Israel Commanded to Destroy the Wicked

Deuteronomy 20:17; 2:15, 7:2, 12:2-3

The nations that are listed in these verses are: Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites. The Lord commanded Israel to destroy those nations that He spoke about; destroy their alters, pillars, burn their groves, hew down graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of the gods out of those places. He also commanded Israel to not make any covenants with them or show them mercy or marry anyone within those nations.

Deuteronomy 9:4-5; Institute Student Manual commentary 7:1-5

 The reason why the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites was because they were so contaminating with their wickedness that if they had been spared and were shown mercy, it would have led to the spiritual downfall of Israel. However, later history shows that this is what happened to Israel eventually because they failed to follow these instructions from God. All Canaanites were devoted to death already from God since their religious practices became full of idolatry, prostitution, and homosexuality; and the way they were going to be put to death was from Israel as their executioner. As the Student Manual says, “The failure of Israel to execute it fully became finally their own judgment.”

Many of the sins found among the people living in Canaan are prevalent in today’s society. I think that in order to protect ourselves from the sins that the Canaanites were involved in is being aware of what the prophets teach us in our day. The Lord is constantly telling us what we should be doing and what we should avoid through our prophet and if we listen to him and heed his words, then we will be protected from spiritual death. Many people today claim that homosexual behavior is okay and that we should love our fellow brethren and support them. They forget the commandment to love God first over anybody else, which means to obey the commandments He has put in place, which is standing up for what He has told us to do and not do and not condoning or supporting behavior that He has explicitly told us not to involve ourselves in. We can love our fellow brethren without supporting their behaviors and sins. We are all trying to be better disciples of Christ in overcoming temptations and sins; we shouldn’t support others in committing sins either.