Original Meaning
Encouraging the Troops for War (20:1–9)
MOSES’ INSTRUCTIONS ON WAR begin logically with mustering the troops, for this is where military engagements begin. Although the focus shifts slightly in the midsection, this segment is held together by the framing motif of fear, which dominates verses 1–4 and 8–9.
The priest’s exhortation (vv. 1–4). Moses begins by describing the context that calls for courage: “When you go to war against your enemies.” The clause suggests an offensive rather than defensive military operation.6 From the reference to Yahweh’s presence in their midst (v. 1) and the priest’s use of “today” (v. 3), it is obvious Moses has in view primarily the battles against the Canaanite nations (cf. 7:1), whom he had earlier (as here) exhorted his people not to fear (7:18). Not until verse 15 do we learn that he may have more in mind than the wars of conquest of the Promised Land. The collective second person singular suggests that these instructions involve a citizens’ army (cf. Num. 1–2; 26) rather than a standing force of professionals, mercenaries, crack troops,7 or conscripts forced into military service.8
For Moses the pastor the primary issue in verses 1–9 is fear. Verses 1–4 address the matter from three perspectives. (1) He acknowledges the cause of fear: the sight of horses and chariots and military forces superior to Israel’s own. Although only a minority in the audience had witnessed Yahweh’s annihilation of Pharaoh’s fleet of horses and chariots at the Red Sea (Ex. 14–15), they were all aware of the threat posed by these movable platforms for launching spears and arrows (cf. Josh. 11:4; 17:16; Judg. 1:19; 4:3).9 Combined with “people more numerous than you” (NIV, “an army greater than yours”), the description presents a perfect recipe for fear (cf. 7:17).
(2) Moses announces the antidote to fear. As in 7:17, he begins with an appeal, “Do not be afraid of them,” followed by a reminder of Yahweh’s presence with them. The form of the exhortation involving the durative imperfect calls for courage as a matter of course.10 The reminder that Yahweh will be with them abbreviates Moses’ longer speech in 7:18–21. Arguing from greater to lesser, he reassures Israel that if Yahweh could liberate them by defeating the superior Egyptians, his presence will surely guarantee victory against the Canaanites.
(3) Moses prescribes a method whereby this fear may be dispelled in the future in specific battle situations. Whereas in the past he had seen the people through crises, in the future that responsibility will rest with the priest.11 In fact, to ensure that his own voice will be heard whenever the Israelites go out to war, he composes the speech the priests are to deliver to the troops.12 This speech exhibits the classical features of a military oration (2b–4):13
Narrative preamble | When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: |
Call to attention | “Hear, O Israel! |
Declaration of the crisis | Today you are going into battle against your enemies. |
Appeal for courage | Do not be fainthearted;14 [do not be] afraid; do not be terrified; [do not] give way to panic before them. |
The grounds for encouragement | For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” |
The intensity of the emotional crisis that the sight of formidable enemy forces might create is reflected in the fourfold appeal for courage (cf. 31:6). Verse 4 declares the basis for future courage in the face of powerful enemies (cf. 1:30; 3:22). If verse 1b summarizes 7:18–21, then verse 4 summarizes 7:22–24, where Moses described in greater detail the way Yahweh would deliver the nations of Canaan and their kings into the hands of the Israelites.15
The officials’ speeches (vv. 5–9). In a surprising turn, verse 5 introduces a new group of interlocutors, the “officers” (šôṭerîm; see comments on 1:16). These seem to have been literate nonmilitary officials, perhaps Levites16 charged with mustering the troops and keeping records of their names and numbers. This text suggests they were also responsible for screening recruits. Technically verses 5–8 consist of two speeches (vv. 5–7 and v. 8), though the second speech simply carries on the questioning of the first speech. Like verse 3, Moses dictates these speeches so that even after he is gone, recruits will hear his voice as officers try to identify any who should be excused from military service. Moses’ penchant for triadic constructions is evident in verses 5–7, which divide into three parts with virtually identical form, as the synopsis of a literal translations shows:17
| The Speeches of the “Officers” in Deuteronomy 20:5–8 |
|---|
The First Speech | The Second Speech |
20:5 | 20:6 | 20:7 | 20:8 |
Who is the man who has built a new house and has not taken occupancy of it? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else dedicate it. | Who is the man who has planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it. | Who is the man who has been engaged to a woman and not married her? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her. | Who is the man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back home, or he will cause to melt the heart of his fellows like his own. |
The question with which each phase opens reflects a common situation in which a person addresses a crowd. Here the official wants to know if anyone among the troops has just built a house but has not had a chance to occupy it; has planted a vineyard but not yet eaten of its fruit; or has paid the bride price but has not yet consummated the marriage.
Each of these three scenarios demands a brief comment. The meaning of ḥānak in the first scenario (v. 5) is uncertain. The NIV’s rendering, “dedicate,” follows a longstanding tradition. However, the recurrence of this motif in 28:30, where ḥānak is substituted with yāšab bô (“to live in it”) and the absence of any evidence of dedication ceremonies for private homes in the Old Testament suggest the word means simply “to establish residence in.”18 This need not exclude a “housewarming” ceremony of initiation.19
The crux of the second scenario involves the expression ḥillelô (“begin to enjoy it”).20 According to Leviticus 19:23–25, the fruit of trees could not be eaten for five years. Since this scenario involves grapes rather than fruit trees, the time may have been reduced. A five-year military exemption seems unlikely.
