The Wickedness of the People of Canaan
Critics of the Old Testament's claim that God ordered the killing of whole tribes in
Canaan typically neglect the reason expressly stated in the Old Testament: those tribes
were depraved beyond redemption (Gen. 15:16; Lev. 18:21-30; 20:2-5; Deut. 12:29-
31; etc.). According to the Old Testament, the Canaanites and other tribes in the land
widely practiced child sacrifice, incest, bestiality, and other behaviors that almost
everyone in history, including today, rightly regard as unspeakably, grossly immoral.
If this explanation is even acknowledged, critics often claim that it is a later
theological justification for Israel's displacing those peoples from the land. Even many
mainstream biblical scholars make this claim.
I have already questioned the conventional wisdom that the wickedness of the peoples
of Canaan was an after-the-fact rationalization. However, even if the passages were all
composed after the fact, such a response really skirts the issue, which is whether that
theological justification was true. If the people of Canaan were akin to the peace-
loving, civilized folks of different religions living in our suburban neighborhoods and
working in our colleges, hospitals, and fire departments, then the Israelite claim that
God had condemned those peoples as hopelessly degenerate would be rightly
questioned. On the other hand, if the Canaanites and other peoples in the land were a
degenerate society widely practicing bestiality and publicly burning their children to
Molech, might not the Old Testament writers have had a point?
In this regard an obvious question to ask is whether these horrifying Old Testament
descriptions of Canaanite culture were at all accurate. Not surprisingly, our extra
biblical sources of information are still very meager and fragmentary. Archaeology
provides much more information about the classical period of antiquity, which
corresponds roughly to the biblical postexilic and intertestamental periods, than it
does for the second millennium BC. Moreover, the further back in time one goes the
more disparate interpretations one gets from the archaeologists themselves. Still, some
aspects of the Old Testament descriptions of Canaanite culture, including its religion,
have been verified.
One point of special interest is the Canaanite deity Molech, to whom, according to the
Old Testament, the local pagan peoples sacrificed their children in burnt offerings. It
was fashionable during much of the twentieth century to assert that the Old Testament
had this completely wrong. Molech was said not to have been the name of a foreign
deity at all, but a ritual term of some sort, and the children were not burned to death
but were living participants in harmless rites (perhaps akin to those in modern
neopaganism and other forms of nature worship). Several studies in the 1970s and
1980s put this revisionist theory to rest. The scholarly tide began to turn with Morton
Smith's 1975 article debunking the fanciful theory that the references to children in
the fire were spiritual metaphors.2 John Day's study, published by Cambridge
University Press, argued convincingly that Molech was the name given in Canaanite
religion to the god of the underworld. He showed that the same deity is mentioned in
the Ugaritic writings (MLK), the Mari tablets (Muluk), and in Akkadian records.3
Meanwhile, evidence is trickling in that supports the Old Testament claim that the
indigenous peoples of the region were engaged in the practice of child sacrifice. In
1978 an Egyptologist reported that relief pictures on an Egyptian temple showed
Canaanite children being sacrificed while their cities were under attack.4 That the
Phoenicians, who at one time controlled Canaan, sacrificed children to their gods is
well documented. "Archaeologists have recovered the gruesome evidence not only at
the great Phoenician city of Carthage (in modern Tunisia), but also in Sicily, Sardonia,
and Cyprus" (King and Stager, 361).5 The evidence is not yet a "smoking gun" but is
consistent and indirectly supportive of the biblical picture.
Indeed, it is now so clear to biblical scholars that the Old Testament really does refer
to child sacrifice and that it really did occur that some liberal scholars are taking a
completely different tack. Some are now arguing that child sacrifice was part of the
normative religious system of the worship of Yahweh until very late in Old Testament
history. The biblical "evidence" for this claim is at best extremely slender and depends
on a number of questionable assumptions. The principal text adduced for this dubious
theory is Micah 6:6-8.
6Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah,
and bow myself before the high God?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
7Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams,
or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth Jehovah require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
(Micah 6:6-8)
The progression here is not merely from a humbler offering to a more impressive one,
as some scholars have argued. Rather, Micah moves from a normative offering under
Mosaic law (v. 6) to obvious hyperbole (v. 7a) to an extreme that is not hyperbolic but
instead demands a negative response (v. 7b). In short, Micah is asking these rhetorical
questions in order to present a reductio ad absurdumrebuttal to the notion that
unremitting disobedience to God's demand for justice can be compensated by offering
sacrifices. The passage therefore presupposes that sacrificing one's child is already
understood to be very wrong.
