7:1-2). Then He says something very Interesting your descendants will come back in the fourth generation, because the sins of the Amorites hasnt been fulfilled. The Amorites in this case are the Canaanites. Was God just in destroying the Canaanites? The story of Canaanite incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality flow out of the plot line of idolatry. Molech was a Canaanite underworld deity14 represented as an upright, bullheaded idol with a human body in whose belly a fire was stoked and in whose outstretched arms a child was placed that would be burned to death. 2. See also Leupold (1942, 463). It may not be altered or edited in any way. Why did God wipe out the Canaanites? : r/TrueChristian In the worship of their gods, the Canaanites committed other evils. Canaanite tribes (especially the Hittites) greatly exceeded the boundaries that Israel was told to conquer. It seems from God's promise to Abraham that they were wicked and idolatrous people. Seems a bit harsh right? {13} How persuasive this thought is will depend on how seriously we take biblical teaching about our future after the grave. The ceremony ends with directions: To be repeated five times by the company and the singers of the assembly.12 About this John Gray comments, We may well suppose that this activity of El was sacramentally experienced by the community in the sexual orgies of the fertility cult which the Hebrew prophets so vehemently denounced.13, Child sacrifice. Driving them out wasnt simply a way of making room for Israel. And they even sent their own children into the fires of the god Molech as living sacrifices. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. This was especially true of the Canaanite societies steeped in abominable practices like child sacrifice and cult prostitution. Copyright 2023 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved. A biblical example of this would be Gods treatment of the city of Nineveh. A more obvious reason for the possibility of intermarriage is the fact that the Israelites didnt fully obey Gods commands. The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics helps Christians show unbelievers the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel as the only hope that fulfills our deepest longings. 8. . The new atheists immaculately exemplify what the Bible has proclaimed all along: sin corrupts our authority to judge rightly; what we think is justified prosecution against God Almighty turns out to be, on further illumination, a raucous rant full of the noxious fumes of the sinful heart. Likewise, Gods government cannot successfully continue unless there is a plan that will ultimately, if not immediately, punish evil (Isaiah 61:8; Deut. God's character, 4:1314; Ezek. Another observation is that the instruction is frequently to dispossess the Canaanites or move them out rather than to destroy them. The Canaanites had not completely sinned away their day of grace. Some Christians have responded by driving a wedge between the Old Testament and the New, claiming that Jesuss ethics improved upon the brutal practices of ancient Israel. A Clear Christian Perspective, The Apologetics of Jesus: A Defense of His Deity, Bridging to Common Ground: Communicating Christ Across the Cultural Divide, How I Know Christianity Is True A Defense of the Gospel, Yahweh War and the Conquest of Canaan A Biblical Worldview Perspective, Personal Development/Relationships Emails, Trusting God on the Other Side of Bizarre, Cohfessions of a Missionary Addicted to Porn. And its not simply forced eviction we are talking about here; its the slaughter of entire nations, down to the last man, woman, and child. And so for 400 years more, the Amorites were allowed to live and do as they pleased. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?27 Ultimately the Lord then agrees to spare both cities if only ten righteous people were found. God has done everything in His power to save the sinner through the plan of redemption (John 3:16). 18:28; Deut 4:2329, 8:1920). When a community sins, there are consequences for every member of the population, even children. When a nation starts burning children as a gift to the gods (Leviticus 18:21) and practices sodomy, bestiality and all sorts of loathsome vices (Leviticus 18:25, 27-30), they, are storing up wrath for [themselves] on the day of wrath when Gods righteous judgment will be revealed (Romans 2:5 ESV). Skeptics say if God is a God of love why did He bring destruction on certain nations of the world? Notes 13. 5. The classic example is Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelite spies in Jericho and swore allegiance to the Lord (Jos. No worldly government can exist unless it uses every necessary means to punish law breaking. On an individual basis, when a father sinned, his son wasnt to be punished for it. After all, the Old Testament unequivocally commands that those who do any one of these things deserves to die. The Extermination of the Canaanites - Knowing the Bible 1:27-2:5, we read that tribe after tribe of Israelites did not drive out all the inhabitants of the cities they conquered. Kyle, Canaan, in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, James Orr, ed. Robert believes that the Bible contains the truth that God wants us to base our lives upon.