The third scenario involves marriage, the most domestic act of all. In ancient Israel, when parents deemed children to be approaching marriageable age,21 the father of the groom would contact the parents of the potential spouse and negotiate the terms of marriage, specifically the nature and size of the “marriage present.”22 Agreement by the parents of the bride would signal the engagement, and the bride and groom would be married after a period of betrothal.23
While analogues to these military exemptions are attested in extrabiblical literature,24 nowhere are they expressed as clearly as here. Such exemptions were governed by the conviction that engagement in warfare rendered persons in transitional states particularly vulnerable. The last sentence of each scenario identifies the problem: the newly married man might be killed in battle, leaving another man to move into his house, to eat the fruit of his vineyard, or to marry the woman who should have been his wife. Policies granting military exemption compassionately affirm family and domestic values25 and the right to enjoy the blessings of life. These exemptions also represent adaptations of “futility curses,” found in ancient Near Eastern treaties and other documents,26 as well as the covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28:30–31, 38–40. These futility curses undermine the basic order of the universe, in which a specific cause yields a specific and natural result.
While many treat verses 5–7 as independent insertions, these verses also address fears associated with warfare. The fear is not death itself but the consequences of death, both for the individual and for the nation. By exempting these men from military service, Moses provides an answer to both undesirable outcomes.
The officials’ second speech (vv. 8–9). Speaking of fear, the second speech addresses this issue directly. Although slightly shorter, structurally this speech mimics the three phases of the previous speech. However, the issue in the opening question is not the personal consequences of being killed in battle but the effect of the person’s presence among the troops. The expressions describing his disposition, “afraid” and “fainthearted,” are borrowed from verse 3. This remarkable statement exempts a would-be warrior from military service out of respect for the psychological effect of his presence on his comrades (“his brothers”). Despite the persistent acknowledgment of Yahweh’s hand in Israel’s battles, this statement recognizes the human dimension of war. To the fainthearted, the brutality and life-threatening nature of war cause fear. Unlike royal armies manned with conscripted troops, when Israel’s citizen army fights Yahweh’s wars, the character of individual troops is more important than their numbers.
Verse 9 is transitional, describing the final stage in preparing soldiers for war. After the “officers” have delivered their speeches, and after those with legitimate reasons for exemption and those who are fearful have returned home, the officials are to appoint “commanders” to lead the army into battle. Some speculate that the “officers” lacked authority to make such appointments,27 but given the sacral nature of Israel’s warfare, it seems reasonable that these officials might come from the ranks of the Levites.28 If the king was subordinate to the Levitical priests (17:18), Levitical “officers” could have appointed the captains of the army.
Bridging Contexts
HISTORY OF MILITARY EXEMPTIONS. It is difficult to evaluate the degree to which the instructions concerning warfare given here were applied in Israel’s conflicts with their enemies. The question of military exemption for reasons of fear surfaces in several narratives. Hushai recognized the demoralizing effect of a fainthearted soldier in the ranks of warriors in his counsel to Absalom in 2 Samuel 17:8–10. The element of fear is highlighted even more dramatically in Gideon’s reduction of troops in Judges 7:1–6. Functioning as one of these officers, Gideon declared, “Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead” (7:3). When 22,000 troops accepted his release, 10,000 men remained, but these were ultimately reduced to 300. While fear was the occasion for their departure, Judges 7:2 declares in typically Deuteronomic style the true reason for the reduction of fighting men: “in order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her” (cf. Deut. 8:17).
History of ḥērem. Although the laws of warfare in general and the policy of ḥērem in particular as taught here were intended to be determinative for Israel’s engagement of the nations, the subsequent narratives suggest the policy of ḥērem was inconsistently followed. Joshua seems to have applied the specifications of Deuteronomy 20:16 only to Jericho (Josh. 6:24), Ai (8:26–28), and Hazor (11:11–13).48 While the populations of other conquered cities appear to have been annihilated, the cities and their resources were apparently spared for Israelite use, in fulfillment of Deuteronomy 6:10–11.
Historiographic references to the policy are rare elsewhere. The expression of ḥērem is missing in Joshua 7:22–26, but we should interpret the burning of Achan and his household in the light of Deuteronomy 7:25–26. Judges 1:17 notes that Judah and Simeon treated Zephath with ḥērem warfare and renamed the town Hormah accordingly. While the Amalekites were not included in the Canaanite nations targeted for ḥērem, because of their interference with Yahweh’s plan for Israel at the time of the exodus, Samuel charged Saul to apply the policy to them (1 Sam. 15). Saul’s incomplete compliance contributed ultimately to Yahweh’s retraction of kingship from him.
In the latter prophets ḥērem functions variously, but especially as a convenient expression for total destruction, often associated with the “day of the LORD.”49 According to Jeremiah 25:9, Yahweh will send Nebuchadnezzar to Palestine as his instrument of ḥērem against Judah. In 51:3 the roles are reversed.
While the term ḥērem is obviously missing in the New Testament, the concept is not.50 Based upon LXX’s moderate preference for rendering ḥērem as anathema, which in classical Greek denotes “something dedicated or consecrated to the deity,” the motif may be recognized in a series of texts involving curses, though always of individuals.51 Nowhere, not even in Revelation, is the expression used in a military context, though the image of Babylon going up in smoke in chapter 18 is reminiscent of the burning of Jericho, Ai, and Hazor in Joshua.
Contemporary Significance
INTERPRETING ḤĒREM TODAY. NO image in the Old Testament is as troublesome, if not offensive, to modern readers as that of Yahweh, the God of Israel, not only tolerating the extermination of the Canaanites, but explicitly prescribing ḥērem for all the inhabitants of the land. How can this be reconciled with the New Testament’s portrayal of God as a God of love in the person of Jesus Christ and of Yahweh’s self-portraiture in the Old Testament as a God of grace and mercy, as expressed, for example, in Exodus 34:6–7?
