Many ask the question did God really command the Israelites to kill the children of Canaan? The simple answer is yes, the Israelites were told to destroy the culture of Canaan entirely. Notice they weren’t told to destroy literally all Canaanites since they clearly spared Rahab the prostitute and her family because she submitted to the God of Israel. Besides Rahab, the Gibeonites gave themselves to Israel as slaves in Joshua 9, so they were spared. Lastly, Joshua and Caleb led the charge against Canaan after Moses died. Ever notice, that Caleb’s father was a Kenizzite (Num 32:12, Joshua 14:14), which means he is a Canaanite (Gen 15:18-21), yet God used him to fight for Israel against the Canaanites. This shows that not all Canaanites were destroyed, which means God isn’t “racist” as some may say. Everyone has a choice between repentance and pride, and only a few were repentant. The Israelite’s goal was to get rid of the Canaanite’s sinful culture which was manipulated by spiritual darkness, not absolute genocide but a cleansing of the sin from the land.

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