In the case of Jericho the curse was doubtless intended to keep the memorial of the destruction of the city ever before the eyes of coming generations. The ruins of the city would go on bearing mute testimony, but a new city on the old site would obliterate the traces of such a memory. The curse was uttered by divine direction (see 1 Kings 16:34).

That is, “caused them to swear.” He no doubt made the elders and heads of their several tribes bind themselves by a solemn oath, so that a knowledge of their pledge might be passed on from generation to generation.

 The fulfillment of the prediction by Hiel the Bethelite is recorded in 1 Kings 16:34. The absence of this record in the book of Joshua is further proof that Joshua is further proof that Joshua was written some time before Kings. Five centuries after this curse was pronounced Hiel, following the example of the wicked king Ahab in resisting the word of the Lord, rebuilt the city of Jericho. Hiel might have thought that time had rendered the curse null and void, or that such a pronouncement could not have come from God. Perhaps he could see no reason at all for the strange command. But human reasonings are not a sufficient pretext for disobedience or unbelief.

 There are records of a settlement in the vicinity of Jericho antedating the rebuilding of the city by Hiel. Deut. 34:3 makes mention of a city called the “city of palm trees.” This was an inhabited place early in the period of the judges (Judges 1:16), a short time after the death of Joshua. The same city appears to have been taken from the Israelites by Eglon, king of Moab (Judges 3:12, 13). Moreover, David’s ambassadors, who were maltreated by Hanun, king of the Ammonites, were commanded to tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown (2 Sam. 10:4, 5). It appears, therefore, that there was a town called by the name long before the time of Hiel. Yet probably this was not on the mound, but in the neighborhood. Josephus speaks of the site of the old city as if in distinction from a modern one; New Testament Jericho was a mile south of the mound.

Archeologists have never discovered remains of the walls of Hiel’s 9th-century city, built probably on a much smaller scale on the ruins of the old city, and eventually eroded away. The fragmentary evidence from before Hiel’s day tends to indicate that there had been only a few intermittent occupants of the site, and no city had been built, for an interim of about 500 years after the fall of the old city. This fact agrees with the Scriptural account of the rebuilding by Hiel. Men may challenge God’s Word, but when they have spent their arrows of challenge and criticism, the ruins uncovered by the pick and shovel of the archeologist silently testify to the truthfulness of the Scripture record.

The history of Israel’s conquest of Canaan, so strikingly illustrated by the capture of Jericho, presents a record of wholesale destruction by the edge of the sword. Even devout believers have often been troubled by this record, particularly because skeptics have sought thereby to prove God bloodthirsty and merciless.

However, if certain facts are kept in mind, the record of destruction takes on a very different hue, and God stands forth as One who has displayed both mercy and justice in His dealings with men.

The first fact to bear in mind is that any and all who sin against God and thus rebel against His government, forfeit their right to life. In our world a man who turns rebel and fights against the government is declared worthy of death. In the very nature of the case, no government can continue to exist unless it uses every necessary means to put down all enemies. It is no straining of analogies to declare that the great government of God’s universe cannot successfully continue if no plan is in operation that will ultimately, if not immediately, put down all rebellion. Simply for God to hold rebels at bay because of His omnipotence would be no satisfactory solution, for the ideal world or the ideal universe cannot include the thought of any restricted area where rebellion festers and foments.

 The second fact is this: Though rebellion must be put down, and though on the principle of justice a rebel has forfeited his right to life, God has not proceeded simply along the lines of justice as an earthly government would, but has also displayed mercy. The Bible explanation of why the coming of Christ, which means the ultimate destruction of all the wicked, is delayed, is that the Lord “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). And again in Ezekiel we read that the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Eze. 18:23).

These statements of Scripture showing the Lord’s policy in relation to sinful men are as definitely a part of the Bible as are those concerning the Israelites’ being commanded to destroy the Canaanites. A man cannot consistently hold to the latter statements as describing the plan of God, and reject the former.

The third fact is this: Even though the Ruler of the universe displays mercy and gives to men time in which to turn from their rebellion, there must ultimately come a day of reckoning. If grace and probation are extended indefinitely, we have merely a never-ending truce with rebellion and iniquity, which is the same as capitulating to it.

The problem before us in connection with the destruction of the Canaanites by the Israelites, then, is simply this: first, to prove that the Canaanites were rebels against God’s government, thus to demonstrate the justice of God in having them destroyed; second, to prove that they had been given a period of grace and probation, thus to demonstrate the mercy and long-suffering of God. It is not difficult to prove both of these propositions.