Deuteronomy 20 itself seems to paint an inconsistent ethical picture. On the one hand, it expresses a remarkably enlightened humanity in: (1) providing military exemption for the fearful and those who have taken important domestic initiatives but have not had a chance to enjoy the fruit of those actions; (2) mandating targeted cities with opportunities for peaceful surrender before attacking; (3) prohibiting Israelites from using the wood of fruit trees to make military hardware. On the other hand, the demand to slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan—men, women, and children—sounds more like a diabolical plot than a policy prescribed by God as we know him. This policy acknowledges the violence of war, but it also mandates and magnifies it, and portrays Yahweh as an active participant in it. While we justify this policy on textual grounds,52 how can this genocide be justified morally?
Some have answered the question by allegorizing the notion. The genocidal commands are not meant to be taken at face value but rather were designed to convey some sort of higher truth about Christ. John Cassian, a Scythian monk (from what is modern Bulgaria; ca. AD 360–435), suggested that the seven nations whose land God promised to Israel in Deuteronomy 7:1 signify seven virtues necessary to overcome innumerable vices.53 Some resolve this difficult question by appealing either to the contrasting ethics espoused by the Old and New Testaments, or to progress in revelation.54 Unless one concedes to some sort of process theology, whereby God’s own maturation and progressive enlightenment mirrors that of the human race, neither approach answers the theological question: How can God mandate war and violence in any era? The ethical issues involved in the divine charge to annihilate the Canaanites are complex and cannot be answered quickly. At the risk of being simplistic, those who wrestle with this problem must take into account a series of considerations. In isolation none satisfies completely, but taken together they provide necessary perspective.55
1. The policy of ḥērem is not a distinctly Old Testament issue. As we noted earlier, similar policies were practiced in the second millennium BC by the Hittites,56 and in the first millennium by Moabites.57
2. The policy of ḥērem was divinely prescribed. As the creator of all things and all human beings and as the one who is sovereign over all, God can do anything he wants with anyone and be right in doing so. He was Israel’s Commander-in-Chief, and if he commands the Israelites to eliminate the Canaanites, he is perfectly within his rights to do so. He does not need to account to us for his actions or his commands (Jer. 18:6–10).
3. The policy of ḥērem retains an element of mystery. How could a God of mercy and grace call for the extermination of an entire population? But the ways of God are a mystery. Since we will never completely understand him, we should learn to relax with the questions in our minds. Isaiah 55:8–9 offers some consolation.
4. The policy of ḥērem directed at the Canaanites was neither an impulsive nor an arbitrary policy, but the culmination of an ancient plan. While this consideration does not remove the sting of the violence against a targeted race of people, readers of the Pentateuch have anticipated this since Genesis 15:18–21, where Yahweh promised Abraham that after four centuries he would take the land from the peoples of the land and hand it over to Abraham’s descendants. Yahweh’s fidelity to this promise underlies his call of Moses forty years prior to the delivery of this address (Ex. 3:8; 6:8), and through the defeat of Sihon and Og the Cisjordanian nations were warned of the fate awaiting them. God’s elimination of the Canaanites was a necessary step in the history of salvation. For Israel to achieve the goals that he had in mind for them—that they might declare to the world his glory and grace—they needed a clean slate. It is a matter of ethical rather than ethnic cleansing. A holy people requires a holy land.
5. The policy of ḥērem was a divinely ordained means of dealing with sin. It was not driven by genocidal or military considerations, but the need to eradicate evil and prevent evil from spreading to the new population. The Canaanites were probably no more degenerate than other peoples of the time and region, but the policy was rooted in the perception of them as particularly wicked (Gen. 15:16). Their practices as a threat to the spiritual and ethical integrity of Israel, the holy people of Yahweh, actually reflect Yahweh’s grace toward the other nations, who deserved the same fate.
As Moses had emphatically declared in 9:1–24, this did not mean the Israelites’ superior moral state entitled them to the land; rather, it represents Yahweh’s strategy for preserving for himself a holy people. But the elimination of the Canaanites was neither the first nor the last time God did/would do this. The difference between the destruction of the Canaanites and all of humanity (except for Noah’s family) as described in Genesis 6–9 is one of scale and of agency. God chooses a variety of ways to punish people for wickedness. Sometimes it is through natural disaster, sometimes through plagues or drought or sickness (Lev. 26 and Deut. 28). The difference with the Canaanites is that this time he chose human beings to be the agents of judgment. But he would do so many times in history.
6. The policy of ḥērem assumes a paradigmatic role both for Israelites and Canaanites. The latter suffered a fate that ultimately all sinners will face: the judgment of God. The law of ḥērem is one of many ways in which God executes justice on a sinful people. Later in Deuteronomy, he will catalogue the resources available to him to accomplish this task when Israel herself is the targeted people (32:22–25). Within this list of agents, the sword, which serves metonymically for war, is exceptional because it alone involves the active participation of people in carrying out the plan of God.58
While the ḥērem ordinance represents a particular kind of war, in its objectives, the extermination of the Canaanites is of a piece with God’s actions against the human population as a whole in the great deluge (Gen. 6–9), his call for the destruction of the Midianites (Num. 31), his destruction of Judah (Ezek. 4–24), and his eschatological defeat of the forces of evil in Revelation. Insofar as the law of ḥērem was directed against a particular target, it depicts in microcosm the fate that awaits all who reject Yahweh as God and Savior. The Scriptures are consistent in their message that evil and rebellion against Yahweh yield death. Apart from the grace of God, this is the fate of all. The difference between Canaanites subject to this law and the ultimate destiny of other sinful inhabitants of the world is that Yahweh used his people Israel as human agents to send them to their fate.
