This One Verse Explains the Entire OT

That title sounds kind of click-baity. It also sounds like a gross exaggeration. It's really not. Once we grasp one important concept, so much of the Old Testament will make more sense.

After they entered the Promised Land, the history of Israel in the Old Testament is just one war after another. The Canaanites and Amalekites, the Philistines, Edom, Assyria, Babylon. Why so much war? And why the war against the Canaanites (etc.) at all?

This was God's instruction to Israel about the Canaanites:

in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God. (Deut 20:16-18, emphasis added)

There are other passages that touch on the topic, but this verse presents two key details. Why was God so angry with the Canaanites? It wasn't because they were pagans; everyone was pagan. After Babel, almost everyone followed false gods; that's why God called Abram.

But the way the Canaanites worshipped their gods was particularly offensive to God. I've linked before to Clay Jones' description of the Canaanites' sin. They were horrible, horrible people. Whether God wanted them all dead, as a surface reading of the text would suggest, or he just wanted them ejected from the Promised Land, as Paul Copan's work may suggest, his instructions to Israel were pretty clear: Get rid of them, having nothing to do with them, and do not let them teach you their ways.

Israel failed to do this. They did not kill them all. They did not drive them out. They intermarried with them. And they let them teach them their detestable ways.

The sin of the Canaanites became the sin of Israel. So God punished Israel.

In the Law of Moses, God had warned Israel how he would treat them if they turned from him. Leviticus 26 outlines how God would use a progression of afflictions to both chastise them and to urge them to repent. Deuteronomy 28 describes just how awful those periods of wrath would be. And Israel lived it all.

We see this cycle throughout the Old Testament: Israel sins, God punishes, then Israel recognizes the error of their ways. After the slightest sign of repentance, God relents. And they quickly go back to their favorite sins.

Finally, after the Babylonian captivity, Israel (well, Judah, at that point) learned not to commit idolatry. Of course, there were plenty of other sins to commit — see Zechariah, Malachi, and Matthew. So Israel's history was one of war after war until they rejected the Messiah and were finally destroyed by Rome.

God's kindness leads us to repentance (Rom 2:4). God's wrath can also lead us to repentance, if we let it. But in the end, God will judge those who refuse to obey. We should let the history of Israel remind us that God's patience is finite and urge our neighbors, "Be reconciled to God" (2Cor 5:20).


Part of Bible 101

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