Israel as a nation never did fully drive out the Canaanites but was enticed to follow them in their sin again and again under the old covenant. Nevertheless, God in His grace preserved a faithful line in Israel. From that line, He sent Jesus, the true Israel of God, who by His person and work drives out and destroys sin and death so as to save us from the wrath that fell on the Canaanites so long ago.

“In thirty-five years of religious study, I’ve come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God, and I’m not Him.” So said Father John Cavanaugh, former president of the University of Notre Dame, to Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger in the 1993 film Rudy. I take issue with the quote a bit, since our study of religious truth should lead us to many more incontrovertible facts about the God of the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ. Still, I do like the priest’s conclusion: “There is a God, and I’m not Him.” There is hardly a more succinct way to state one of the core truths of the Bible—the distinction between the Creator and the creature.

We are like God sufficiently for us to know Him truly, and yet we are so unlike God that He has abilities and privileges that we can never possess. He is life itself, receiving it from none else (Ex. 3:14). We derive our life from Him. He is the Lawgiver who can judge us. We cannot judge Him. He is the sovereign and good King of creation who has the right to do anything He sees fit with what He has made (Rom. 9:1–24).

Keeping these principles in mind is essential, especially when we are reading biblical historical accounts such as the Israelites’ conquest of Canaan. Many people outside the church use this story to accuse the God of the Bible of being a genocidal maniac. At the same time, many people within the church find it difficult to reconcile the conquest with the love of God.

The Limited Scope of the Conquest

Deuteronomy 20:16–18 instructs the Israelites on what they are to do to the inhabitants of the promised land: “In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes” (v. 16). Israel was to kill all the residents of Canaan—men, women, children, and animals. Texts such as these are why some people have said that the God of the Bible commands genocide.

We should note, however, that God’s commanding the destruction of the Canaanites was not racially or culturally motivated. The Lord never told Israel to wipe out the inhabitants of the promised land because they were of a different bloodline than the people of Israel. Moreover, God did not order Israel to pursue Canaanite peoples who fled outside the boundaries of the promised land. His goal was not to wipe out a people for ethnic reasons but to get them out of the land. It was possible for Canaanite peoples to flee the territory for safety. Clearly, God was not moved by ethnic or racial hatred to order the conquest of Canaan, for we see that Rahab converted to the God of Israel and was spared while remaining ethnically Canaanite (Josh. 2; 6:25).

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