Christian Contentions part 2: War and Genocide
How can a good God command the destruction of entire populations?
That is the difficult question we are placing under the microscope in this post. The next major contention in our series concerns war and alleged genocide in the Bible. Before going further, it will help to define the two terms as I will be using them:
War: an armed conflict between different nations, states, or people groups within a nation or state.
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
The primary passages we will examine are:
Deuteronomy 7:1–2 — Destruction of the Canaanite nations
Deuteronomy 20:16–18 — “Do not leave alive anything that breathes”
Joshua 6:20–21 — Destruction of Jericho
1 Samuel 15:2–3 — Destruction of the Amalekites, including children
These texts are among the most challenging in Scripture for many readers, believers and skeptics alike. In what follows, we will look carefully at the historical setting, the language used, the theological framework, and the distinctions that matter if we are to understand what these commands actually involve—and what they do not.
The historical and cultural context is often overlooked or underexamined. It is easy to frame the Bible as a hateful and spiteful book when we approach it with an all-encompassing lens that leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. The starting objection often sounds something like this: “The Bible is bad because war is bad, and war is in the Bible.” One thing we must understand when reading Scripture is that the Bible is not merely a list of commands. It also tells the story of a broken people and what God did to redeem them.
Ancient Near Eastern warfare was brutal by modern standards, and total-destruction language was common in the region’s military rhetoric. When we read a verse that says, “Do not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:16), it is important to recognize that this functions similarly to the way we might say a sports team “completely destroyed” or “annihilated” their opponent—language that conveys decisive victory rather than a precise body count in every case. Canaanite culture, according to both biblical and extra-biblical sources, included practices such as child sacrifice, extreme sexual rituals, and systemic violence that Scripture repeatedly condemns. Biblical texts (Leviticus 18; Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:9–12) explicitly denounce these practices. Extra-biblical evidence from Ugaritic texts, archaeological findings at sites associated with Phoenician and Canaanite religion, and later classical references also point to child sacrifice and cultic practices that were widespread in the region. People today often react with moral outrage to something as grotesque as the crimes associated with Epstein’s island and declare that those involved deserve the harshest punishment. Yet when we turn to biblical accounts of people groups engaging in comparable or worse patterns of evil, many of the same voices suddenly insist that God is unjustified in bringing judgment. This is a common paradox I encounter in debates about the Bible: God cannot be good because He does not rid the world of evil; but when God does act to rid the world of evil, He is no longer considered good. The argument becomes circular. If God is good, why does He not remove evil? When God removes evil, He must not be good. We will return to this tension later, but the inconsistency is worth noting from the start.
My final point regarding historical context is that God had given the Canaanites centuries of time. Genesis 15:16 states that the “iniquity of the Amorites” was not yet complete. Judgment came only after prolonged patience. I would argue that God had the right to act the moment they fell into these sins, yet He gave them extended opportunity to turn. Now let us look at the nature of the commands themselves. The Hebrew term often translated “utterly destroy” or “devote to destruction” (herem) refers to placing something under a ban—removing it from ordinary human use and dedicating it to God in judgment. These were judicial acts of divine judgment rather than campaigns of ethnic hatred or simple imperial expansion. Israel was explicitly forbidden from intermarrying with the Canaanites or adopting their religious practices; the primary concern was spiritual corruption, not merely the acquisition of land. In other words, Israel was not going to war to cleanse a race in the way Hitler sought to eliminate the Jews, or in the way the Hutu extremists targeted the Tutsis in Rwanda, or in the way the Ottoman authorities targeted Armenians. Those were driven by ethnic superiority and hatred. Here, God is executing divine judgment according to His own standard of justice.
If you believe in God, the deeper question becomes: on what basis do finite human beings stand in judgment over an all-knowing, all-powerful God? An analogy that has stuck with me illustrates the importance of context and perspective. One man asks another, “If God is good, why do bad things happen?” The second man replies, “If I told you a man traveled thousands of miles just to plunge a knife into a young girl’s heart while she slept, what would you think of that man?” The first answers, “He would be evil.” The second continues, “What if I told you that man is the best surgeon in the world, who flew halfway across the globe to perform life-saving surgery on that little girl?” The first man then says, “Then he would be good.” Context and perspective change everything. We see the same dynamic in today’s political atmosphere: a headline appears, one source frames the action as justified, another frames it as unforgivable. How do we discern what is true? That question belongs more fully to a later discussion on morality, but it is worth holding in mind here.
Ancient conquest accounts frequently used hyperbolic language—“left no survivor,” “destroyed all that breathed.” Later biblical texts show that many Canaanite groups continued to exist after the conquest period, indicating that the language is not always strictly literal. Joshua 13:1–6 records that significant portions of the land remained unconquered. Judges 1 repeatedly notes that various Canaanite populations were not driven out. 1 Kings 9:20–21 mentions surviving Canaanite peoples still present in the land generations later. Similar exaggerated military rhetoric appears in other ancient Near Eastern records from Egypt, Moab, and Assyria.The theological framework is straightforward: God, as Creator and moral Judge of all the earth, has the right to execute judgment on nations. Genesis 18:25 asks, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” While this line of argument can feel like a conversation-stopper, it still stands. We are finite. We do not see the full picture. Imagine watching a skilled physician make a series of decisive, even painful, cuts during an emergency operation without knowing the patient’s condition or the surgeon’s goal. From a limited vantage point the actions could look cruel; with fuller knowledge they become acts of rescue.
These biblical events stand in continuity with other large-scale judgments in Scripture—the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the plagues on Egypt—showing consistency in God’s character. The same God who judges also shows mercy. Rahab and her family in Jericho, and later the Gibeonites, demonstrate that individuals who turned to the God of Israel could be spared. Israel itself was later judged and sent into exile when it committed the same kinds of sins, proving that the standard was moral and theological, not ethnic favoritism.
We must also distinguish these events from modern genocide. When many people hear the word “genocide,” their minds go immediately to Nazi Germany, just as the word “slavery” often triggers images of American chattel slavery. These are not synonymous with the issues we are examining in the Bible. The Nazis sought to ethnically cleanse the Jews because they viewed them as racially inferior. In the biblical accounts, God is bringing an end to entrenched patterns of sin that had continued for generations with no sign of repentance. The commands were framed as divine judgment on specific religious and moral corruption within a unique covenant context. Israel was repeatedly warned that the land would “vomit them out” if they practiced the same evils (Leviticus 18:24–28). The judgment was moral and theological, not racial.
In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles never command or model this kind of warfare for the people of God. The Church is not a theocratic nation-state; its weapons are spiritual (Ephesians 6; 2 Corinthians 10:3–5). This does not mean God “changed His mind.” Rather, He is preparing the world for a final and comprehensive judgment described in Revelation. The unique theocratic commands given to ancient Israel are not transferred to the Church.These passages remain difficult. They force us to confront the holiness and justice of God alongside His patience and mercy. Minimizing them or explaining them away too quickly does not help us. Neither does reading them through a purely modern lens that ignores historical context, literary convention, and the broader biblical storyline. I do not claim to have removed every tension or answered every objection. My aim has been to place the texts under a clearer light—examining the setting, the language, the purpose of the commands, and the consistent character of God that runs through both judgment and mercy. If you see places where the argument is weak, where context is still missing, or where a different reading makes better sense of the whole, I welcome the pushback. Civil disagreement is one of the ways we grow. This series exists for that kind of honest examination, and I look forward to the conversation that follows.