The Conquest
Teachers
Lesson Summary
In this class, John McCarthy continued the study of Israel's conquest of Canaan by focusing on Joshua Chapter 8 and the second battle of Ai. The teacher began by reviewing key points from the previous week's discussion about the morality of the conquest, including God's dual purposes: judging the Canaanite peoples and fulfilling His covenant promise to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land. McCarthy clarified that the conquest was not genocide, as some Canaanites were saved through faith, and he addressed the difficult question of innocent children by suggesting they entered into peace, as described in Isaiah 57:1-2. The class then examined Deuteronomy 20:10-18 to demonstrate that God made a clear distinction between warfare against distant cities and the specific, complete destruction commanded for Canaan's inhabitants. This limitation underscored that God's commands were tailored to His particular purposes for the conquest. McCarthy emphasized that God's attributes of love, justice, and holiness cannot be separated into isolated categories but function together as an integrated whole in God's character and actions. Moving into Joshua Chapter 8, McCarthy compared three distinct military encounters: Jericho, the first battle of Ai, and the second battle of Ai. Key differences emerged: spoils were prohibited at Jericho but permitted in the second Ai campaign; God directed the battles at Jericho and the second Ai, while Joshua directed the failed first attempt without consulting God. These contrasts illustrated that when Israel was purified from sin (Achan's theft), God resumed active direction of the conquest, demonstrating His sovereignty and the importance of obedience in Israel's military success.
Key Scriptures
When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, speaking of the land, you shall put, oh, excuse me, let's go back to verse 10. When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace with it. And if it responds to you peaceably, and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you, and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, you shall make war against it, and then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock and everything else in the city, all its spoil you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you should, thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these people, peoples that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction. The Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded. That they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods. And so you sin against the Lord your God.
And the Lord said to Joshua, Do not fear, and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise. Go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king all that you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city behind it.