Deuteronomy 20:10 – 20 “When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace. If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.
But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God has delivered it into your hands, you must strike down every male with the sword. But the women, children, livestock, and whatever else is in the city—all its spoil—you may take as plunder, and you shall use the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God gives you. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods and cause you to sin against the LORD your God.
When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them? But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.”
God is laying out conditions for warfare. There are two categories of cities: those that are far away and those belonging to the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Cities that do not belong to these tribes will have the opportunity to save themselves if they will accept an offer of peace, subjecting themselves to becoming forced laborers (slaves.) But any of these cities that resists will be attacked, the men will be killed and the women, children, livestock and everything in the city taken as spoils of war.
ON THE OTHER HAND…. Any of the cities belonging to the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites are doomed to total annihilation. “You must not leave alive anything that breathes.” What? God is demanding that even the women, children, and animals be destroyed? Um, yes. Evidently the level of pagan worship among those six tribes was so horrific that even their children and animals were dedicated to demons from the womb. And any woman allowed to live could easily convince her husband to worship false gods. Just look what happened to King Solomon. God doesn’t want the Israelites to even take any booty from these cities because there would be lots of cult objects in the booty that might also entice the Israelites back into idol worship. God knows that many of the Israelites are still closet idol worshipers and it would take only the slightest nudge for them to follow the gods of these tribes. Remember that the Egyptians had a huge pantheon of gods and the Israelites had 400 years to get used to the idea of propitiating different deities for different problems. Monotheism is a hard sell for these people.
One of the most arresting parts of this passage is the injunction against the destruction of fruit trees. We work in northeastern Ghana, where it can take at least 15 years for shea nut trees to establish themselves. God knows the growing conditions for the Promised Land; it’s taken a long time for those fruit trees to begin to bear fruit and if they are destroyed, there will be no fruit trees at all. “You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?”
APPLICATION: One of the amazing things about God’s instructions to the Israelites is their practicality. God even cares about saving fruit trees. “But,” you ask, “if God cares so much about fruit trees, why is He ordering the Israelites to destroy everything in the cities belonging to those six tribes, including the children? Does God care more about fruit trees than about children?” No! Nothing could be further from the truth. But the parents of those children have systematically dedicated them to demons generation after generation. If there were any other way of delivering those children from their wicked parents without risking spiritual destruction for the Israelites, God would have given other instructions. Remember that Abraham had friends who were Amorites and that God told Abraham that He would not bring the Israelites back out of Egypt until the iniquity of the Amorites was complete, in other words, until the Amorites had become so evil that they had doomed themselves to destruction.
After the conquest of the Promised Land, God never again ordered the total destruction of any people. When America was being settled, there were those who insisted on drawing comparisons between the Native Americans whom they encountered and these tribes. Sometimes these verses were used to justify unspeakable practices such as spreading destruction by smallpox by selling blankets infected with the virus to innocent people. But all such attacks were wrong! What made the difference?
Between the time that God was giving these instructions to Moses and the Israelites and the time in which America was being settled, Jesus Christ came and gave up his life as the ultimate blood sacrifice for sin. That sacrifice opened the way for every man, woman, and child to come to God, no matter where they came from. David Brainerd was 25 years old when he began ministering among the Stockbridge, Delaware and Sasquehanna tribes. Brainerd’s fruitful ministry proved that the Gospel could change hearts and lives just as effectively for Native Americans as for any other people.
The ground is still level at the foot of the cross. Apart from Jesus Christ, all of humanity has sinned and has fallen short of the glory of God. All of us need a Savior. While many times the message of Christmas gets lost somewhere between consumerism and sentimentalism, the plain fact is that Jesus was born as a human baby, lived a sinless life and died for our sins because none of us could save ourselves.
An ancient Christmas carol says it best:
1. Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Give ye heed to what we say:
News! News!
Jesus Christ was born to-day:
Ox and ass before Him bow,
And He is in the manger now.
Christ is born today! Christ is born today.
2. Good Christian men, rejoice,
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Now ye hear of endless bliss:
Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born for this!
He hath ope’d the heav’nly door,
And man is blessed evermore.
Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!
3. Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Peace! Peace!
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one, and calls you all,
To gain His everlasting hall:
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us! Thank You that NOBODY is beyond the reach of Your love and that Jesus died for all of our sins. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
Burunche's Blog 
December 16, 2021 at 8:09 pm
As always so good