7. The policy of ḥērem applied to a particular people at a particular time. According to Moses, as a fundamental part of Israelite war strategy the law of ḥērem applied only to their conflict with Canaanites. In fact, the scope of this law was strictly circumscribed by restricting it to cities within Israel’s Promised Land and listing the targeted peoples by name (7:1; 20:17). Deuteronomy 20 declares unequivocally that this was not to become general policy governing Israel’s relationships with the nations. When they engaged in war against other nations, the first goal was to seek peace, and even when offers of peace were refused, to deal humanely with the innocent within the population. Yahweh retained the right to extend the policy to other peoples (e.g., Midianites, Amalekites), but the Israelites were not free to do so on their own. Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Aramaeans were outside the scope of this policy.59 And, contrary to the way Christians have used these texts, this policy provides no justification for Christian violence against Jews and Muslims in the context of the Crusades or European claims to some sort of “manifest destiny” in their slaughter of Native Americans.
8. The policy of ḥērem assumed a sense of corporate identity and corporate solidarity that is difficult for modern Westerners to understand. To us each individual is a separate entity, and individual fulfillment is the highest ideal. However, according to the ancient Near Eastern ideal, individuals found their significance and identity in relation to the community. When one person hurts, all hurt; when one prospers, all prosper (1 Cor. 12–14). For this reason, few ancients would have objected when children shared the fate of their parents. This principle applied both to Canaanites and to the Israelites themselves (Ex. 20:3–6; 34:6–7; Deut. 5:8–10).
9. While the policy of ḥērem involves a comprehensive call for the extermination, the door was opened for exceptions. It is true that Deuteronomy and other biblical texts consistently portray the Canaanites as enemies of Israel rather than as potential “converts.”60 Nevertheless, the sparing of Rahab and her household demonstrates that Canaanites who acknowledged Yahweh and cast their lot with his people would find grace and deliverance in him. The Canaanites had at least forty years of advance warning (cf. Rahab’s confession in Josh. 2:8–11), and any individual who declared faith in Yahweh would be spared. Indeed, so complete was Rahab’s incorporation into the community of faith that in the providence of God she became the ancestress of Jesus (Matt. 1:5). If God can save Rahab, he can save anyone.
10. The policy of ḥērem plays no favorites. Although seven specific nations were targeted, Moses emphasized that if the Israelites act like Canaanites, abandon Yahweh, and serve other gods, they too will be subject to the same law—men, women, and children (Deut. 7:25–26; 13:12–17[13–18]). The severity of the prescription in 13:15–16[16–17] for Israelite towns that defect exceeds what chapter 7 and 20:16–18 demand of Canaanite towns. Whereas 7:1–5, 25–26 had called for the utter destruction of the people and their cultic installations and artifacts, and 20:16–18 “any [person] that breathes,” 13:15–16[16–17] specifies the destruction of the inhabitants of any idolatrous Israelite town and all that was in it, including its livestock. All its booty (cf. 20:14) was to be gathered in the open square and burnt as an offering to Yahweh. With the privilege of bearing the labels “chosen by Yahweh,” “people of Yahweh,” “Yahweh’s treasure,” and “children of Yahweh” comes the weighty responsibility of loving him and representing him well before a watching world. But the Israelites lost sight of their mission, and in 734–22 BC the northern kingdom went the way of the Canaanites, and 586 BC the kingdom of Judah followed.
None of these answers will satisfy everyone, and none of them should be taken in isolation. The challenge for us is that we treasure God’s grace in our own lives and pray for him to extend his grace to others. Perhaps when they see what God has done for us, outsiders will, like Rahab, confess faith in our God.
If it was illegitimate for Israelites to extend the scope of the law of ḥērem to other nations in Old Testament times, how much less can this be done after the cross and the establishment of the transnational church as God’s agents of grace and revelation. Since the “people of God” are no longer defined nationally or ethnically, none of the wars in which contemporary nations engage can be equated with Israel’s wars against the Canaanites, and efforts to claim “God is on our side” generally sound presumptuous and arrogant. The church is indeed engaged in warfare; but this conflict is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers arrayed against God and his church. This battle is not fought with physical spears and swords but with all the spiritual resources provided by God (Eph. 6:10–20).
While the New Testament recognizes that the kingdoms of this world will continue to solve their conflicts with violence and war, the troops in the divine army march at the orders of the divine Commander-in-Chief. The Lord calls on his people to return evil directed at them with good, to turn the other cheek to those who abuse them, and like Christ to sacrifice their lives that others may live. In this kingdom of radicals committed to bringing peace rather than war, the next person’s right to life always takes precedence over my own.61 The law of ḥērem was never about vengeance in the Old Testament, and Christians must beware of taking vengeance into their own hands. Those who walk by faith trust God to defend his own.
Original Meaning
Instructions for the Troops in Battle (20:10–20)
THE OPENING CLAUSE SETS the theme: “When you approach a town to fight against it” (pers. trans.). Like the preceding verses, this text divides into two parts, verses 10–14 and 16–18, with verse 15 functioning as a literary hinge. Moses highlights the differences in military policy between the way Israelites treat distant towns and towns within the Promised Land.
Instructions for distant campaigns (vv. 10–15). While Moses has not indicated that the campaigns envisaged here are anything other than the conquest of Canaan, the contrast between the treatment of targeted cities in verses 10–14 and 7:1–5 raises questions, which Moses will answer in verse 15. The strategies prescribed for military engagement are typical of those followed by Near Eastern kings in military campaigns. Upon approaching a targeted town, the Israelites are to offer it a chance to surrender peacefully.29 To accept the offer means to accept subject status, though without the horrendous consequences of defeat in battle.
Verses 11–12 present two alternatives open to the targeted town. If “Peace!” is their answer and they open the gates of the city to the Israelites, they are to spare the lives of the entire population of the town (v. 11). However, they may impose corvée labor on them30 and have them serve as vassals.31 Alternatively, if they reject peace and “engage you in battle,” then the armies of Israel may go on the offensive in subduing the town (v. 12). The sanctioned response involves four stages.
