Good question! When reading the Old Testament, many people will have a feeling, even a question, that the gods recorded in the Old Testament seem to be cruel, especially when they read the chapter in which the main Israelites killed all the Canaanites. As Deuteronomy 7: 1-2 says:
The LORD your God brought you into the land where you are going to possess it, and drove out many nations from before you, namely, Hittites, Gegazan, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites and seven other nations, all of whom were stronger than you. When the Lord your God delivers them to you for slaughter, you shall completely destroy them, and you shall not make a covenant with them or spare them. 」
People don't understand why God wiped out all the people in those seven countries, which also caused other related problems, such as why God didn't kill them himself, but let Israel kill them? Or maybe God asked Israel to kill those people in this way, will it affect that people can kill those foreigners (people with different beliefs) in the name of God in the future? In this regard, we can quote the Bible to answer from several aspects.
Canaanites are full of sin.
The LORD said to Abram, "Know for sure that your descendants will live in other places and serve them. The people there will afflict them for 400 years, and I will punish the land (Egypt) where they serve, and they will come out with a lot of wealth. But you will live a long life and return to your ancestors in peace and be buried. In the fourth generation, they will return to this place (the land of Canaan), because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. 」
It turned out that God punished the Canaanites until their sins were full, and they made the final judgment. According to time, God has given the Canaanites enough time to repent. The Bible says that when God led Abraham's descendants into the land of Canaan, it was 400 years since he promised to get it. It can be seen that God is waiting for people to stay away from evil deeds until the end.
As for the criteria for judging their sins, there is no obvious record in the Bible, but the judgment of the all-knowing, holy and just God is infallible. We can also see that they worship many idols, commit adultery and stay away from God. Just like in the past, why did God let the flood drown the whole land? That's because the Bible says, "When the Lord sees that people are guilty on earth, all he thinks about all day is evil." (Gen 6:5) And he said, "God looked at the world and saw that it was corrupt. All people have corrupted their behavior on the ground. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, because the earth is full of their violence, and I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen 6: 12- 13) This reminds us of an China proverb: "Evil is rewarded with evil, and good is rewarded with good; If you don't report it, the time is not up yet. It's time for Canaanites to commit crimes, and God will execute the judgment.
According to the above understanding, of course, it was the Canaanites who committed crimes from old to young until the end, and God commanded the Israelites to destroy them all.
Remember the history of God's destruction of Sodom? Before destroying the city, Abraham repeatedly asked God not to destroy the city, saying that if there were fifty righteous people, the city would not be destroyed. Finally, if there are ten upright people, the city will not be destroyed:
What if there are ten people there? He (God) said: I will not destroy this city for these ten people. (Chuang 18:32)
But god can't even find ten righteous people! When he sent two messengers to the city to save the lot family, the Bible records:
Before they lay down, people from all over Sodom, young and old, surrounded the house and called to Lot, saying, "Where are the people who came to you this evening? Bring them out and let us do whatever we want. (Chuang 19:4-5)
At that time, Lot even gave them his two daughters and did whatever he wanted, hoping to stop them from doing evil to the two messengers, but they didn't want to. He insisted that Lot hand over the two men and let them do whatever they want, even young and old would do evil like that. As a result, God had to destroy the city, and even Lot's wife and son-in-law were killed because they did not listen to God. Therefore, the Canaanites must have done evil, even the young and the old committed crimes to the end, and God will judge them.
Maybe you will say, why didn't God give you a chance to repent? Are they still young? Or you may ask, young people commit less crimes than adults, right? They died like old people and shouldn't be punished so severely, should they? But we should know that God is an all-knowing God. He knows the extent of young people's crimes (young people's crimes are not necessarily lighter than those of the elderly), and he should also be able to predict that they will not repent, so God will judge them!
Yes, God can kill the Canaanites himself, but he can also order the Israelites to execute the judgment. There is a simple reason. God is the judge, and he has the right to hand over the case to the Israelites for execution. Just like people who execute the death penalty on the ground, they kill people who are sentenced to death according to the judge's decision. Do executioners kill people? Of course not. On the other hand, God once said to the Israelites, "If you forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship, you will surely perish. That's what I warned you today. As the Lord destroyed the peoples before you, so you will perish, because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 8: 18- 19) This tells us that another reason why God wants the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites is that God is warning the people. Those who commit the crime of destroying the country will also perish, so that they can understand God's hatred of sin, warn them, make them fear, remove the filth from their hearts, and don't commit crimes with stiff neck. It is also warning people all over the world. If people don't listen to God, they will have the same result.
One should not kill people at will in the name of God.
Israel's killing of Canaanites according to God's command cannot be used as a basis for people to kill in the name of God. Today, it is wrong for some religious fanatics to kill people in the name of their God, because God has not ordered his people to go everywhere to kill those who do not believe in his crimes. From the revelation of the whole Bible, God has always loved sinners. He is a compassionate and kind God. He is not easy to get angry, but also caring and honest. He doesn't like the death of the wicked. As long as people turn around and leave behind all the crimes they have committed, they will certainly live and not die.
When the Lord Jesus first came to this world, he taught his disciples to love their enemies. He even died on the cross for sinners in the world and became a scapegoat to save the world. When he was crucified, he prayed for those who nailed him in great pain and said, "Father, forgive them ...", which shows the heart of God. He "doesn't want to condemn the world, but wants to save the world through him." (John 3: 17) Conclusion Since God judged the world with floods, he has never destroyed people with global disasters. Unfortunately, people continue to commit crimes, worship idols, stay away from God and refuse to repent. Until the end of the world, when the Lord Jesus comes to judge the whole earth for the second time, the world will be burned by fire on that day. The Lord Jesus didn't come again for a day. He is waiting for people to repent one day. 2 Peter 3:9 says:
"The Lord's promise has not been fulfilled. Some people think he is procrastinating, but in fact he is not procrastinating, but tolerating you. He doesn't want a person to sink, but wants everyone to repent. 」