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✦ Question 005 ✦

Why did God command wars in the Old Testament?

The Fall of Jericho
6 refs
Scripture
400 yrs
Of warning first
Rahab test
Not ethnic
Honest look
No dodging
⧖ See on Timeline
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The Honest Answer

An honest question that deserves the full picture. The conquest of Canaan wasn't a land grab — the Bible frames it as a courtroom verdict, four hundred years in the making (Genesis 15:16: "the sin of the Amorites is not yet complete"). The cultures in question practiced child sacrifice for centuries. And here's the test that it wasn't about ethnicity: Rahab the Canaanite was spared and joined Israel — she's in Jesus's family tree — while Israelites who did the same evils faced the same judgment.

A hard text deserves a straight answer, not a shrug — here's the whole frame
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Key Scripture

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Genesis 15:16 — the 400-year wait
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“In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”
Deuteronomy 9:5 — not because Israel was better
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“Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations.”
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Watch

Overview: Joshua
BibleProject
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The Frame Most People Never Hear

Judgment with a long fuse
four centuries of warning — then the verdict
  • ✓God waited 400 years while Canaan's evils compounded (Genesis 15:16)
  • ✓The same standard fell on Israel — exile — when it copied those evils
  • ⚠The passages remain hard to read — Scripture never pretends violence is small
The door was always open
Rahab, the Gibeonites, Nineveh
  • ✓Canaanites who turned to God were welcomed in — that's the opposite of ethnic war
  • ✓When Nineveh repented at Jonah's warning, the judgment was cancelled
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From the Collection

Fall of Jericho — 1406 BC
see it on the timeline
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Rahab
the Canaanite in Jesus's family tree
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Why It Matters

“The same Book that records the conquest builds the case that God's patience is long, His door is open, and His standard is one standard — for Canaan, for Israel, for us.”

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