(1) They are to “lay siege” to the town (vv. 12b–13a). In the Old Testament a town is by definition a settlement fortified by walls, towers, and defensive gate structures, precisely the scenario envisaged here. If an invading army could not force its way through the gates or quickly create a breach in the walls, they would lay siege to it, preventing inhabitants from escaping and supplies from being brought in. Depending on the resources inside the city, sieges could last for several years. However, enemy armies would attempt to hasten its fall by trying to penetrate the walls even as the siege was being conducted.32
Ezekiel 4:2 provides the most detailed description of siege tactics, listing four typical elements: siege walls, siege ramps, the deployment of troops, and battering rams.33 Though the citizen armies of Israel would not have had access to the technology or resources of later Assyrian emperors, our text puts no stock in the strategy or technology of the Israelites. The ultimate fall of the city will be credited to Yahweh, who delivers it into their hands (v. 13a).
(2) They are to slaughter all the male inhabitants (v. 13b). Echoing an idiom from 13:15[16] Moses calls for the slaughter of all adult males, who represent the key to resistance and the backbone of the town’s economy and administration.
(3) They may plunder the town (v. 14a). With the strong adversative particle raq (“only, except”; NIV “as for”), this verse highlights the contrast between the treatment of adult males and the rest of the population. The Israelites may claim the livestock and everything else in the town as booty, and women and children as spoils of war. The instructions regarding women and children are more generous than the treatment they had afforded the Midianites in Numbers 31:15–17. However, the situations are different. The present text envisages campaigns of territorial conquest, whereas in the Midianite battle the Israelites served as agents of divine vengeance (Num. 31:3).
(4) They can make use of the booty (v. 14b). The most common meaning of ʾākal is “to eat,” but its semantic range is equivalent to English “consume,” which may mean “to destroy” (cf. 7:16) or “to use,” as in Consumer Reports. The latter sense is intended here; the Israelites may use the spoil of battle, receiving it as a gift from Yahweh.
In verse 15 we finally learn why this policy differs so sharply from the policies outlined in chapter 7. These instructions apply to campaigns against “all the cities that are at a distance from you” in contrast to these towns that “belong to the nations nearby.” The latter refers to the land west of the Jordan promised to the fathers, now occupied by the seven Canaanite nations (7:1). The insertion of verses 10–15 suggests that Yahweh’s long-range plan for Israel allowed additional conquests. This would probably involve those territories occupied largely by Aramaeans—territory that Yahweh had promised to Abraham (Gen. 15:18–21) and to which Deuteronomy 1:7–8 and 11:24–25 had referred (cf. 19:8–9).
Instructions for campaigns nearby (vv. 16–18). Like verse 14, verse 16 opens with the adversative particle raq, which signals a new type of campaign (NIV, “However”). Building on the law of ḥērem as prescribed in chapter 7, Moses calls for the total destruction of Canaanite cities and their dedication to Yahweh. As we noted in chapter 7, the verbal expression “to destroy totally” expresses a concept that is as much religious as military. This explains why in 7:1–6 and here the rationale does not address the military threat the enemy poses, but focuses totally on the religious implications of their survival. But what does this paragraph specifically teach about the Israelite approach to the policy of ḥērem?
(1) The policy demands the slaughter of the entire human population of the Canaanite towns. Whereas the women and children of distant towns that reject Israel’s peaceful overtures are to be spared, in the cities of the land Yahweh is giving to Israel as their grant (naḥalâ), nothing “that breathes” is to survive.34 Towns in the Promised Land proper are to be treated even more severely than the towns east of the Jordan had been (cf. 2:34–35; 3:4–7).
(2) The policy of ḥērem is strictly circumscribed. The exception created for distant towns outside the naḥalâ demonstrate that this was never intended to be a fundamental part of Israel’s military policy (vv. 1–15). This circumscription is reinforced by the explicit naming of the people groups whose towns are targeted both here and in 7:1. The Transjordanian nations to the east (Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites) and the Aramaean city states to the north are excluded.
(3) This policy did not originate with politicians or military leaders but derives from Yahweh himself. The addition of “as the LORD your God has commanded you” at the end of verse 17 drives both hearer and reader to search for antecedent texts.35 Chapter 7 provides an obvious candidate,36 except that those instructions on the ḥērem are cast as speech from Moses’ mouth. Here Moses seems to have in mind the treatment of Canaanites prescribed by Yahweh at Sinai (Ex. 23:23–33, 34:11–16) and reiterated on the plains of Moab (Num. 33:51–55). Admittedly the root ḥrm does not appear in the Exodus and Numbers texts, but the antiquity of the notion is demonstrated by the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 22:19[18]) and the Sinaitic laws concerning vows (Lev. 27:28). That Deuteronomy should apply the word ḥrm to the campaigns against the Canaanites in place of gāraš (“to drive out”) reflects a crystallization of the agenda in Moses’ mind as he approaches the actual invasion of the land.
(4) As noted above, the ḥērem policy was driven by religious rather than genocidal or military considerations: the need to “keep Yahweh’s holy people free from syncretism and idolatry.”37 For Israel, implementing ḥērem on a town not only secured its absolute transfer to the divine sphere; it was also intended to secure Israel’s survival. At the level of the material, it prevented Israelites from contamination by contact with the “devoted” articles, which would have brought them under the same curse and subject to destruction (7:25–26). At the level of the spirit, it cut off the possibility of the Canaanites teaching the Israelites their abominable religious practices (cf. 12:30–31; 13:1–18[2–19]; 18:9).
