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BerianAardvark -> RE: who knows about he Canninites? (5/15/2008 2:13:56 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Fortydays
why did God order joshua to kill the canninites...children and all?
was there a good reason explained in the Bible?
God also promised the Israelites:
"I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. "I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. (Exodus 23:27-28)
So most of the Canaanites (most particularly the women and children, who would been sent to relative safety as a matter of course) likely fled...the remainder were to be destroyed, not kept as slaves or subject peoples. The Book of Joshua tells of the campaign against the Canaanites (as well as the other peoples in the area) especially the first half.
But the People didn't carry out the total destruction of the Canaanites, and it did lead them (as the Lord had warned) to idolatry and apostasy, the Book of Judges tells of the early part of that struggle.
The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. (Judges 3:5-6)
By the way, the Canaanites were merely the largest group of people living in that area...so it became a general title for those people rather than listing them individually
Eventually the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians and of Judea by the Babylonians, but with a remnant and a promise later fulfilled was caused by the Hebrew people's continuing to adopt the idolatry of the peoples around them rather than staying true to the Lord.
God's interaction with the people of the world was not limited merely to the Hebrew people, though the Bible is primarily concerned with that, especially as it is through the Hebrew people that the Promise (the Messiah) was to come. But even so there is much evidence that there were others with whom God had a relationship through out the Old Testament. As an example Melchizedek king of Salem was declared to be a priest of God Most High...yet he wasn't a Hebrew...and certainly not of Abraham's people...Abraham at that time had no children.
God also sent Jonah to call the city of Nineveh to repentance...Nineveh was an Assyrian city....the enemies of Israel and Judea.
There are many other examples God's prophets being sent by God to anoint or prophesy to non-Hebrew kings or people.
So God wasn't picking on the Canaanites in particular....He sent out Prophets to warn the people of Israelites and Judea of much the same sort of fate before they were defeated and carried off by Assyria and Babylon. Though not mentioned in great detail there is much evidence that God did have a relationship with the other peoples, and, being God itwas certainly His right to judge them for ignoring Him, and those He sent to them.
Were the Canaanites eventually destroyed (even to the women and children)? Consider this:
Generally the type of destruction God pronounces upon Canaan is indicative of the destruction of their culture as a whole and this did, eventually occur, there is no longer a recognizable group able to directly trace their roots back to claim to be Canaanites or Hivites, etc. Does that mean than no one of those peoples blood line still exists? Nope, it means that they are no longer exist as a distinct directly traceable cultural entity. There are a great many people living in the area today that may be descendants of the Canaanites, but the tribes themselves as an identifiable cultural entity no longer exist as such.
But there are still (even after 2,000 years without a homeland) identifiable direct descendants of Abraham with an unbroken verifiable pedigree as Hebrews.
Tim
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