Deuteronomy 20:10

"When thou drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it; And it shall be, if it make the answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when Jehovah thy God delivereth it into thy hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which Jehovah thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations."

The sentence of death imposed upon the nations of Canaan was not to be executed upon those cities of the Gentiles not identified with Canaan. This was therefore an extension of mercy to the pre-Christian Gentile world, a mercy that would be further extended in the Gospel of Christ and would continue "until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). If our understanding of the prophecies is correct, this mercy will expire in the holocaust of the final advent and judgment of the whole world by that "man whom God has appointed," even Christ the Lord (Acts 17:31).

Kline was correct, therefore, in his observation that "If the total ban had been executed universally (and not solely upon the Canaanites), the age of grace for the Gentiles would have been prematurely terminated."[16]

"Shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee ..." (Deuteronomy 20:11). This meant slavery in the full force of that word. Orlinsky stated that the passage should be translated, "They shall serve you as forced labor."[17]

We may pause here to consider an objection. Scott wrote that: "This whole chapter reads like an interruption between Deuteronomy 19 and Deuteronomy 21. Perhaps it originally stood after Deuteronomy 21:9."[18] To us it appears that the chapter fits as well where it is located as it would somewhere else. The explanation of the lack of organization of the whole Book of Deuteronomy is in the fact that it was delivered by Moses as an address, somewhat of a "shotgun sermon," as we have frequently pointed out. The present arrangement of the Bible is already well known all over the world and has been so for ages, but when James Moffatt did his translation in the first quarter of this century, he extensively REARRANGED the chapters in the O.T., but the result was that of greatly diminishing the use of Moffatt's Bible; and the whole world has gone right on using the OLD ORDER of the chapters. It appears to us that scholars should keep their hands off of that task!