Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 21:1 (NA 2016)
Article: Yahweh War And Ḥerem: The Role Of Covenant, Land, And Purity In The Conquest Of Canaan
Author: Kyle C. Dunham

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Yahweh War And Ḥerem:
The Role Of Covenant, Land, And Purity In The Conquest Of Canaan

Kyle C. Dunham1

Many modern readers of the Bible find deeply troubling the narratives depicting ancient Israel’s conquest of Canaan and annihilation of the Canaanites.2 Critics are quick to classify these military campaigns as “atrocities,”3 “barbarism,”4 and “genocidal massacre,”5 exemplifying what many consider “the most problematic moment in the history of ancient Israel.”6 A growing number of evangelical interpreters concede

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that Israel perpetrated genocide on the Canaanite peoples.7 One scholar, C. S. Cowles, goes so far as to suggest that “Moses was the first in known history to spell out an ideology of ‘holy war’ that dictated…the genocidal destruction of enemies. Moses and Joshua were the first to engage in campaigns of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as ḥerem (‘acts of religious devotion’).”8

Introduction And Purpose

Much of the confusion surrounding the issue of alleged genocide in the Bible may be traced to an insufficient development of this latter concept of ḥerem.9 In his classic study on holy war, Gerhard von Rad

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first identified ḥerem not only as an integral aspect of divine warfare but as the very climax of holy war, consummated with the dedication of spoils to Yahweh.10 Later studies developed this understanding either by designating ḥerem as an indispensable subset of Yahweh war or by equating the two concepts as nearly identical.11 Tremper Longman, for example, while seeking to establish a slight distinction between ḥerem and Yahweh war admits to employing ḥerem as “in essence a synonym for holy war or Yahweh war.”12 Eugene Merrill likewise categorizes ḥerem ...