“Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes”

·         Hittites

·         Amorites

·         Canannites

·         Perizzites

·         Hivites

·         Jesbusites

The Lord commanded Israel to stay away from these nations and not to “meddle” with them. He also told them that He would deliver them unto the Israelites and that they should destroy them and show no mercy unto them. The Lord goes on to command the Israelites to destroy their homes, altars, pillars, groves, graven images and their names from out of the place.

When the Lord told the Israelites to destroy these nations he was actually fulfilling a promise that he made to Abraham when he told him that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan. This is where these nations originated from and dwelt. At this time they had become such a wicked people that it was said that to “let  them survive would have proven to be the spiritual downfall of Israel” (Student Manual 226).Because the Canaanite nations were caught up in idolatry, prostitution, homosexuality and other wicked practices they were too far gone to ever come back to righteousness and they were actually proud of what they were doing. This type of unrighteousness is not pleasing unto the Lord and his punishment was for them to be destroyed at the hands of the Israelites.

If we look at our own world today we can see most of these same sins taking place. It is really scary to think that we have become such a people. We read about these people in the scriptures and it is easy for us to point fingers and judge, but it is a lot harder to do when we recognize the same things going on in our world. The best thing that we can do is to make sure that we are doing what we need to be doing. If we are with the righteous we will not fear and we will be able to be among those favored of the Lord.