Sunday
Sunday
Taking Possession of the Land
So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there.
Joshua 21:43
After crossing the River Jordan, Joshua first turned south and routed a confederate army led by five Amorite kings. Then he marched north where he defeated a coalition of armies. Thus he took the whole land and allotted its territory to the twelve tribes. We cannot read the story of Israel’s conquest, however, without asking ourselves about the ethics of such a campaign, with its policy of total destruction. Can the holy God of Israel really have ordered this? Three points may be made.
Consider, firstly, the promise made to the patriarchs. Repeatedly God had promised the land to Abraham’s descendants. But the possession of it would not have been possible without the dispossession of its former inhabitants. Secondly, there was the wickedness of the Canaanites. Abraham was told that his descendants would inherit the land only when “the sin of the Amorites … reached its full measure” (Gen. 15:16). It was not because of Israel’s righteousness but on account of the Canaanites’ wickedness that Yahweh would give the Israelites the land (Deut. 9:4–5). So disgusting, idolatrous, and immoral was the Canaanite fertility religion, including the abomination of child sacrifice, that their ejection by Israel was portrayed as the land vomiting her out. God even warned Israel that if she defiled the land, he would vomit her out as he had vomited out the nations (Lev. 18:24–30; 20:22–23; Deut. 12:31).
Thirdly, there was the danger of corruption. “Make no treaty with them,” Moses told the Israelites (Deut. 7:2). They were to destroy all Canaan’s idolatrous paraphernalia, for Israel was a people holy to the Lord (Deut. 7:6). They must not imitate Canaan’s detestable practices (Deut. 18:9) or do anything to violate Yahweh’s covenant with them (Judg. 2:1, 20; Ezra 9:1, 10–12). This “holy war” is the only one authorized by Yahweh. If Israel had obeyed God and had totally destroyed the Canaanites and their corrupt practices, future conflicts with surrounding tribes would not have been necessary. We too are called to radical surgery in relation to sin.
For further reading: Joshua 24:8–13