Joshua 11:16–23

Thus Joshua took all this land: the mountain country, all the South, all the land of Goshen, the lowland, and the Jordan plain—the mountains of Israel and its lowlands, from Mount Halak and the ascent to Seir, even as far as Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. He captured all their kings, and struck them down and killed them. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. All the others they took in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that He might destroy them, as the LORD had commanded Moses.

And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains: from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod.

So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had said to Moses; and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war.

Peace at last. This completes scripture’s description of a long series of battles. It was brutal, but no worse than many other wars.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; — William Tecumseh Sherman

Sherman was right. War reveals aspects of human nature we would never admit to—until confronted with the proof. Even after the mind-numbing devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese high council deadlocked 3-to-3 over whether to surrender. At that time the US was planning an invasion that would have leveled Japan. Military experts say the casualties would have run into the millions.

But in case of a tie in the high council, the emperor gets a tie-breaking vote, and Hirohito voted to surrender. Within a few decades, Japan was a hub of prosperity.

Today’s passage is turning a corner like that.

Notice how the LORD takes the credit for the utter destruction of the Canaanites.

For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that He might destroy them, as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Every fact recorded in scripture is actually two facts: the fact we read about, plus that God chose to tell us that fact. Here God chose to tell us that the “utter destruction” is all His doing.

He’s making it crystal clear that the Canaanites were “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.”

These Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. The Weekend DEEPs are written by Matt Richardson. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.