The earlier texts had explicitly repudiated the worship of Canaanite gods (Ex. 23:24, 33; 34:14–15), called for the obliteration of their cultic installations (Ex. 23:24; 34:13; Num. 33:52), prohibited the Israelites from making any covenants with the Canaanites or their gods (Ex. 23:32; 34:15) or intermarrying with the Canaanites (Ex. 34:16), and warned of the seductive attraction of Canaanite religious practices (Ex. 23:33; 34:15). These motifs drive chapter 7 and underlie 20:18.
Moses the pastor is keenly aware of the threat that Canaanite religion poses to the spiritual integrity of God’s people. To prepare them for this threat, he reinforces the policy established by Yahweh at Mount Sinai, insisting that the utter elimination of the pagan population is necessary to ensure Israel’s fidelity to Yahweh. Presupposing that “law responds to reality post factum, only then attempting to govern it,”38 critical scholars generally insist that these instructions on ḥērem represent a late addition to an earlier core of laws on warfare in Israel.39 But this reasoning is fallacious. (1) Policies analogous to Israel’s ḥērem were widespread in the ancient world and are attested in the second millennium. (2) Laws attempting to prohibit an abuse or undesirable action need not presuppose the abuse is already a problem; they may just as well be preventative, attempting to forestall a potential problem in the future, in which case they argue for the nonexistence of the issue at hand.40
Instructions for troops in siege warfare (vv. 19–20). Another temporal clause in verse 19 signals the beginning of the last subsection of this chapter and sets the context for brief instruction on siege warfare. The text envisions difficulty in subduing targeted towns because the inhabitants refuse to engage Israel in battle, forcing them to wear down the town with a protracted siege. It does not specify which towns are in view,41 but it seems the policies apply to all enemy towns—both near and far, but especially those nearby.42 Because the Israelites will be taking over the land in the hands of Canaanites, following these instructions becomes even more critical for their own long-range interests.
Remarkably, Moses does not outline a strategy for the Israelites to follow in a protracted siege. Instead, he speaks about preserving the natural environment around the town, charging the people not to destroy the fruit trees by wielding their axes against them. In ancient warfare strategy, the trees of vanquished territories would be cut down for several reasons: (1) as wood for siege structures and fuel for the invaders; (2) as retribution for the enemy’s resistance and defiance; (3) as a tactic in psychological warfare, to hasten submission.43 While the form of the prohibition suggests a comprehensive policy against cutting down any trees, the motive clause, “because you can eat their fruit,” and the specification “fruit trees” in verse 20 focuses on the implications of deforestation for the food supply. In the long term, using the wood of fruit trees to construct siege works44 is counterproductive to Israel’s well-being.
The NIV and most translations render the last clause of verse 19 as a rhetorical question, “Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?” Since trees are immobile, they obviously cannot retreat within the walls for protection, let alone defend themselves against a hostile axe. By this interpretation the statement is devoid of practical considerations and extraordinarily humanitarian and ecological, attempting to inspire sympathy for trees that have neither mind nor heart.45 While the Hebrew construction is cryptic, it is not cast as a question. It is preferable to interpret the clause more practically and to translate the second half of the verse something like, “You must not cut them down—for humankind [depends on] trees of the field—in order [for the town] to come under the siege before you.”46
The NKJV interprets the phrase correctly: “for the tree of the field is man’s food.” The expression reflects human subsistence from fruit trees and represents an idiomatic way of saying, “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” or “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”47 The trees symbolize life. Since the Israelites will have conquered the fields around the besieged city and eventually will occupy the city, it is contrary to self-interest ruthlessly to cut down the orchards around the city.
Bridging Contexts
HISTORY OF MILITARY EXEMPTIONS. It is difficult to evaluate the degree to which the instructions concerning warfare given here were applied in Israel’s conflicts with their enemies. The question of military exemption for reasons of fear surfaces in several narratives. Hushai recognized the demoralizing effect of a fainthearted soldier in the ranks of warriors in his counsel to Absalom in 2 Samuel 17:8–10. The element of fear is highlighted even more dramatically in Gideon’s reduction of troops in Judges 7:1–6. Functioning as one of these officers, Gideon declared, “Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead” (7:3). When 22,000 troops accepted his release, 10,000 men remained, but these were ultimately reduced to 300. While fear was the occasion for their departure, Judges 7:2 declares in typically Deuteronomic style the true reason for the reduction of fighting men: “in order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her” (cf. Deut. 8:17).
History of ḥērem. Although the laws of warfare in general and the policy of ḥērem in particular as taught here were intended to be determinative for Israel’s engagement of the nations, the subsequent narratives suggest the policy of ḥērem was inconsistently followed. Joshua seems to have applied the specifications of Deuteronomy 20:16 only to Jericho (Josh. 6:24), Ai (8:26–28), and Hazor (11:11–13).48 While the populations of other conquered cities appear to have been annihilated, the cities and their resources were apparently spared for Israelite use, in fulfillment of Deuteronomy 6:10–11.
Historiographic references to the policy are rare elsewhere. The expression of ḥērem is missing in Joshua 7:22–26, but we should interpret the burning of Achan and his household in the light of Deuteronomy 7:25–26. Judges 1:17 notes that Judah and Simeon treated Zephath with ḥērem warfare and renamed the town Hormah accordingly. While the Amalekites were not included in the Canaanite nations targeted for ḥērem, because of their interference with Yahweh’s plan for Israel at the time of the exodus, Samuel charged Saul to apply the policy to them (1 Sam. 15). Saul’s incomplete compliance contributed ultimately to Yahweh’s retraction of kingship from him.
In the latter prophets ḥērem functions variously, but especially as a convenient expression for total destruction, often associated with the “day of the LORD.”49 According to Jeremiah 25:9, Yahweh will send Nebuchadnezzar to Palestine as his instrument of ḥērem against Judah. In 51:3 the roles are reversed.