 As to the first, it is a simple matter of history that the peoples on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean were as corrupt and depraved as any who have ever dwelt upon this earth. They made a religion of lust. They sent their children into the fires of the god Molech. Lev. 18 presents briefly something of the moral rebellion of the Canaanites. The imagination and a little knowledge of history supply the rest. According to the Bible the Canaanites were so vile that the very land “spued” them out (see Lev. 18:28). On the religion and cult practices of the Canaanites, see Vol. I, pp. 126, 129, 162; Vol. II, pp. 38-40.

 As to the second proposition, the Bible is equally explicit. In the 15th chapter of Genesis is the record of the promise of God to Abraham, that his seed should inherit the land of Canaan. The explanation that God gave to Abraham as to why the promise would be so long in fulfilling, was that “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (v. 16). The Amorites here stand for the peoples of Canaan, for they were the powerful, dominant race. There is no statement anywhere in the OT that more clearly sets forth the fact of God’s mercy to sinners, and of how He gives to them a time of probation.

Here was Abraham, the friend of God. The Lord desired to give to him the land of Canaan for an inheritance. If God had been like an earthly ruler, He would doubtless have taken immediate steps to see that His promise was fulfilled for His favorite, and would have driven out or put to the sword all who stood in the way. That has been the history of despots who had all power in their hands. But not so with God. He declared in effect to Abraham, You must be patient. Your children and your children’s children to the fourth generation must also be patient. My love to you is great. I long to fulfill for you and yours My promise. Nothing would bring greater pleasure to My heart. But—ah, here is the significant fact. Did the Lord say, But I have no power to fulfill My promise now? No; He had all power. He could have sent fire from heaven suddenly to consume all the inhabitants of Canaan. No, that was not the problem. The delay was because the cup of the “iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” In other words, they had not completely sinned away their day of grace. There was still further mercy to be extended to them.

God’s Spirit was yet to plead with their hearts. And so for 400 years more, generation after generation of the Amorites was permitted to live and to practice increasing abominations. Then God ordered their destruction. The reasonable conclusion is that their destruction was decreed because their cup of iniquity was full, that nothing would be gained by further extending mercy to them.

The destruction of the children along with their parents finds its justification on the ground that the younger generation would follow exactly the path of all the generations that had gone before them, that the bent to corruption and rebellion and depravity was deep seated and all-dominant in their natures, the same as in that of their parents. To have destroyed the parents and left the younger generation would have been but to preserve the seed of corruption. On the skeptic rests the burden of proof if he claims that the rising generation would not have followed the very same course that the preceding generations had followed without exception. But all the presumptions are against any such claim, and thus the destruction of the younger generation becomes as reasonable as the destruction of the older.

 Further evidence regarding God’s dealing with men in judgment is revealed in the record of the Flood. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Here was certainly a hopeless state. For God to allow such a condition to continue indefinitely would be tantamount to admitting before the universe that He either was indifferent to such flagrant, outrageous rebellion, or else was unable to cope with it. Yet the Lord did not immediately bring judgment upon the antediluvians. He declared, “My spirit shall not always strive with man,” yet He gave them 120 years more (see Gen. 6:3). The reasonable conclusion is that by the end of this time nothing more could be gained by God’s Spirit striving with sinful hearts. And when God can do nothing more to woo human hearts back to allegiance, then the day of mercy ends. Man indeed has himself ended it by his refusal to listen to the pleadings of the Spirit, and nothing but judgment can remain.

We cannot too often emphasize the fact that such statements as these from the Bible regarding God’s dealings with man before the Flood, and His long-suffering with the Canaanites before their destruction, are as definitely a part of the Bible, and a revelation of the plans and character of God, as the command to the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites. To fasten upon the isolated command for the destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan, and insist on measuring the character of God by this lone fact, is as unreasonable as to seize upon a lone statement of a governor of one of our modern states, wherein he refuses further reprieve for a criminal and gives him over to the gallows, and attempt therefrom to prove that the governor was a heartless, cruel man.

Death and destruction are horrible thoughts to contemplate under any circumstances, and the most God-fearing and Bible-believing individual may willingly admit that he is filled with distressing thoughts as he reads of the destruction of the wicked at different times in the history of the world, and as he contemplates the final destruction of all evildoers. But it would be far more distressing to contemplate the kind of world and the kind of universe we would be forced to live in, if summary destruction were not ultimately meted out to all who were stubbornly determined to continue on in their sinful, corrupting ways.

Indeed, this whole question of judgment upon the wicked reveals the inconsistency in the attitude of the skeptic. How often a scoffer hurls at Christians the inquiry, If there is a God in heaven who rules and directs affairs, why does He permit evil men to dominate this world and to carry on all their terrible practices that bring sorrow and trouble to poor innocent creatures? Then the same scoffer will turn around a little later and ask sneeringly, If God is a God of love, as you Christians declare, why did He bring destruction on people at different times in the world, and why is He finally going to destroy all except a select group? But the skeptic does not seem to realize that the first question finds its answer in the second. And accordingly, he does not realize that he is inconsistent in raising a clamor against the judgments of God when he has just inquired why God does not wreak vengeance upon evildoers.

The harmony in this whole problem is found in such dealings of God as are here cited. God does rule in the universe, as the Bible declares. His will and government ultimately will be supreme everywhere, and rebellion will be put down. The wicked will not always oppress the innocent. Injustice will not always be meted out to the weak and helpless. The God who looks at all things in a longer perspective than man, and whose love for fallen creatures is greater than that of even the most devout believer, desires not only to save the meek and the upright and give to them ultimately a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness but also to salvage from the hosts of the rebellious as many as possible.

It is this fact of the Lord’s long-suffering, of His not being willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, that gives plausibility to the first of these two skeptical questions. When we have this fact of God’s long-suffering, we have the answer to the first question; we can view the injustice in our world, and still believe that God is ruler. And when we keep in our minds the simple fact that justice ultimately demands the destruction of those who continue in open rebellion, we have the answer to the second question. There is no necessity for offering an apology for the judgments of God that have been meted out to sinners in the past and are yet to be meted out in the future.

It is hardly necessary to discuss the question of the method God employed in bringing destruction to the Canaanites; it is enough to note that God was just in destroying them. That He should at one time use water, another time fire, another time plague, and still another time, as in the case of the Canaanites, the sword, has no more bearing on the question of the justification for the destruction than has the relative use of electrocution, hanging, or a firing squad on the question of capital punishment today. It is the justice of capital punishment and not the method that properly receives our attention.

 Commentators have suggested that perhaps the Lord saw fit to have His chosen people, Israel, as executioners, in order that they might have mostly vividly impressed on their minds the awfulness of sin and rebellion; for the warning to the Israelites was that they should take care not to fall into the abominations of the Canaanites lest they suffer the same fate (see Lev. 18:28-30; cf. Rom. 11:15-22).

However, had Israel fully carried out God’s plan for the conquest of Canaan, the course of events, as regards the destruction of the Canaanites, would have been different, at least in great degree, from what actually took place. This becomes evident when the principles already given are restated in the context of related principles:

 1. God, the great arbiter of history, determines the duration and territorial extent of the nations (Dan. 2:21; Acts 17:26; see on Deut. 32:8; see also Ed 174, 176, 177). Silently, patiently He guides the affairs of earth in order to work out the counsels of His divine will (Ed 173, 178). Each nation, nevertheless, determines its own destiny by its use of the power granted to it by God, by the fidelity with which it fulfills His purpose for it (Ed 174, 175, 177, 178; see on Ex. 9:16). Opposition to God’s principles means national ruin (see Dan. 5:22-31; GC 584; PP 536), for only that which is bound up with His purpose and expresses His character can endure (Ed 183, 238, 304).

 2. God did not select Israel as His chosen people because of partiality for them; He would have accepted any nation on the same conditions that He accepted them (Acts 10:34, 35; 17:26, 27; Rom. 10:12, 13). It was simply that Abraham responded without reserve to the invitation to covenant relationship with God, to serve God faithfully himself, and to train his posterity to do likewise (Gen. 18:19). Accordingly, Abraham’s descendants became God’s representatives among men, and the covenant made with him was confirmed to them (Deut. 7:6-14). Their chief advantage above other nations was that God made them the custodians of His revealed will (Rom. 3:1, 2) and charged them with the dissemination of its principles throughout the world (Gen. 12:3; Isa. 42:6, 7; 43:10, 21; 56:3-8; 62:1-12; PP 492; COL 290).

