Page 15 - Advanced Biblical Backgrounds Revised

The judgment of God against the Canaanites was a judgment because of their sin. The consequence of
sin is death. The conquest was an exercise of capital punishment on a national scale, payback for
hundreds of years of idolatry, and unthinkable debauchery. Indeed, God brought the same sentence of
destruction on His own people when they sinned in like manner.

So did God break his own commandment (sixth of Ten Commandments), which says, “Thou
shalt not kill?”

In the Old Testament, God commanded the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land and kill all the
inhabitants of the Land, including women, children, and even animals. This does not make sense!
Doesn’t God killing people make Him a murderer?

The sixth of the ten commandments says, “Thou shalt not kill.” (KJV - Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy
6:6-17). Actually, the translation of the King James Bible is unfortunate because the Hebrew translation
of the word ratsach means intentional killing without cause. A better rendering of the word is
“murder.” Most modern translations render the word correctly (ESV, NIV, NASV, HCSB, and even
paraphrases like the Living Bible). The best paraphrase of the commandment would be, “Do not put
anyone to death without cause.”

Think about it. God destroyed the world with a flood, killing all inhabitants, including animals that
breathe air, because of the gross wickedness of man’s heart. God had just cause to eliminate all except
righteous Noah and his family (Genesis 7:21-23). Does killing evil mankind make God a murderer?

No, because murder is the “premeditated, unlawful taking of another person’s life.” Killing is the taking
of life for a reason or cause. For example, Exodus 22:2 allows a person to defend himself when
threatened with the force of even killing. Self-defense is a cause.

Well, what about all the “innocent” Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites that God commanded
Joshua to kill? Was that not God murdering without cause? Deuteronomy 9:5 says God drove these
societies out of the Land because of their wickedness. They were utterly defiled. The Canaanites were a
hideously nasty munch. Their culture was grossly immoral, and decadent to its roots. They practiced
divination, witchcraft, female and male temple sex, homosexuality, transvestitism, pederasty (men
sexually abusing boys), sex with all sorts of beasts, and incest.
Sodom was a Canaanite city that God destroyed for the cause of
wickedness.

One of the gods of the Canaanites was Molech. He was a bull-
headed idol with a human body in whose belly a fire was stoked,
and in whose outstretched arms a child was placed that would
burn to death. They not only sacrificed infants but children up to
four years old were burned alive to their god. As the flame burned
a child, the limbs would shrivel up, and the mouth would appear to
grin as if laughing until it was shrunk enough to slip into the
cauldron. (https://www.str.org/w/the-canaanites-genocide-or-
judgment-)

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