What these liberal scholars are up to is not hard to see. The guiding assumption in
their study of Israelite religion in the Old Testament period is that the Israelites, even
at their best, could not have been all that different from their neighbors in Canaan. To
concede that the religion of Israel's lawgiver and prophets was of a radically superior
character to the religions of the larger culture both morally and spiritually would be
fatal to the "methodological naturalism" (to borrow a phrase from the philosophy of
science) that has been the presupposition of mainstream biblical scholarship for over a
century. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the claim was that child sacrifice in the land
was a myth and neither the Israelites nor their Canaanite neighbors engaged in the
practice. As further study and new evidence overturned that claim in the 1970s and
1980s, liberal scholars decided that if child sacrifice was happening then everyone
must have been doing it, and it must have been an accepted and authorized element
even in the worship of Yahweh. To make this theory work requires a highly
tendentious reading of the Old Testament, to put it mildly.
Those liberal scholars are partially correct, though: some Israelites sometimes did
practice human sacrifice, including the sacrifice of their children. At least two kings
are reported to have done so (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). According to the book of Isaiah, the
Lord condemned Israel for sacrificing children to their idols (Is. 57:5-9). Jeremiah
accused the Jews in Jerusalem of setting up idols in the temple and sacrificing their
children in a nearby valley (Jer. 7:30-32; 19:5-6; 32:35). Ezekiel cited the practice as
one of the reasons that Judah was plunged into the Babylonian exile (Ezek. 16:20-21;
23:36-39).
Again, the criterion of embarrassment militates against any speculation to the effect
that the Israelites never did any such thing as these various biblical authors accused
them of doing. We may regard it as historically a given that they did. That being
established, we can hardly deny the unanimous testimony of all of these authors that
the practice derived from the idolatrous customs of the indigenous peoples of Canaan.
Ahaz, we are told, "even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways
of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites" (2 Kings 16:3). According
to Jeremiah, the Jews sacrificed their children to idols—particularly Baal and Molech
(Jer. 7:30-32; 19:5-6; 32:35).
The lesson is surely not hard to discern. Although the Israelites under Joshua gained a
measure of dominant control over much of the land of Canaan, they did not eliminate
the peoples of Canaan completely and did not cleanse the land thoroughly of the
corrupt religious and social practices of the Canaanites. Throughout the periods of the
judges, the united monarchy, and the divided monarchy, Baal worship in particular
continued to be a problem. One can only imagine how much more difficult it would
have been to maintain with integrity any religion of the worship of Yahweh had the
Israelites not been as aggressive as they were under Joshua. Elijah's infamously
overstated lament that all Israel had abandoned the worship of Yahweh for Baal
illustrates just how close Israel came at times to doing just that.
One final point regarding the wickedness of the peoples of Canaan: Moses warned
Israel that they were not to claim that God drove out the pagans because Israel was
righteous, but must acknowledge that he did so because the pagan nations were so
wicked (Deut. 9:4-6). Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites are told repeatedly
that they were not righteous and did not deserve the land and other blessings that God
was giving them. They may have been not so far gone as the Canaanites, but they had
nothing to brag about as far as their own righteousness was concerned. This consistent
denial of the worthiness of Israel really undermines the claim that the Old Testament
was expressing some kind of "triumphalism" in attributing the defeat of Israel's
enemies to God.
But the Children?
The sharpest criticism of the morality of the Conquest focuses on the Israelites' killing
of the youngest children of the indigenous peoples. This is certainly the most difficult
aspect of the account for us to understand. Oddly enough, there is no focus on this
point at all in the Old Testament. It seems to be clearly enough implied by the
statements that Israel left alive nothing that breathed in various cities, no survivors
(Deut. 20:16; Josh. 10:29-40; 11:10-15). The book of Joshua states that Israel
destroyed the people of Jericho, "both man and woman, young and old, and ox and
sheep and donkey" (6:21), which may imply the killing of the babies, depending on
how "young and old" is interpreted. So, it does seem that Israel killed young
Canaanite children in these battles, though little or no attention is given to that aspect,
assuming that is the correct understanding of the above passages.
Since the accounts give so little attention to the issue and no direct explanation for the
inclusion of young children in the extermination order, we are left to surmise an
explanation indirectly from what information we have. I have two suggestions on this
point.
