Genocide of Joshua (part 3)

In this final post on the command of God to Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites, we will look at the moral culpability of those involved in the slaughter of the Israelite conquest. As odd as it sounds with such subject matter, I have thoroughly enjoyed thinking through this complex and important biblical issue, and I think I have done so without going into heresy! I do not put forward my opinion as the only allowable one on the issue, but I do think it is pretty good as it preserves the goodness of God, the inspiration of Deuteronomy, the reality of the Canaanite genocide and the justification of the Israelites who faithfully obeyed God's commands. For those who have accepted (as I do) the simple biblical reality that God did indeed command the genocide, we come to a serious dilemma.

1) It is always wrong to kill an innocent human person.

2) God commands the killing of innocent human persons.

3) Therefore, either God commands what it evil and is not therefore good, or else the killing of innocent persons is not evil, which we know to be false.

If killing innocent people is sinful, how can God command what is sinful? Furthermore, this puts the persons involved in a terrible dilemma: if they obey God, are they guilty of the mortal sin of murder? But if they disobey God, do they incur the wrath of God for disobedience? What exactly is the culpability of those involved in carrying out God's decree of destruction against the Canaanites?

I think we have to step back and look at why killing is wrong. Murder is clearly prohibited by the fifth commandment. But why is murder wrong? Because it is the taking of a human life. Okay, but what is it about the taking of a human life that makes it sinful? God takes human life all the time. He sends or allows car accidents, heart attacks, sometimes smites people, in the Old and New Testaments (remember Uzzah and Ananias?) and has some devoured by wild beasts or taken in plane crashes, all of which He either permits or directly causes - and He does directly kill people at times, as He plainly tells the Israelites in Exodus where He warns against taking advantage of the widow and the orhpan: "My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword" (Ex. 22:24). Scripture seems to say that the prerogative of taking a life belongs to God alone: "See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I kill and I make to live: I will strike, and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand" (Deut. 32:39). I'm not sure how this is worked out through the principle of secondary causes working within Divine Providence, however.

But this verse brings us to the point of why killing is wrong: since God kills, we have to infer that killing a person is only wrong when done by another person. The reason killing is so heinous is because only God knows when a man's allotted time on earth is over and can cut the thread of life. If anybody other than God presumes to take life, they take unto themself the power of God.

This is not to minimize the true human tragedy of losing an irreplaceable person to death - the element of the sin which is based around the robbing of the world of another life. However, fundamentally, I think if we see murder within the context of the Old Testament and God's relation to His people, it is primarily a property issue. Humanity and human life are God's alone to give and take, and when we assume the right to do so on our own, we are robbing God of His prerogative. Even worse, we are acting as though we were God, not only knowing good and evil (as the serpent promised), but deciding when to give and take life.

So then it is always wrong to take life because we never know when a person's time is up and we cannot take upon ourselves the role of God in deciding these matters. But what if God Himself tells you authoritatively that a person's time is up and orders you to take their life as His instrument?

Of course, I am presuming that we all understand that in accordance with Divine Revelation God would never tell anybody this now - I am referring this question solely to Old Testament times and to instances recorded in the Scriptures, so don't send me a bunch of comments saying, "But Boniface, there are a whole bunch of nuts throughout history who thought God commanded them to kill." Understood. But I am not talking about them, only those few instances recorded in the Sacred Scriptures. Everybody got that?

At any rate, we would have to admit that knowing what we know about why killing is wrong, these factors become a non-issue if God is commanding the killing. I can't kill because the power to kill belongs to God alone. But God says, "I, the Lord over life and death, command you to take such-and-such a life and give you my authority to do so." I can say also that God alone knows when a person's time is up; this is not something I can decide. But God says, "Their iniquity is complete and the time for their destruction is at hand." Therefore, the very factors that make murder a culpable sin are negated when God commands the killing and invests someone with His authority to carry it out.

Two examples. We understand that a private individual cannot kill another person (save in self-defense), and that even if a criminal were found guilty of a serious crime and merited the death penalty, still a private individual could not execute this penalty upon the wrongdoer. Just because somebody is guilty doesn't mean I can just kill them. However, God has delegated the power to take life to the state, as sanctioned in Romans 13. Therefore, this is one situation where God says, "I give you power and authority to take human life" (provided it meets certain criteria, of course).

Another example is the sacrifice of Isaac. Murder is always wrong, but human sacrifice is deplorable. And yet God commands Abraham to commit human sacrifice, and Abraham instantly obeys, even though it is precisely because of human sacrifice that the Canaanites are being reserved for judgment from the time of Abraham to Joshua. Of course, Isaac was not actually killed, but Abraham had no idea that God would intervene and he intended to go through with the action till its completion. And the Scriptures commend Abraham for his faith in doing this. The lesson of this is that when God commands something it is to be obeyed: it is a matter of authority. All our human categories about what is right and wrong break down when God is the one commanding it, and obedience to these commands is considered faith. If one reads Judges and the last portions of Joshua, you will see that the Israelites are actually chastised by God for not taking the genocide far enough.

Now be careful here: I am emphatically not saying that God is not good, or that He is arbtitrary. I am not saying that God can command what is wrong - I am saying that what God commands is always right, even if it is genocide: but the only reason God can command genocide and it be right is because He alone has the authority to dispose of life as He wills and He alone knows the appointed time for each person's death. Therefore, it falls within His rights to order genocide if He wants and we must regard the obedience of the Israelites to this not as sinful but as obedience to God - an obedience which is meritorious and which the failure of (as we see in Judges, for example) is blameworthy.

Murder is always a sin, but murder consists of man killing another man of his own will. God telling you to kill somebody else cannot be said to be murder in the strict sense. As strange as it sounds, then, I must conclude that theologically speaking, the Israelites are not committing the sin of murder in the proper sense when they kill the Canaanites. They are killing, but killing with God's sanction, which He can give if He wills.

Ultimately, I think no other explanation will suffice other than finally agreeing that if God said it, it must be accomplished in obedience and that we can have faith (the implicit faith of Abraham as he raised the knife over Isaac) that what God commands is always right because He commands it.

Click here for part 1 and part 2 in this series.