Probably one of the most troublesome parts of the Bible are the (many) stories in which the Hebrew tribes take the promised land by conquest.  It’s not just a recitation of the brutal tactics of bronze-age battle that make us squirm.  It’s the repeated divine instructions to utterly destroy the places and people who are being conquered.

To be honest, I am inclined to read this as a white-washed retrospective on the success of these little tribes in shouldering their way into Canaan.  Looking back, they say to themselves, ‘surely this would have been impossible if God hadn’t been with us.’  I won’t argue with that; I think we have all said the same thing after a time of struggle as we are dusting ourselves off, assessing the bruises and breathing a sigh of relief.  But I think perhaps they attributed to God their own inclinations to excessive violence as a way of living with the price they paid to achieve the conquest.  We know about self-justification too — as individuals and as a nation.

So, to be clear, I just can’t buy the notion that God ordered the annihilation of the people who were dispossessed of their land as Israel was expanding its borders.

But… that doesn’t mean these texts have nothing to tell us.  In Judges, chapter 2, the angel of the Lord prophesied to the people, telling them that because they made covenants with their neighbors and because they didn’t destroy the temples of these foreign gods, they would suffer for it.  The people with whom they made treaties would be adversaries within their borders and the gods would be a temptation to idolatry for the people.

As I read this, I thought how often I try to achieve peaceful coexistence with things in my life that really need to be eradicated completely.  There’s no way to make peace with negativity and selfishness; they need to go.  Tearing down false gods of covetous envy is the only way to keep them from destroying the joy of the life you have.

Some enemies have to be utterly destroyed or they will destroy us.

Prayer: I know these things are not my friends.  Give me strength to cut them out of my life and enough hope to imagine a life without these familiar enemies.  Amen.