First, after generations of the sort of moral degeneracy that characterized these
peoples, it may be that even the smallest children were beyond civilizing. Apparently
even they were abused and forced to participate in obscene conduct, such that they
would have grown up psychologically and spiritually scarred-and perhaps threatened
to perpetuate the cycle.
Second, the STDs and other infectious diseases that must have pervaded those cities
may well have been carried by the smallest children, and if so, they may have posed a
grave danger to the physical health of the Israelites. Imagine some of the nations
today most ravaged by AIDS, but living more than three thousand years ago, with no
access to even the most basic medical resources. It may be that infectious diseases
were also ravaging the domestic animals in these cities, which would also explain why
they were destroyed.
It's horrible to contemplate that things were so bad that it was actually necessary for
even the youngest members of that society to be killed in order to stop the
generational cycle of degeneracy and disease. But something along these lines seems
likely to be the reason for God's order to leave alive nothing that breathed.
Israel's Rules of Engagement
One of the evidences supporting the Old Testament's claim that God had ordered the
Israelites to exterminate some of the peoples in the land is that the "rules of
engagement" for these conquests did not give the Israelites carte blanche to do
whatever they wished. The rules restrained the greed and lust typically exhibited by
victors in ancient warfare (and in far too much modern warfare as well) in ways that
were far ahead of their time.
God's law in the Pentateuch actually distinguished at least four different categories of
non-Israelites and required Israel to act in markedly different ways toward each group.
We may call these four categories indigenous peoples, border peoples, protected
peoples, and sojourners.
By indigenous peoples I mean the people groups that inhabited the land of Canaan,
specified in various texts as the Amorites, Hittites, Girgashites, Perizzites, Canaanites,
Hivites, and Jebusites (Gen. 15:19-21; Ex. 3:8, 17; 13:5; 23:23, 28; 34:11; Num.
13:29; Deut. 7:1; 20:17; Josh. 3:10; 9:1; 11:3; 12:8; 24:11; Judg. 1:3-5; 3:5;1 Kings
9:20-21; Ezra 9:1; Neh. 9:8). The dominant tribe or nation among these peoples was
the Canaanite people, which is why the land was called Canaan and why the
Canaanites are mentioned more than any of the others. Israel was required to
exterminate the peoples of these tribes, men, women, and children—and in most
cases, livestock as well (Num. 21:33-35; Deut. 2:32-34; 3:1-7; 20:16-18; Josh. 6:21;
cf. Josh. 8:22-29). The Israelites were explicitly forbidden to take wives from any of
these peoples (Deut. 7:1-4). Now, if Israel's claim that God commanded them to
conquer Canaan was merely a theological pretext for their own wars of aggression,
why did they not allow themselves to take women from those peoples? Why, in most
cases, were they not allowed to take and keep livestock? The best explanation for their
restraint in these matters was that they believed that God had forbidden them to take
women or livestock from the peoples they conquered in the land. Such restraint—
remarkable in that ancient culture—is evidence that their belief that God had ordered
the conquest was quite sincere.
We might note that the command to wipe out these peoples did allow for exceptions.
The obvious example is that of Rahab and her family, who were residents of Jericho.
In return for her help, and in response to her plea for mercy, Joshua's two spies
promised Rahab that she and her whole family would be spared when the Israelites
destroyed Jericho (Josh. 2:8-21), a promise Joshua honored (6:17, 22-23, 25).
Border peoples lived in cities and villages on the outer edges of Canaan, who were not
part of the seven or so indigenous tribes of Canaan. Cities outside the region inhabited
by the Canaanites and other condemned peoples, but within the land designated as
belonging to Israel, were first to be offered terms of peace, in which its people would
become forced labor and serve the Israelites. If a city refused, Israel was to make war
against it, kill all its men, and allow the women and children to live (Deut. 20:10-15).
The distinction drawn between the outlying cities of the land and the cities of the
Canaanites and other peoples clustered within the land reflects the belief that the
indigenous peoples were too far gone to be shown any mercy, while other people
groups were not deemed similarly degenerate.
The protected peoples were tribes or nations in the region that Israel was to leave
alone. The most significant of these was Edom. When Israel sought to pass through
the territory of Edom—even promising to pay for the use of its water—and Edom
refused, Israel simply went another way (Num. 20:14-21). Yet when Sihon, the king of
the Amorites, refused to grant the Israelites safe passage, Israel conquered and
possessed the Amorite cities (Num. 21:21-32), destroying every man, woman, and
child (Deut. 2:32-34). The reason for the differing treatments was that Israel
considered the Edomites (who were descendants of Jacob's brother Esau) brothers
(Num. 20:14).
