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Context No. 1065 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 11:6-14: in context

6The LORD said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid because of them; for tomorrow at this time, I will deliver them up all slain before Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” 7So Joshua came suddenly, with all the warriors, against them by the waters of Merom, and attacked them. 8The LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they struck them, and chased them to great Sidon, and to Misrephoth Maim, and to the valley of Mizpah eastward. They struck them until they left them no one remaining. 9Joshua did to them as the LORD told him. He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. 10Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and struck its king with the sword; for Hazor used to be the head of all those kingdoms. 11They struck all the souls who were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was no one left who breathed. He burned Hazor with fire. 12Joshua captured all the cities of those kings, with their kings, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. 13But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them, except Hazor only. Joshua burned that. 14The children of Israel took all the plunder of these cities, with the livestock, as plunder for themselves; but every man they struck with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them. They didn’t leave any who breathed.

This is one of the hardest kinds of passage in scripture, the conquest of Canaan. God tells Joshua not to fear the coalition of northern kings, promising to deliver them, and instructs him to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots. Joshua attacks by the waters of Merom, routs them, and then carries out the ban: he takes Hazor, kills its king, and strikes down everyone in the city with the sword, leaving no one alive, and burns the city. The chapter repeats the grim refrain, they left no one who breathed, utterly destroying them as Moses had commanded.

There is no way to make this passage comfortable, and it should not be forced. This is the bible reporting the ban, the devoting of Canaanite cities to destruction, and honest readers have wrestled with it for centuries. A few things help hold it. It is presented as a specific, bounded judgment on particular nations whose evil, scripture says elsewhere, had reached its full measure, not a general license for violence; it is tied to one moment in redemptive history, never repeated as a pattern for God's people, and the New Testament decisively redirects the people of God away from the sword entirely. Notice too the detail about the horses and chariots: Joshua is told to destroy them rather than keep them, so that Israel would not build up its own arms and trust in them, but rely on God. The conquest is a hard, dark chapter, and pretending otherwise is dishonest; but its deepest note is that the land and the victory were God's gift and God's judgment, not a program for the church, whose warfare, Paul says, is not against flesh and blood. We are meant to feel its weight, and to be relieved that the sword was taken from God's people, not handed to us.

Can I sit honestly with the hard passages of scripture without either explaining them away or using them to justify my own violence, trusting the God who finally took up the cross rather than the sword?

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