See Deuteronomy 7. Which people are loved? Which people did God tell them to destroy?
This is a huge subject I have addressed before with others taking many hours and lots of searching.
If you are just looking to make sound bite statements that and ask yes and no questions like: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Then do not expect much in the way of theological logical answers.
Just looking at Deu. 7: in the first verse we read what the Jews were to do, “drives out before you many nations” and also in the second verse: “when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you”. Previously Exodus 33:2 I will
send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
Exodus 34:11
Obey what I command you today.
I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusite
God provides a logical reason to drive them out, Numbers 33:55 “‘But if you
do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become
barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.
They cannot coexist.
Deu. 7: 5 This is what you are to do to them:
Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
There is no torturous death for the enemy in those instructions.
Due. 7: 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm,
with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.
The Jews did not kill any of the Egyptians and He said he was going to do the same with those in the Land, so how many did the Jews actually kill with a sword and
how many babies did Jews kill?
What is this saying about the Jews killing: Deu. 7:20 Moreover,
the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.
Deu. 7: 22 The Lord
your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little.
Generally: everything God asks humans to do is for the human’s sake and not His own.
What we are asked to do is not always what actually happens because God gets involved and keeps us from having to do horrible things. Remember what God told Abraham to do “Sacrifice your son.” What happened? Abraham is said to have sacrificed his son, but God provided a substitute.
In this case do we have records of young Jewish men running swords through babies?
When Gideon attacked a 100,000 men with 300 men, they killed each other while his 300 shouted at them.
These are truly wicked nations that must be destroyed, but there are some good people in them, so God tells the Israelites to drive the people out three times more often than God says destroy them. God is not “giving” the land to the Israelites because they are good, but is destroying these nations using the Israelites because these nations are very bad.
The people of the land were well aware of the Israelites and their God; you can see that from what Rehab said to the spies. If you look at God’s commands (Law) for the Jewish people they have suffer punishments to keep the nation up to the standard of God’s people and are impossible to keep. The objective is for all people to recognize they are big time sinners in need of help and forgiveness. If you are not going to be justified before God by keeping the rules, than you must count on a merciful (Loving) God and seek His forgiveness for messing up His commands and accept His forgiveness which is accepting His Love. Christ teaches us; “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”
Again we do not know exactly how it went down. If these Canaanites had any conscience they would have left town (and it is suggested that is what most did). There would have been some innocent left behind so did the crazies in the town that had been a part of child sacrifices kill these innocent themselves; like we see crazy fathers do today when trapped? Israel did not need foreign orphans of crazy people to care for, they had enough of their own problems and leaving them to die of starvation would not be good.
God told Abraham that the people in the Promises Land were not bad enough at that time to be destroyed, but would destroy them when they got really bad. 400 years later.
16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." (Gen 15.13f)
These people had become extremely wicked and there were good teaching (Melchizedek) around that they seemed to reject over time. God had been patient enough with these nations(over 400 years) they (nations not all the people) needed to be destroyed and hopefully the good would have moved out ahead of time and some innocent may have been killed and went to heaven.
There is a logical reason for involving the Israelites. They are in this case supposed to be doing the work of God, but they do a very poor job of it. We do not know how much “killing” was actually done by the Israelites and how much God did without their help. If you look at the story of Jericho few might have been left alive for the Israelites to kill. This whole experience is not going to make the Israelites proud and arrogant but humble and needy. They will also have to deal with their mistakes down through history.
This gets into a lengthy discussion on why the Israelite’s failure will hurt and yet help them in the future. If God had removed the people it would have been done perfectly and absolutely, but would that have helped the Israelites in their real objective and with their need for humility?