Injustice in Joshua?

The book of Joshua records the military campaign of Israel, under the command of Joshua, in which they conquered the land of Canaan.  In the process numerous cities were destroyed, many people were killed, and the land was left reeling from the Hebrew onslaught.  Critics of the Bible have often used this historical account as ammunition in their efforts to discredit and cast aspersion upon Christianity in general and God in particular.  In response to the issue of whether the Israelites, and God through them, were justified in their brutal conquest of Canaan, a number of points need to be addressed.

I believe the very first item of importance for the Christian who finds themselves in this situation must happen prior to entering into the verbal discussion.  That is, they need to settle in their minds and accept the possibility that, apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, odds are they will ultimately be disagreed with.  At the end of the day, no matter what evidence is presented and regardless of the conviction of the argument, a modern-day critic of the Biblical record is going to have a tough time reconciling what happened in Joshua with their cultural worldview.

That being said, I believe a solid defense and explanation can and should be offered.  I think it begins with the Israelites themselves before we even get to the question of the conquests.  In Joshua chapter 7 we read of Israel’s first defeat after crossing the Jordan.  They are repulsed by the army of Ai.  After inquiring of the Lord Joshua learns that someone has disobeyed the command of God in the recent sacking of Jericho.  And it is God’s anger over this disobedience that has resulted in His allowing Israel to be defeated by Ai.  Ultimately, it is determined that a man named Achan is the thief who stole items God had ordered destroyed.  And here is where it gets interesting.  Achan is executed for his crime.  But not only the man himself but also his family is killed alongside him.

The initial reaction to this is that it is both incongruous with the Law of God, and it is unfair.  The apparent incongruity comes from the previous book, Deuteronomy.  In chapter 24 verse 16 God says that fathers should not be puth to death because of something their children have done.  Likewise, children should not be put to death on account of their fathers.  With that in mind, why does the Lord now come along and instruct Joshua to execute Achan’s entire family for his sin?

I think the answer lies in examining the particulars of the case.  Achan reveals that the items he stole are buried in the ground inside his tent.  It seems less than credible to suppose that his family was not aware of this.  And if they were it would make them complicit in his crime.  Even if they were not the ones to take the items, if they knew about it and said nothing then they were just as guilty for the deaths of the people who died in the first assault on Ai.  In that context, God was not being unjust at all in ordering the death of the whole bunch.

Moving on from that point we come to the one that most critics will probably camp on; that of the wholesale slaughter and destruction of the native Canaanites as Israel conquered each city.  Reading Joshua in a vacuum, without considering the rest of Scripture, could certainly lead one to conclude that the Israelites were a murderous, bloodthirsty people in thrall to a genocidal, wicked God.  After all, the author of Joshua clinically records the events without much in the way of commentary.

But by examining what God reveals in other parts of the Bible, a picture begins to emerge of an evil group of people who, to coin a phrase, “had it coming”.  In Genesis 9:25 Noah pronounced a curse on the descendants of Ham, his youngest son, due to the dishonor he had shown his father.  Those descendants were the Canaanites.  They were a wicked people, steeped in cruel and sadistic religious practices. 

Perhaps the most infamous of these was the ritualistic child sacrifice to Moloch that was done by the Canaanite peoples.  Infant children would be literally burned to death in the heated metal arms of this bull headed false god.  It was this despicable practice that would later be one of the proverbial “straws that broke the camel’s back” when Manasseh, king of Judah, subjected his own sons to this hideous death and caused God’s patience to run out, thus condemning the entire nation to death, enslavement, and/or exile (2 Ki. 21:1-16).

This is just one example.  We could go on for pages in describing the evil of the Canaanites.  But the point is that we live in a created order where personal responsibility is unavoidable and punishment will always come calling in the end.  It was the wickedness of the Canaanites that doomed them to destruction (Deut. 9:4-5).  In fact, after taking the time to understand the people the Israelites faced in battle, far from being unjust in decreeing their deaths, God would actually have been unjust if He did not decree their deaths.