How can a loving God command the slaughter of the
inhabitants of Canaan
by the children of Israel in the Old Testament (The
Herem)?
The Bible’s answer to this is found in the book
of Genesis. God showed Abraham the future of his descendants in a
vision, explaining that they would return to the promised land of
Canaan only after four hundred years in Egypt, as the Amorites
“would not be ripe for punishment until then” (Gen. 15:13-16).
In other words, God would not carry out the death
penalty on the wicked inhabitants of Canaan until it was fully
appropriate, even though this would involve great suffering by
the descendants of Abraham being detained in Egypt under a
vicious regime (Exod. 2:23).
What does the phrase ‘ripe for punishment’
mean? This is discussed in the following chapters in Genesis. God
can do anything he wants, even making the barren Sarah fertile in
old age (Gen. 18:14). Or can he? Surely the judge of all the
world can only do what is just, Abraham points out a few verses
later in his debate with God over Sodom (Gen. 18:25). He cannot
act unjustly!
Abraham is shown to be right. Even though the
inhabitants of Sodom are seen to be unspeakably wicked, God’s
angel “cannot” act in judgment until the morally
compromised Lot and his family are out of the area (19:22). Only
then are the cities destroyed.
It turns out later that the destruction of the
wicked people of Canaan is to be carried out by God’s chosen
people, the descendants of Abraham. Will this help them grasp the
seriousness of sin? It appears not, because by the time we reach
Judges 19, the Israelites are no better than the inhabitants they
have replaced. Their godless behaviour will eventually lead to
the exile.
You may ask, why does a loving God kill people at
all for bad behaviour? Genesis replies that the death penalty is
automatic for people who disobey God (2:17). We are all under it.
In short, the whole book is about the struggle between good and
evil and how people can be rescued from it. How contemporary is
that?
In due time, God himself would accept the death
penalty on the cross on our behalf, to deal with sin and
wickedness in human beings once and for all, which is first
hinted at in Genesis 3:15. Great news!
So a careful reading of Genesis shows that the Herem
is not inconsistent with the God who “has no desire for the
death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his
wickedness and live (Ezek. 33:11)”.