There are certain nations within the promised land that the Lord has commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy. There are other nations which Israel has not been commanded to destroy. Today and tomorrow we will take a look at the offer of peace in Chapter 20 and at the two primary ways this has been interpreted by Bible scholars.
Before making war upon a city, the Israelites must make an offer of peace. Some scholars believe the nations God intends Israel to destroy were exempt from this offer of peace (the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites). Other scholars think an offer of peace was to be made to every nation in the promised land but that the Lord knew beforehand (because He knows everything) that these particular nations would never repent of their heinous idolatry and submit to His spiritual authority and submit to Israel's political authority. This means He could instruct Israel to offer peace to all the inhabitants of the promised land while at the same time commanding Israel to destroy certain nations of the promised land.
I prefer that second explanation because I think there is a parallel between the way God dealt with the nations of the promised land and the way God deals with every human being. He makes His offer of peace to each person. He invites everyone to leave a life of sin behind and enter into fellowship with Him. He pleads with every person to submit to His spiritual authority and become His sons and daughters. But not everyone is going to accept His offer of peace. Because He knows all things, He knows who will make Him the Lord of their lives and who will continue to reject Him their whole lives long, yet He doesn't discriminate against anyone by withholding His offer of peace from those He knows will never turn to Him. Just as judgment was to come upon the inhabitants of the promised land who would never turn to Him, judgment will come upon every soul that never turns to Him. But God is righteous and will never have it said that He didn't offer redemption to all. No one will stand before Him in the judgment and be able to claim He never gave them a chance. No one will be condemned in the judgment who didn't bring the condemnation upon themselves by rejecting the merciful offer of a holy and loving God.
"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you." (Deuteronomy 20:10-11) The inhabitants are being asked to surrender to Israel's forces. If the city surrenders, it and its people will not be destroyed but will become subject to Israel. In the Old Testament we'll find a number of instances where kings made certain cities or territories subject to Israel. The citizens submitted to Israel's political authority and paid tribute to Israel's king.
The city that does not surrender to Israel will engage Israel in battle and Israel will overcome it by force. The Lord intends to make Israel into a great nation and that involves making the cities of the promised land subject to Israel. Any city that doesn't surrender must be conquered. "If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city." (Deuteronomy 20:12)
The Lord promises victory. He instructs the Israelites what to do when He gives the city over to them, not if He gives the city over to them. "When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it." (Deuteronomy 20:13) This was typical warfare in the ancient world. Usually all the soldiers of the defeated enemy army were executed after the battle so they could not rise up against their conqueror at a later date.
In cases like this the women, children, and livestock were to be spared. "As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies." (Deuteronomy 20:14) This too was typical of ancient warfare. The victorious army would take everything that had belonged to the defeated army, including their women and children.
There are many instances in the Bible of Jewish men marrying foreign women. Sometimes it's because they've taken women from conquered cities as their wives. Sometimes it's to foster a political alliance. Other times it's because they find pagan women irresistible.
In some of the instances of culturally mixed marriages we find no hint of God's displeasure regarding the union and in those cases it is thought that the women converted to the God of Israel. Even Moses, whose words we are reading in our study today, married outside of the Israelite culture. His first wife was a Midianite and his second wife was a Cushite. We don't find the Lord saying anything against Moses' marriages, and since we can hardly assume a godly man like Moses would join himself to a spouse who served false gods and since we can hardly assume the Lord would choose a man to lead Israel who was married to an idolater, it is believed that each of these women served the Lord. But in other cases we'll find Israelite men marrying women who do not convert to the God of Israel and these are sad stories. Those are stories in which the women either caused their husbands to drift from a close relationship with the Lord or enticed their husbands into abandoning the Lord completely in favor of idolatry. Granted, the men who forsook the Lord for idols probably already had a wandering heart before they married pagan women, which is why they preferred a pagan wife over a godly Israelite wife. But when men in the Bible who are already tempted by idolatry take pagan women as wives who have no interest in converting to the God of Israel, nothing good happens. The men end up giving in to the temptation to worship false gods.
We've seen the instructions for offering peace to the cities the Israelite army will approach. Tomorrow we'll look at how Israel is to deal with those nations that are on the list for utter destruction.
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