DEUTERONOMY 7 — THE CONQUEST: HOLY WAR AND COVENANT LOVE
Why the herem — and how can a loving God command it? Study Deuteronomy 7 with context, apologetic analysis, and cross-references.
Deuteronomy 72 questions
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Dr. Lucas D. Shallua Commentary · DEUTERONOMY 7 — THE CONQUEST: HOLY WAR AND COVENANT LOVE
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The precise difficulties
Why the herem — and how can a loving God command it?
Isn't election arbitrary — choosing the fewest?
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Verse and question study
Why the herem — and how can a loving God command it?
The command's stated purpose is religious (vv. 4–5, 16, 25–26): Canaan's cult — child sacrifice, cult prostitution, necromancy (Lev 18:24–30; Deut 12:31; 18:9–14) — posed a contagion that historically did infect Israel whenever she spared it (Judges; 1–2 Kings). The judgment also fits the Torah's own framework: the Canaanites' cup filled up (Gen 15:16), and their dispossession is God's act, using Israel's armies as his instrument — the same framework as the flood, Sodom, and Egypt's firstborn. Within the conquest, Israel remains accountable: the same law that commands the herem condemns her when she keeps spoil (Josh 7) or sheds innocent blood (2 Sam 21). The severity belongs to a world before the cross; the gospel now commands patience, leaving vengeance to God (Rom 12:19), because judgment was borne at Calvary. God's character does not change; the administration of his justice does, as the fuller revelation arrives — culminating in the offer of grace to every nation.
Isn't election arbitrary — choosing the fewest?
That is precisely the text's point: the choosing was "not because you were more" — election is grace, designed to exclude boasting (Rom 9–11 unpacks this). The chosenness exists for service ("in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed," Gen 12:3), and the Abrahamic blessing now flows through Christ to the nations — the very peoples of this chapter's list eventually fill the churches (Acts 11:19–21).
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Historical and literary context
Deuteronomy 7 applies the conquest charge (Deut 2; 4:25–28; Num 33:50–56) to the specific peoples of the land: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. It is the chapter critics find hardest — the herem commands — and it is also the chapter of election ("the LORD your God has chosen you... because the LORD loves you") and of God's tender care ("he will love you, bless you, and multiply you... and will turn away from you all sickness"). The sequence matters: election (vv. 6–11) is grounded first; the conquest commands (vv. 1–5, 16–26) are means, not the message.
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Apologetic note
The seven-nation list matches the population map of Late Bronze Age Canaan as known from Egyptian and Amarna records — a genuine historical horizon for the conquest tradition. The herem practice has analogues in ancient Near Eastern warfare (the Moabite Mesha stele boasts a herem against Nebo), but Deuteronomy's herem is distinctive: it is religious (aimed at altars), total (no spoil), and bounded (only the land's allotment). Israel's subsequent failure — taking spoil, sparing populations, intermarrying — is recorded with brutal honesty across Joshua–Judges, which no propagandist would invent.