In the context of the times invading and killing people wasn’t really “oppressive.” In fact invading a country, killing all the men and enslaving the women and children was pretty much what you were supposed to do, and it’s what the Hebrews had done long before they were enslaved in Egypt.
As it is the Egyptians can be considered “oppressive” because they took the whole slavery thing “too far” mindlessly beating and torturing the Hebrews, forcing them to toil with ridiculous expectations and quotas and give them harsh punishment for not meeting said quotas.
The Hebrew people were not very familiar with keeping slaves for big ancient industrial projects. Since the hebrew didn’t have any massive agricultural or building projects going on all that often slaves functioned more like a “personal servant” slave than an “indentured laborer” slave.
Well, that was standard operating procedure, yes. However, even by the standards of the Ancient Near East, killing every thing that breathes might have been considered a little over the top. But perhaps it could be argued that you can’t really “oppress” people if they’re all dead.
The god of the bible is definitely mean. But anyway, I too was told that Moses fault in this case was a lack of faith, and since I had kept this idea in mind.
However, reading the posted verses, god’s motives indeed don’t appear as clear cut. He appears to be also pissed off because Moses’ action is downplaying His power (and as a result punish everybody for a couple generation, which is well in tune with YHWH usual character and behavior).
I’m with Abbie. Yes, there is a symbolism to the number forty, but that’s no reason to think that when the Bible says forty, it means something totally not forty.
Re the Canaanites- they had options. You hear that a group of slaves got out of the world’s most powerful empire after that empire was hit with plagues, see those ex-slaves camped around a tent that has a flaming tornado hovering over it, find out that these people have been kicking ass of every tribe that has stood against them (except for those times they P.O’d their God & He let them get defeated as punishment)- then it might be smart to move on, or abandon your heathen ways, or (as some successfully did) trick these people into thinking your a tribe that’s not on the hit list.
I did, but I’m a lousy Christian and a mediocre Doper.
Of course, since the style of pottery in the region did not change when the Israelites “invaded” any statement that they annihilated the citizens of Jericho has to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Lot’s wife.