While the term ḥērem is obviously missing in the New Testament, the concept is not.50 Based upon LXX’s moderate preference for rendering ḥērem as anathema, which in classical Greek denotes “something dedicated or consecrated to the deity,” the motif may be recognized in a series of texts involving curses, though always of individuals.51 Nowhere, not even in Revelation, is the expression used in a military context, though the image of Babylon going up in smoke in chapter 18 is reminiscent of the burning of Jericho, Ai, and Hazor in Joshua.
Contemporary Significance
INTERPRETING ḤĒREM TODAY. NO image in the Old Testament is as troublesome, if not offensive, to modern readers as that of Yahweh, the God of Israel, not only tolerating the extermination of the Canaanites, but explicitly prescribing ḥērem for all the inhabitants of the land. How can this be reconciled with the New Testament’s portrayal of God as a God of love in the person of Jesus Christ and of Yahweh’s self-portraiture in the Old Testament as a God of grace and mercy, as expressed, for example, in Exodus 34:6–7?
Deuteronomy 20 itself seems to paint an inconsistent ethical picture. On the one hand, it expresses a remarkably enlightened humanity in: (1) providing military exemption for the fearful and those who have taken important domestic initiatives but have not had a chance to enjoy the fruit of those actions; (2) mandating targeted cities with opportunities for peaceful surrender before attacking; (3) prohibiting Israelites from using the wood of fruit trees to make military hardware. On the other hand, the demand to slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan—men, women, and children—sounds more like a diabolical plot than a policy prescribed by God as we know him. This policy acknowledges the violence of war, but it also mandates and magnifies it, and portrays Yahweh as an active participant in it. While we justify this policy on textual grounds,52 how can this genocide be justified morally?
Some have answered the question by allegorizing the notion. The genocidal commands are not meant to be taken at face value but rather were designed to convey some sort of higher truth about Christ. John Cassian, a Scythian monk (from what is modern Bulgaria; ca. AD 360–435), suggested that the seven nations whose land God promised to Israel in Deuteronomy 7:1 signify seven virtues necessary to overcome innumerable vices.53 Some resolve this difficult question by appealing either to the contrasting ethics espoused by the Old and New Testaments, or to progress in revelation.54 Unless one concedes to some sort of process theology, whereby God’s own maturation and progressive enlightenment mirrors that of the human race, neither approach answers the theological question: How can God mandate war and violence in any era? The ethical issues involved in the divine charge to annihilate the Canaanites are complex and cannot be answered quickly. At the risk of being simplistic, those who wrestle with this problem must take into account a series of considerations. In isolation none satisfies completely, but taken together they provide necessary perspective.55
1. The policy of ḥērem is not a distinctly Old Testament issue. As we noted earlier, similar policies were practiced in the second millennium BC by the Hittites,56 and in the first millennium by Moabites.57
2. The policy of ḥērem was divinely prescribed. As the creator of all things and all human beings and as the one who is sovereign over all, God can do anything he wants with anyone and be right in doing so. He was Israel’s Commander-in-Chief, and if he commands the Israelites to eliminate the Canaanites, he is perfectly within his rights to do so. He does not need to account to us for his actions or his commands (Jer. 18:6–10).
3. The policy of ḥērem retains an element of mystery. How could a God of mercy and grace call for the extermination of an entire population? But the ways of God are a mystery. Since we will never completely understand him, we should learn to relax with the questions in our minds. Isaiah 55:8–9 offers some consolation.
4. The policy of ḥērem directed at the Canaanites was neither an impulsive nor an arbitrary policy, but the culmination of an ancient plan. While this consideration does not remove the sting of the violence against a targeted race of people, readers of the Pentateuch have anticipated this since Genesis 15:18–21, where Yahweh promised Abraham that after four centuries he would take the land from the peoples of the land and hand it over to Abraham’s descendants. Yahweh’s fidelity to this promise underlies his call of Moses forty years prior to the delivery of this address (Ex. 3:8; 6:8), and through the defeat of Sihon and Og the Cisjordanian nations were warned of the fate awaiting them. God’s elimination of the Canaanites was a necessary step in the history of salvation. For Israel to achieve the goals that he had in mind for them—that they might declare to the world his glory and grace—they needed a clean slate. It is a matter of ethical rather than ethnic cleansing. A holy people requires a holy land.
5. The policy of ḥērem was a divinely ordained means of dealing with sin. It was not driven by genocidal or military considerations, but the need to eradicate evil and prevent evil from spreading to the new population. The Canaanites were probably no more degenerate than other peoples of the time and region, but the policy was rooted in the perception of them as particularly wicked (Gen. 15:16). Their practices as a threat to the spiritual and ethical integrity of Israel, the holy people of Yahweh, actually reflect Yahweh’s grace toward the other nations, who deserved the same fate.
As Moses had emphatically declared in 9:1–24, this did not mean the Israelites’ superior moral state entitled them to the land; rather, it represents Yahweh’s strategy for preserving for himself a holy people. But the elimination of the Canaanites was neither the first nor the last time God did/would do this. The difference between the destruction of the Canaanites and all of humanity (except for Noah’s family) as described in Genesis 6–9 is one of scale and of agency. God chooses a variety of ways to punish people for wickedness. Sometimes it is through natural disaster, sometimes through plagues or drought or sickness (Lev. 26 and Deut. 28). The difference with the Canaanites is that this time he chose human beings to be the agents of judgment. But he would do so many times in history.
