with God’s command to enslave non-Canaanite women, but these Midianite women lured the Israelite males into having sex and worshipping Baal (see chapter 25). So, Moses commands that every woman who slept with an Israelite male be put to death.

Killing the seductress women, OK…let’s let that pass. But who else is executed?  Every Midianite male “little one” (v. 17). Should this not make us a bit uncomfortable? Killing the male children presumably serves two purposes: to eradicate the Midianite line and eliminate any future military threat.

Of course, this is part and parcel of tribal cultures, but…why is God so comfortable participating in that culture instead of transforming it? What the Israelites do here is uncomfortably close to ethnic cleansing.

The only ones who are spared are the young virgin girls, whom the Israelites are to divide evenly between the soldiers and the other Israelites  (v. 18). Like the animals and property, the virgins are property to be divvied up.