Sojourners were individuals or families whose tribal origins were from outside the
land but who had immigrated into the land of Canaan. The Old Testament refers to
such persons as sojourners, aliens, or strangers (the terms are roughly if not entirely
synonymous). Israelites were forbidden to wrong a stranger or oppress him (Ex.
22:21; 23:9). Anyone who took the life of any human being was to be executed; this
standard applied for the stranger as well as the native (Lev. 24:17-22). Sojourners
were to be permitted to offer sacrifices to the Lord; again, the point was made that the
law was to be the same for the Israelites and the sojourners (Num. 15:14-16).
Israelites were to love the alien, remembering that God loves aliens and that they were
aliens in Egypt (Deut. 10:18-19). Israelites were not to pervert justice due to an alien
(Deut. 24:17-18). Clearly, the Mosaic Law was not xenophobic (expressing fear or
animosity toward people of other races). Since such sojourners were not part of the
degenerate culture of Canaan, they were to be welcomed into Israelite society and
placed under the same laws as Israelites.
No General Policy of Genocide
Perhaps the most common complaint about the biblical account of the Conquest is that
it appears to justify genocide. If we view a particular nation as grossly evil, may we
justifiably conquer its land and annihilate its inhabitants?
Of course not. The Old Testament does not teach that genocide has any sort of general
justification. There is no teaching here along the lines of saying that if a nation is
wicked enough then anyone has the moral justification to go wipe them out, including
men, women, and children. Rather, the Old Testament claims that it was necessary to
completely wipe out certain indigenous peoples in order to stop the cycle of perversity
from repeating generation after generation, in order to protect Israel from succumbing
itself to the madness (an apparently accurate description of Canaanite culture). This
drastic measure was necessary to create a nation that retained at least some knowledge
and worship of the true God alone and some recognition (however limited) of his
moral standards.
The fact that Israel often slid at least part of the way into the madness due to its failure
to carry out God's orders completely confirms just how bad it was. The fact that it
took hundreds of years after Joshua's conquest and several national disasters before
Israel finally embraced ethical monotheism (which they finally did after the
Babylonian Exile) is further evidence that the degenerate polytheism of the society
was indeed very hard to overcome.
No society or government has the right to take it upon itself to conduct a policy of
genocide. What Israel did was right, but the only way they could know it was right
was that God had revealed it to them. Furthermore, they knew that revelation was
authentic because it was dramatically authenticated by signs and wonders of a type
still unparalleled in human history.
Summary
Let me summarize what I have tried to show. It is incoherent to maintain that biblical
writers made up stories about Joshua waging wars of aggression and also that they
made up a theological rationale to defend Joshua's fictitious actions. No one makes
excuses for doing something they didn't do. The Israelites' reticence to invade Canaan
from the wilderness is probably historical, but that means that the belief that God
ordered them to invade Canaan originated before the invasion, not centuries after it.
The texts claim that the basis for the order was the extreme degenerate condition of
Canaanite society; if this claim is true, the belief that God ordered the Conquest
becomes that much more plausible. So far the evidence shows that indeed Canaanite
culture was highly degenerate; indeed, the Israelites, who never did completely rid the
land of its influence, often fell under its spell and engaged in some of the Canaanites'
most heinous activities. The "rules of engagement" governing Israel's relations to non-
Israelites shows restraint and sensitivity to the differences among non-Israelite
peoples, characteristics we would not expect if Israel's claim of divine backing for the
Conquest was mere after-the-fact rationalization of their own aggression. Finally, the
biblical account of the Conquest emphasizes the unique situation involved and leaves
no room for extrapolating from it any generalized principle that would justify
genocide.
We have, then, several lines of evidence that support the Old Testament claim that the
Israelites engaged in the Conquest under what they had good reason to believe was
God's command.
Notes
1Robert M. Bowman, Jr., "Joshua's Conquest: Did It Happen?" (Alpharetta, GA: North
American Mission Board, 2007), online.
2Morton Smith, "A Note on Burning Babies," Journal of the American Oriental
Society 95 (1975): 477-79.
3 John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4-14, 29-71.
4A. Spalinger, "A Canaanite Ritual Found in Egyptian Reliefs," Journal of the Society
for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 8 (1978): 47-60.
5Philip J. King and Laurence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, Library of Ancient
Israel (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 361.
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