6. The policy of ḥērem assumes a paradigmatic role both for Israelites and Canaanites. The latter suffered a fate that ultimately all sinners will face: the judgment of God. The law of ḥērem is one of many ways in which God executes justice on a sinful people. Later in Deuteronomy, he will catalogue the resources available to him to accomplish this task when Israel herself is the targeted people (32:22–25). Within this list of agents, the sword, which serves metonymically for war, is exceptional because it alone involves the active participation of people in carrying out the plan of God.58
While the ḥērem ordinance represents a particular kind of war, in its objectives, the extermination of the Canaanites is of a piece with God’s actions against the human population as a whole in the great deluge (Gen. 6–9), his call for the destruction of the Midianites (Num. 31), his destruction of Judah (Ezek. 4–24), and his eschatological defeat of the forces of evil in Revelation. Insofar as the law of ḥērem was directed against a particular target, it depicts in microcosm the fate that awaits all who reject Yahweh as God and Savior. The Scriptures are consistent in their message that evil and rebellion against Yahweh yield death. Apart from the grace of God, this is the fate of all. The difference between Canaanites subject to this law and the ultimate destiny of other sinful inhabitants of the world is that Yahweh used his people Israel as human agents to send them to their fate.
7. The policy of ḥērem applied to a particular people at a particular time. According to Moses, as a fundamental part of Israelite war strategy the law of ḥērem applied only to their conflict with Canaanites. In fact, the scope of this law was strictly circumscribed by restricting it to cities within Israel’s Promised Land and listing the targeted peoples by name (7:1; 20:17). Deuteronomy 20 declares unequivocally that this was not to become general policy governing Israel’s relationships with the nations. When they engaged in war against other nations, the first goal was to seek peace, and even when offers of peace were refused, to deal humanely with the innocent within the population. Yahweh retained the right to extend the policy to other peoples (e.g., Midianites, Amalekites), but the Israelites were not free to do so on their own. Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Aramaeans were outside the scope of this policy.59 And, contrary to the way Christians have used these texts, this policy provides no justification for Christian violence against Jews and Muslims in the context of the Crusades or European claims to some sort of “manifest destiny” in their slaughter of Native Americans.
8. The policy of ḥērem assumed a sense of corporate identity and corporate solidarity that is difficult for modern Westerners to understand. To us each individual is a separate entity, and individual fulfillment is the highest ideal. However, according to the ancient Near Eastern ideal, individuals found their significance and identity in relation to the community. When one person hurts, all hurt; when one prospers, all prosper (1 Cor. 12–14). For this reason, few ancients would have objected when children shared the fate of their parents. This principle applied both to Canaanites and to the Israelites themselves (Ex. 20:3–6; 34:6–7; Deut. 5:8–10).
9. While the policy of ḥērem involves a comprehensive call for the extermination, the door was opened for exceptions. It is true that Deuteronomy and other biblical texts consistently portray the Canaanites as enemies of Israel rather than as potential “converts.”60 Nevertheless, the sparing of Rahab and her household demonstrates that Canaanites who acknowledged Yahweh and cast their lot with his people would find grace and deliverance in him. The Canaanites had at least forty years of advance warning (cf. Rahab’s confession in Josh. 2:8–11), and any individual who declared faith in Yahweh would be spared. Indeed, so complete was Rahab’s incorporation into the community of faith that in the providence of God she became the ancestress of Jesus (Matt. 1:5). If God can save Rahab, he can save anyone.
10. The policy of ḥērem plays no favorites. Although seven specific nations were targeted, Moses emphasized that if the Israelites act like Canaanites, abandon Yahweh, and serve other gods, they too will be subject to the same law—men, women, and children (Deut. 7:25–26; 13:12–17[13–18]). The severity of the prescription in 13:15–16[16–17] for Israelite towns that defect exceeds what chapter 7 and 20:16–18 demand of Canaanite towns. Whereas 7:1–5, 25–26 had called for the utter destruction of the people and their cultic installations and artifacts, and 20:16–18 “any [person] that breathes,” 13:15–16[16–17] specifies the destruction of the inhabitants of any idolatrous Israelite town and all that was in it, including its livestock. All its booty (cf. 20:14) was to be gathered in the open square and burnt as an offering to Yahweh. With the privilege of bearing the labels “chosen by Yahweh,” “people of Yahweh,” “Yahweh’s treasure,” and “children of Yahweh” comes the weighty responsibility of loving him and representing him well before a watching world. But the Israelites lost sight of their mission, and in 734–22 BC the northern kingdom went the way of the Canaanites, and 586 BC the kingdom of Judah followed.
None of these answers will satisfy everyone, and none of them should be taken in isolation. The challenge for us is that we treasure God’s grace in our own lives and pray for him to extend his grace to others. Perhaps when they see what God has done for us, outsiders will, like Rahab, confess faith in our God.
If it was illegitimate for Israelites to extend the scope of the law of ḥērem to other nations in Old Testament times, how much less can this be done after the cross and the establishment of the transnational church as God’s agents of grace and revelation. Since the “people of God” are no longer defined nationally or ethnically, none of the wars in which contemporary nations engage can be equated with Israel’s wars against the Canaanites, and efforts to claim “God is on our side” generally sound presumptuous and arrogant. The church is indeed engaged in warfare; but this conflict is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers arrayed against God and his church. This battle is not fought with physical spears and swords but with all the spiritual resources provided by God (Eph. 6:10–20).
While the New Testament recognizes that the kingdoms of this world will continue to solve their conflicts with violence and war, the troops in the divine army march at the orders of the divine Commander-in-Chief. The Lord calls on his people to return evil directed at them with good, to turn the other cheek to those who abuse them, and like Christ to sacrifice their lives that others may live. In this kingdom of radicals committed to bringing peace rather than war, the next person’s right to life always takes precedence over my own.61 The law of ḥērem was never about vengeance in the Old Testament, and Christians must beware of taking vengeance into their own hands. Those who walk by faith trust God to defend his own.