The grant of Canaan to Israel and the commission to extirpate the Canaanites.
These points call for special examination.
It has been objected against the morality of the Old Testament Scriptures that this war-law enjoining the extirpation of the Canaanites was cruel and unjust; hence that it either misrepresents God and therefore disproves the divine authority of the Old Testament; or if it truly represents the God of the Bible, then he does not deserve the homage and the love of his creatures.——These are grave charges and should be candidly examined.
The grant of Canaan and the commission to destroy the Canaanites have been vindicated by Michaelis and others on the following grounds.
1. The right of prior possession and occupation.
2. This right kept good by burial there, and not by any means relinquished when Jacob was driven by stress of famine into Egypt and then detained there by force.
3. This right protected according to their ability by reassertion, perpetually holding forth their purpose to return and their recognition of Canaan as their land of promise.
4. That no argument prejudicial to their right of war against the Canaanites can be drawn from the absence of formal manifesto, setting forth the causes of the war, inasmuch as such a setting forth of groundsand causes of war is a thing of modern and not of ancient usage.
This course of argument in defense of the war-law in question seems to me defective and quite below the truth in the following points: