Deuteronomy 7-8

"...and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them."

There's no sidestepping this one. God ordered the Israelites to drive the inhabitants of their land out with absolute totality - not to entertain peaceful coexistence, not to ask them politely to leave, but to utterly destroy them. 

This is a difficult passage to swallow, especially for our culture's conception of God as a fluffy marshmallow that plays a harp in the clouds. How could God command Israel to wipe out all these innocent people? How could a loving God do that?

This passage is also a favorite of atheists who like to paint a picture of the Judeo-Christian God as a completely preposterous being. It is one of the pet passages used by the militant pop atheist Richard Dawkins who asserts the following:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

While this characterization of God is anything but accurate, there is still something unsettling about the slaughter of the tribes in this passage. I want to propose a few questions that may help when processing through this issue:

     - Given Israel's track record, would they have been able to coexist with these wicked pagan cultures without adopting some of their practices?

     - In light of God's plans that He executed through the people of Israel, what would the consequences have been if Israel had fallen into the wickedness and idolatry of the Canaanites?

     - We typically think of killing 'innocent' people as the sin of murder. Is the taking of a life as commanded by God murder? 

     - God is perfectly just and holy, which means that by His nature he hates evil and must separate evil from Himself in judgement. Did these pagan cultures that practiced evil things like child sacrifice somehow 'deserve' something other than the wages of their sin?

     - It is certainly wrong for us to arbitrarily decide to end someone's life. Can it ever be wrong for God to take what He has given? 

     - Didn't they deserve a chance to turn from their evil ways? God had patiently allowed the pagan cultures to wallow in their own destruction for about 400 years already - how much longer should He have withheld His judgement?

While it is a startling part of the Story, it reveals a great deal about the nature of God and our relationship with Him. He is not to be part of our lives, or part of what we worship. He is all, or He is nothing. He would not allow the Israelites to dilute their worship with pagan rituals and false idols. It's the ultimate binary operator - anything we worship that is not fully God is fully not God.

"And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish."

When we recognize idols of worship that are not of God in our lives, we must do as the Israelites were instructed to do - give no quarter and show no mercy!