Year 7, Day 158: Deuteronomy 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Deuteronomy is a warning from Moses to make sure that the Hebrew people remember to devote the Canaanites to their destruction.  They are to give no quarter to them.  They are not to be gracious.  They are not to be merciful.  They are in no way, shape, or form, to do anything except utterly destroy the Canaanite people.

Naturally, this message sits funny with me.  After all, is not my experience with God that He is a loving God?  Does He not forgive my sin and grant me chance after chance after chance?  Do I deserve even one ounce of His love?  Yet He lavishes His love upon me anyways.  What is so different about me than the Canaanites?

I think it is that question that helps soothe my inner turmoil regarding this chapter.  Let’s not forget why it is that the Hebrew people are being brought to Canaan.  As this chapter says, it isn’t because the Hebrew people were more numerous or better people.  The Canaanites are being displaced because they haven’t responded to God.  They have lusted after foreign gods.  They aren’t interested in righteousness; they are interested in their own desires.  They are just going to teach the Hebrew people to do the same if they are allowed to live.

For the record, the Canaanites that are allowed to live in the land do corrupt the Hebrew people.  They do lead them astray.  They do teach them to obey ungodly principles in their lives.

Why does God say to give them no quarter?  God knows what will happen in the future.  He knows that they will play an important part in His judgment over His own people by bringing Babylon and Assyria down upon the Hebrews.  He knows how the native Canaanites will torment the Hebrew people.  He knows the future.

How can the merciful God that I know be so merciless?  He can be so merciless because He already knows.  I am blinded by time.  I am blinded by the possibility that they might repent and they might turn around.  But God is not so blinded.  He knows.  He knows, and His advice is to give them no quarter.  It isn’t advice that I am in any kind of position to give.  But it absolutely is advice that God is in a position to give righteously.

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