This is one of the genuinely hard places in the text, and the honest answer doesn't dissolve the difficulty — it locates it correctly.
The command is plain: Deuteronomy 20:17 orders Israel to "utterly destroy" the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Numbers 21:3 and Deuteronomy 31:4 describe it being carried out. Joshua 11:20 goes further and says it was Yahweh himself who hardened the defenders' hearts so that they would fight rather than seek terms, "that he might utterly destroy them." Scripture does not hide from this or soften it into metaphor.
What it does not do is present this as God's general policy toward nations, or as a license Israel could reuse at will. It's tied to specific, named peoples, at a specific moment, framed elsewhere in the Pentateuch as judgment for entrenched practices (child sacrifice, for instance) that the text treats as genuinely monstrous — not as an excuse for Israel's own moral superiority, since Israel is repeatedly warned the same fate awaits it for the same sins.
The tension between destruction and mercy sits inside the canon itself, not just outside it. 1 Chronicles 21:15 shows Yahweh's own hand stopping an act of judgment mid-strike: "It is enough. Now withdraw your hand." Psalm 106:23 credits Moses' intercession with turning aside a decreed destruction of Israel. The God who commands the herem in Canaan is the same God repeatedly shown relenting, being argued with, and staying his hand — which means the destruction texts cannot be read as revealing a God indifferent to mercy, even though in Canaan mercy was not what was given.
That's the honest shape of it: a real judgment, on real grounds, sitting uneasily but genuinely beside a God who elsewhere stops the sword himself.
For it was of Yahweh to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as Yahweh commanded Moses.closest in meaning to what you asked
See also 5
- Romans 9:18 So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
- Deuteronomy 20:16 But of the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;
- Exodus 4:21 Yahweh said to Moses, "When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go.
- Deuteronomy 7:16 You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.
- Deuteronomy 2:30 But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today.
God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, "It is enough. Now withdraw your hand." Yahweh's angel was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.closest in meaning to what you asked
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- Genesis 6:6 Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
- Exodus 32:14 So Yahweh turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people.
- Mark 14:41 He came the third time and said to them, "Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
- Jeremiah 26:18 "Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, 'Yahweh of Armies says: "'Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.'
- Matthew 23:37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you;closest in meaning to what you asked
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- Isaiah 34:5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment.
- Jeremiah 48:10 "Cursed is he who does the work of Yahweh negligently; and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from blood.
- Ezekiel 38:21 I will call for a sword against him to all my mountains," says the Lord Yahweh. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.
- Jeremiah 50:35 "A sword is on the Chaldeans," says Yahweh, "and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men.
- Deuteronomy 7:1 When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;
Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn't destroy them.closest in meaning to what you asked
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- Deuteronomy 9:13 Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, "I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.
- Deuteronomy 9:25 So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yahweh had said he would destroy you.
- James 5:16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
- Ezekiel 22:30 "I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.
- Numbers 16:5 He said to Korah and to all his company, "In the morning, Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him.
Yahweh will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he destroyed them.closest in meaning to what you asked
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- Deuteronomy 2:33 Yahweh our God delivered him up before us; and we struck him, his sons, and all his people.
- Deuteronomy 3:21 I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, "Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings. So shall Yahweh do to all the kingdoms where you go over.
- Numbers 21:24 Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even to the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was fortified.
- Exodus 23:28 I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.
- Deuteronomy 7:16 You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.
Yahweh listened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. The name of the place was called Hormah.closest in meaning to what you asked
See also 5
- Numbers 14:45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.
- Deuteronomy 1:44 The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.
- Psalm 91:15 He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him.
- Psalm 10:17 Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear,
- 1 Samuel 30:30 to those who were in Hormah, to those who were in Borashan, to those who were in Athach,
From the interpretive tradition
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
The great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.
A worked example. Ask your own and it starts a new thread.