Note that these seem to be minor points
militarily. Strategy is built upon instructions of movements, attacks,
logistics and so on. Here God is mainly concerned with what to do once the land
was in His people’s hands. God shows that it is not enough to take the land.
You must ensure it's possession and those are the more easily forgotten
requisites.
Indeed, one of the main rules of war is that
victory comes not by occupying ground but by destroying your enemy.
God is clear in emphasizing that if the enemy
is not completely driven out it will become a stumbling block for the Jews and
God will treat His people the way he initially planned to treat their enemies.
This strategy is coherent with
the geopolitical realities of the time. As the Kingdom of Mitanni focused on a
new problem, the Hittites, Egypt was too weak and focused restoring it’s own
kingdom
.
This was a point Canaan was uncharacteristically peaceful, at least as far as
the big powers were concerned.
The land was thus ripe for
Israelite occupation for a short interval. It was almost a case of now or never.
NO STONE UNTURNED
Apart from destroying the enemy, physically, the destruction
of his pagan symbols is expressly given in many instances.
Objects forbidden by God:
(a)
Altars and high places, used
invariably for blood sacrifices, were only acceptable when devoted specifically
to God and raised on certain permitted locations.
(b)
Pillars, such as Asherah Poles
were almost always forbidden because they represented other deities being
carved with their images. They were allowed, rarely, when erected as a
historical marker, such as at the one King Solomon put up to mark the crossing the Red Sea.
(c)
Images were smaller objects
also representing other gods. Asherim we're popular wooden images representing Asherah (Deuteronomy 7:5; 12:3).
Where did these deities actually
exist? There are generally two belief systems. In Egypt the gods were
believed to live always in the heavens but were also present in statues.
Because of the gods’ sacred nature these statues were kept in dark places and
only seen by priests except during festivals.
On the other side of that early world,
Mesopotamia, the image was a mere representation while fashioned in wood,
stone, or metal. However, once it was put in a temple then the deity entered
and lived in that image. The idol was, to the believer, a real god. This is why
destroying these objects throughout the Hebrew war path had a more powerful
consequence to the enemy.
It is pertinent to ask if the
pagan gods are not real then the images and high places were of no consequence.
That is not so. The veneration and use of such objects is a point of contact of
belief in the occult. In the same way as the altars for God were a point of
contact for faith in Him. It is not the objects in themselves but what takes
place when worshiper and object come together: doors for evil spirits open.
As far as the diverse images
representing different gods then, sure, in one hand there were no such gods
but, in another, sometimes these were representative not of gods but of very
real demons who, are controlled by the god of this world (
2 Corinthians 4:4), Satan.
The Hebrews were the only ones in history that:
(a) worshiped a single
all-powerful god
(b) conducted an imageless
worship discouraged by God himself.
DIVISION of the LAND