WAS GENOCIDE COMMANDED
IN THE BIBLE?
By R. Herbert
Did ancient Israel commit genocide against the Canaanites? It is interesting that many of those who claim the Bible is not a historical book and its historical narratives cannot be trusted are quick to accept the historical nature of the statements in the Old Testament regarding the Israelites destroying the inhabitants of the Land of Canaan – which they claim to be an example of genocide.
It is true that before Israel entered the Promised Land they were told, regarding its inhabitants: “…when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy” (Deuteronomy 7:2). The Bible makes it clear that this extreme action was to be completed because of the depravity of the Canaanites (Leviticus 18:21-28, 20:2-5, 22-23, Deuteronomy 9:4-6, 12:29-31, etc.), who followed hideous practices such as infant sacrifice (see "Were the Canaanites Really That Bad?" below).
When we move to the Book of Joshua the intent of the total destruction of the Canaanites appears to be confirmed: “So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded” (Joshua 10:40).
So it's easy to see why many understand this as brutal genocide, but there are many facts we can bring to the picture to help clarify what happened. First, we must remember that the Bible is not a historical book in the sense of modern ideas of history. It does not always give all the pertinent details for a given situation or order them in such a way that we are given a clear idea of exactly what happened and how it happened. Instead, the Bible stresses aspects that are necessary to understand its main purpose – to tell the story of God’s interaction with the people who followed him and with whom he worked – and not necessarily to give a full, blow-by-blow narrative of everything that happened along the way.
The case of Israel’s treatment of the ancient Canaanites and other groups in the Promised Land clearly follows this pattern. Biblical scholars have long recognized that the stories of the various battles in the Book of Joshua do not dovetail easily. It appears that different accounts are being brought together (note that some accounts are present tense while others are past tense) in a tapestry which omits many things that might have connected the individual events more clearly.
For example, it is not clear from the biblical accounts how many Canaanites were actually destroyed. A death toll is only given for one city (“12,000” – a noticeably round number that was often used symbolically as the equal of “totality” in Near Eastern sources), and it may be, as we will see, that only partial populations remained in most cities that were attacked. We do know that not all the Canaanites were destroyed. We are told, for example, not only that the inhabitants of four cities were spared (Joshua 9), but also that the Israelites “… did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day…” (Joshua 16:10 ESV), and that in the area given to the tribe of Manasseh “…the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land” (Joshua 17:12 ESV). This is why it was necessary for Joshua, at the end of his life, to command Israel: “Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them” (Joshua 23:7, 12-14). In the Book of Judges, detailing the time directly after the Book of Joshua, it is also clear that many Canaanites were still alive and living in the land.
So was this really genocide, and moreover is the Bible consistent or does it contradict itself? If the Canaanites were all destroyed, how could any remain? To answer these questions we must focus on two essential facts. We should remember that the language used in these accounts – of the destruction of “everything that breathed,” or “men and women old and young”– is typical of ancient Near Eastern victory announcements, even when fighting men, not civilians, were often the individuals actually involved. This is less strange than it may seem at first. Today, if we tell our friends that our favorite sports team recently "annihilated" or "destroyed" another team, everyone understands that we mean they won decisively. In a similar way, as scholars have long recognized, ancient Near Eastern audiences, hearing about annihilation, understood that it was more often than not simply hyperbole for victory.
We should also understand that in those cases where individual cities and their inhabitants are described as being destroyed, those “cities” might well have been enemy military strongholds (Joshua 10:20) which had to be taken. We see in the earlier chapters of Joshua that the Canaanites were in great fear of the invading Israelites (Joshua 2:8-11), and it is possible that many of the inhabitants of unfortified cities simply fled, leaving mainly those in the strongholds. This possibility may have direct indication in the Bible.
Far more scriptures speak of driving the Canaanites out than those that mention "destroying" them (see Exodus 18:24-25, 23:27-28,34:24; Numbers 21:32, 32:21, 33:50-56; Deuteronomy 4:38, 9:1, 11:23, 18:14, 19:1, 23:27-30, Joshua 13:6, 14:12, 17:18, 23:5, 9, etc.). In some cases we are told that God would drive the Canaanites out using methods similar to the plagues He placed on Egypt. While the “hornets” mentioned in Joshua 7:20 and 24:12 may be symbolic, the Book of Exodus specifically mentions pestilence: “I will send my terror in front of you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send the pestilence in front of you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you” (Exodus 23:27-28). Numbers 33:51 shows God commanding the Israelites themselves to drive out the inhabitants of the land, which indicates that this also may have been one of the ways many Canaanites were expelled.
So although we do not have a connected historical narrative in the form we might utilize in modern historical writing, we do find information that might well suggest the following:
God seems to have commanded Israel to destroy the Canaanites who still remained after he had driven many of them from the land (Exodus 23, Numbers 33, etc.). He apparently accomplished this driving out by causing great fear to fall on those peoples (Joshua 2:8-11, 9:24) and also pestilence or other disasters (Exodus 23:27-28). The Israelites themselves then drove out or destroyed the remaining people, especially those remaining in the fortified cities.
A final consideration is the nature of genocide itself. Genocide invariably involves three salient aspects: a culture takes the law into its own hands in deciding to destroy another culture, the destruction is driven by hatred of the people being destroyed, and the destruction is part of a larger pattern of one group attempting to totally dominate another. Clearly these things did not apply to the situation with ancient Israel. The Bible shows that God was the one who commanded the Israelites to cast out or destroy their Canaanite enemies because of his judgment on them. The Bible also shows that in many cases the Israelites were happy to commingle with the native Canaanites and did not hate them or particularly desire to dominate them. We should remember, too, that God differentiated between the inhabitants of the land who were deserving of capital judgment and those who were not and who were to be allowed to live – and that He also told Israel that any of the Israelites who acted in the evil ways of the Canaanites should also be destroyed (Leviticus 18:29-30, etc.) – so it certainly was not simply a case of one culture hating and committing genocide against another, or of God commanding such a thing.
Ultimately, we do not know all the details of how or how many Canaanites God cast out and to what degree the Israelites were involved in their punishment. We can only say that God may have used ancient Israel to punish the Canaanites in the same way he used ancient Assyria and Babylon to later punish and “destroy” the Israelites themselves (though many survived into captivity). In both these cases the Bible simply shows that a just God who had given due warning drove out peoples whose sinfulness had become extreme. If we believe in God, we must believe in his wisdom and sovereign justice, as well as his love and mercy.
Were the Canaanites Really That Bad?
Leviticus 18 tells us that God planned to cast the Canaanites and related peoples out of the Promised Land due to their extreme depravity. That chapter accuses the Canaanites of practices such as idolatry, bestiality and every other kind of sexual deviancy, male cult prostitution and even child sacrifice.
Some sceptics have challenged whether this last practice actually existed in ancient Canaan; and many who decry God’s supposed injustice in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites claim that there is no actual historical evidence of child sacrifice in ancient Canaanite society. Yet the Bible is explicit regarding this practice, saying: “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering” and listing that as the first of the many “abominable practices” of the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 18:10 and see Leviticus 18:21, 24, etc.).
Actual evidence of child sacrifice by the Canaanites does exist, however, despite the doubts of some sceptics. Several ancient Egyptian wall reliefs carved around the time of Ramesses II, in the temples of Karnak and Luxor, actually depict this abominable Canaanite practice. These reliefs were made to celebrate Egypt’s victories over her northern neighbors and depict Egyptian soldiers attacking Canaanite fortified cities of the type described in the Book of Joshua. In these scenes, the kings of the cities are shown with braziers making fiery offerings to their gods over the dead bodies of children on the city walls (exactly as is described of the king of Moab in 2 Kings 3:27). That these representations unquestionably depict Canaanite child sacrifice is the conclusion of the scholarly publication of these Egyptian scenes (A. Spalinger, "A Canaanite Ritual Found in Egyptian Reliefs," Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 8 (1978):47-60.).
It is important to note that in the biblical accounts the Canaanites living within the central area of Canaan were distinguished from the peoples living on the edges of the land. The people of those cities outside the central Canaanite region, but within the area designated as belonging to Israel, were to be offered terms of peace, by which they would be forced to serve the Israelites. If such a city refused, the Israelites were told to make war against it, kill all its men, but allow the women and children to live (Deuteronomy 20:10-15). The distinction made between the core area Canaanites and the outlying cities would seem to be because the former peoples were too culturally depraved to be shown mercy, while the others were not viewed as being so morally degenerate.
Leviticus 18 tells us that God planned to cast the Canaanites and related peoples out of the Promised Land due to their extreme depravity. That chapter accuses the Canaanites of practices such as idolatry, bestiality and every other kind of sexual deviancy, male cult prostitution and even child sacrifice.
Some sceptics have challenged whether this last practice actually existed in ancient Canaan; and many who decry God’s supposed injustice in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites claim that there is no actual historical evidence of child sacrifice in ancient Canaanite society. Yet the Bible is explicit regarding this practice, saying: “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering” and listing that as the first of the many “abominable practices” of the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 18:10 and see Leviticus 18:21, 24, etc.).
Actual evidence of child sacrifice by the Canaanites does exist, however, despite the doubts of some sceptics. Several ancient Egyptian wall reliefs carved around the time of Ramesses II, in the temples of Karnak and Luxor, actually depict this abominable Canaanite practice. These reliefs were made to celebrate Egypt’s victories over her northern neighbors and depict Egyptian soldiers attacking Canaanite fortified cities of the type described in the Book of Joshua. In these scenes, the kings of the cities are shown with braziers making fiery offerings to their gods over the dead bodies of children on the city walls (exactly as is described of the king of Moab in 2 Kings 3:27). That these representations unquestionably depict Canaanite child sacrifice is the conclusion of the scholarly publication of these Egyptian scenes (A. Spalinger, "A Canaanite Ritual Found in Egyptian Reliefs," Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 8 (1978):47-60.).
It is important to note that in the biblical accounts the Canaanites living within the central area of Canaan were distinguished from the peoples living on the edges of the land. The people of those cities outside the central Canaanite region, but within the area designated as belonging to Israel, were to be offered terms of peace, by which they would be forced to serve the Israelites. If such a city refused, the Israelites were told to make war against it, kill all its men, but allow the women and children to live (Deuteronomy 20:10-15). The distinction made between the core area Canaanites and the outlying cities would seem to be because the former peoples were too culturally depraved to be shown mercy, while the others were not viewed as being so morally degenerate.