Deuteronomy 20:1

This whole chapter deals with the holy war that Israel was about to wage against the kingdoms of Canaan, and there are also some special instructions applicable to war against distant cities, envisioning a time when Israel, secure in its own boundaries, would be involved in war with nations outside the boundaries of Canaan.

The most notable part of the chapter is in Deuteronomy 20:16-18, where is recorded the Divine Commission looking to the utter destruction of the nations of Canaan, that remarkable commandment being found nowhere else in the Bible. This holy war had two purposes: (1) the execution of God's sentence of death upon those nations of Canaan because of their shameless debaucheries and idolatries; and (2) the protection of the chosen people from any kind of social contact with those depraved nations. In the case of the "distant cities," the nations outside Canaan, they also were Gentiles, but their wickedness had, at that time, not exceeded the boundaries of God's mercy, and their times had not yet been fulfilled, contrary to what had happened to the nations of Canaan which were being replaced by Israel. This stern commandment for Israel to "utterly destroy" the Canaanites constitutes an incontrovertible argument in favor of the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. In light of the truth that Israel never, in any complete sense, obeyed this commandment, there could not possibly have been any reasonable motive whatever for some author later than Moses to have invented such a commandment and to have inserted it here! No critical scholar we ever heard of has attempted to refute this argument.

"When thou goest forth to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be that when ye draw nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye draw nigh unto battle this day against your enemies: let not your heart faint; fear not, nor tremble, neither be ye affrighted of them; for Jehovah your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you."

"To the Israelites, horses and chariots were always objects of terror in war (Joshua 11:4; 17:16; Judges 1:19; 4:3, and 1 Samuel 13:5)."[1] Furthermore, all of the nations they would confront in Canaan were well supplied with that very type of military equipment.

"And a people more than thou ..." Orlinsky translated this phrase, "forces larger than yours,"[2] based upon the use, frequently overlooked, of the Hebrew word [~`am], which has the sense of the word "troops".

The hope of victory for the Israelites was not centered in their strength but in the will of God who would go before them and fight for them. The subject of this whole chapter is the holy war in which Israel was about to engage. And, although there are a number of other passages in the O.T. that have a bearing upon this subject (Deuteronomy 7:17-24; Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Deuteronomy 24:5; and Deuteronomy 25:17-19), only in this chapter (Deuteronomy 20:16,17ff) is the commission to "utterly destroy" the Canaanites included.

"The priest shall approach and speak unto the people ..." (Deuteronomy 20:3). "The priest here is not the High Priest, but the priest who accompanied the army, like Phinehas in the war against the Midianites (Numbers 31:6f).[3] Keil also stated that this priest who accompanied the troops was "raised to the highest dignity next to the high priest."[4] The priest appeared just before the battle began and began his exhortation with the formula announced in these verses, "Hear, O Israel, ... etc." The function of the priest here was not like that of a chaplain found in the armed services of many nations today; he was of higher rank and spoke upon the DIRECT authority and commandment of God.

CONCERNING HOLY WAR

The conception of "holy war" is stressed in the O.T., and no other war of human history ever attained a degree of holiness approaching that of the conquest of Canaan by Israel, although the conception has by no means perished. At this very moment (circa 1980) the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, religious and secular head of the nation of Iran, is waging a "holy war" for the spread of the Shiite Muslim religion. Soldiers motivated by the claims and promises of such "holy wars" are insanely fanatical and very difficult to overcome. However, the "holy war" Israel waged against Canaan was Divinely commanded, the purpose of it being two-fold:

(1) the judgmental destruction of a reprobate people already "over the hill" and beyond God's mercy and fully deserving the destruction God commanded, and

(2) the provision of an idolatry-free environment for new people (Israel) who succeeded them.

The commanded destruction of those Canaanite nations was equivalent in every way to the destruction that came as a result of the Great Deluge, and both of these destructions were based upon the highest judgment and most urgent necessity. Furthermore, there is no moral problem with either one. God has every right to destroy any part of His creation that has lost the ability to conform, in some degree at least, to the will of God. Also, it should be remembered in this connection that God will ultimately "destroy" all of Adam's race, when, for the fourth time, humanity has become judicially hardened against the Creator! (Read the prophecy of Zephaniah.)

Throughout the O.T., Israel's war, particularly that for the possession of Canaan, was "holy." "It was the Lord's war, fought by GOD'S people against GOD'S enemies (Numbers 31;6; 1 Samuel 4:3,4; Numbers 10:8,9; 2 Chronicles 13:10-12)."[5] It could be that even today there are elements of sanctity in certain wars, designed to turn back fanaticism and atheism. Khomeini's "holy war" on behalf of Islam must eventually be turned back by force of arms, and we simply cannot conceive of Almighty God's being disinterested in the outcome of such a struggle. The same is true in regard to the struggles against atheistic communism. Despite the obvious truth of such observations, we cannot believe that any other war in human history ever partook of the same "holiness" and "sanctity" as did that of the conquest of Canaan. Back of that was God's purpose to "save all mankind" through the advent of the Messiah into our world. Only by the coming of Jesus Christ could God's promise to Abraham that "all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his Seed (Singular), the Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:16). Furthermore, without the destruction of the idolatrous Canaanites, Israel could never have survived long enough to give birth to the Messiah. Therefore, what was ordered to be done was absolutely necessary.

Scott has an excellent word on this: "The reason the ban in its severest form (utmost destruction) was applied to the cities of Canaan was to save Israel from being infected with their abominations."[6] It is true perhaps that God looks at the whole human race as a single creation (indeed, it is just that), and that in God's infinite wisdom it is far BETTER to cut off (with total destruction) SOME SMALL PORTION of the whole body than it would be to allow a fatal infection to proceed in the destruction of the WHOLE RACE. In their own bodies, men recognize this principle continually, every amputation of whatever kind, being an example of it. In the light of the truth, how weak and unjustified are the screams of sinners against God that "it was a terrible shame for God to order the killing of all those helpless little babies!"

The conception of TOTAL DESTRUCTION for the depraved population of Canaan, as Wright stated, "is one which a Christian has great difficulty in accepting."[7] But Wright went on to add: "If Israel had been dominated by any less tolerant attitude, she would have amalgamated with her pagan neighbors."[8] Amen! And furthermore, if that had occurred, the hope of a Redeemer for the human race would have been eternally lost. Israel's case was a very special case, and from what God commanded them to do, no nation today may presume to operate on the same principles toward its enemies, but, again from Wright, "What Israel did must be understood in the light of God's purpose and what was needed in that day and under those conditions to accomplish it."[9]

"To save you ..." (Deuteronomy 20:4). This comes from a Hebrew phrase [~lehowshiya'] [~'ethkem], which Orlinski affirms has the common meaning of "military victory, triumph," concluding from this that the phrase should not read "to save you," but "to bring you victory."[10]