 In order that they might carry out this task effectively, and subject to their compliance with His requirements (Deut. 28:1, 2, 13, 14; cf. Zech. 6:15), it was God’s plan to bestow unparalleled blessings upon Israel (Deut. 7:12-16; 28:1-14; COL 288, 289). He proposed to furnish them with every facility for becoming the greatest nation on earth (COL 288). In the blessings thus accruing to Israel the nations about them would have tangible, convincing evidence of the fact that it pays to cooperate with God (Deut. 4:6-8; 28:10). It was His original plan that the personal missionary labors of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should provide the peoples of Canaan with an opportunity to worship and serve Him (COL 290; PP 128, 133, 134, 141, 368). All who turned from idolatry were to unite with God’s chosen people (Isa. 2:2-4; 56:6-8; Micah 4:1-8; cf. CT 454-456; Zech. 2:10-12; 8:20-23; COL 290). But should they prove unfaithful, He would reject them as He now rejected the nations of Canaan (Deut. 28:13-15, 62-66, cf. Isa. 5:1-7; Rom. 11:17-22; PP 688), and drive them also from the Land of Promise (Deut. 28:63, 64).

 3. The Canaanites enjoyed a probationary period of 400 years (see on Gen. 15:13, 16), but instead of responding to the opportunity thus accorded them they filled up their cup of iniquity (Gen. 15:16; see on Deut. 20:13; see also Vol. I, pp. 126, 129, 162; Ed 178) and were to be dispossessed (COL 290). It was necessary that the land should be cleared and cleansed of what would so surely prevent the fulfillment of God’s gracious purposes (PP 492). Divine justice and mercy could no longer suffer the nations of Canaan to continue (see 5T 208; 9T 13; cf. Gen. 6:3), and God’s account with them was closed (cf. Dan. 5:22-29).

 Having granted Canaan to Israel, God appointed them His instruments for the execution of divine judgment upon the inhabitants of the land (PP 491). They were to smite the Canaanites “utterly” (Deut. 7:2) and to “save alive nothing that breatheth” (Deut. 20:16); all were to be put to the sword (PP 491). This did not mean, however, that individuals who might yet choose to serve the true God must perish. The conversion of Rahab the Canaanite testifies to the fact that divine mercy would spare those who forsook idolatry (Joshua 2:9-13; 6:25; cf. Heb. 11:31; James 2:25). At the Flood, the destruction of Sodom, and the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans all who heeded the warning given them were saved (Gen. 6:9-13, 18; 18:23-32; Luke 21:20-22 GC 30). The close of probation for a nation, as such, did not necessarily mean that innocent individuals would have to suffer death with those who deserved it.

 4. In the conquest of Canaan divine power was to be combined with human effort.

 God intended all men to recognize that it was by His favor alone that Israel prevailed (PP 491, 496). Military reverses at Kadesh-barnea (Num. 13:28-31; 14:40-45) and some 38 years later at Ai (PP 493) taught them that in their own strength they could never subdue the land (see Dan. 4:30; PP 491; Ed 176). However, God did not intend Israel to take Canaan by ordinary warfare, but rather by strict compliance with His instructions (PP 392, 436). In some instances the report of God’s mighty deeds on behalf of His people would have smitten the Canaanites with fear and they would have surrendered without out fighting (Num. 22:3; Joshua 2:9-11; Deut. 28:10; Ex. 23:27; Deut. 2:25; 11:25; Ex. 15:13-16; Joshua 5:1; Ex. 34:24; cf. Gen. 35:5; Joshua 10:1, 2; 1 Sam. 14:15; 2 Chron. 17:10). At other times they would have become confused, and turned on one another (Judges 7:22; 1 Sam. 14:20; 2 Chron. 20:20-24). Also, God would have utilized, at times, the forces of nature (Joshua 10:11, 12; etc.) even as He had done in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and at the crossing of the Jordan. Had Israel only cooperated with Him, He would have worked for them in many unexpected ways. Perhaps, too, some nations—like the Gibeonites (PP 507, 508)—would have come to a knowledge of the true God.

 But Israel’s repeated failure to give strict obedience to God’s commands at Kadesh (PP 394), Shittim (Num. 25:1-9), and Ai (Joshua 7:8, 9; PP 494) in large measure allayed the fears of the Canaanites, gave them time to prepare for the fray, and made the conquest of the land far more difficult than it would otherwise have been (PP 437). Nevertheless, divine love no longer availing to bring repentance, divine justice decreed the probation of these rebels against God closed, demanded their prompt execution, and assigned their land to His chosen representatives (see Num. 23:19-24; PP 492; cf. GC 37; Matt. 21:41, 43).