Deeper Commentary
Deu 20:1 When you go forth to battle against your enemies and see
horses, chariots and a people more than you, you must not be afraid of
them-
The implication is that Israel would repeatedly be the smaller force
in their battles. But this must be squared with Ex. 12:37. Hebrew word translated as "thousand" can mean a family, or some
other administrative division. Many of the 'number problems' in the Hebrew
Bible are only really resoluble using this approach. And that may be in
view in the census of Israel taken in Num. 1, and in the statement that
six hundred 'thousands' of footmen left Egypt (Ex. 12:37). The census of
Num. 1 gives figures such as those in Num. 1:21 for Reuben, which could be
rendered: "forty six families ['thousands'] and five hundred (men)".
Although a "hundred" might also refer to an administrative division. The
total in Num. 1 would then be 598 families with a total of 5550 men. The
sum given in the second census in Num. 26 comes out as roughly the same,
with 596 families amounting to 5730 men. On this basis, the total
population (including women and children) would be anything between 20,000
to 40,000. This would enable us to make better sense of the statements
that Israel were the smallest numerically of all the surrounding peoples
(Dt. 7:1,7; 11:23; 20:1). If we insist upon taking "thousand" literally in
Ex. 12:37, then 600,000 male foot soldiers would imply a total population
of between two and six million. The population density would have been
intense, and far greater than that of many modern nations. Estimates of
global population at the time suggest it was only about 40 million, and
the population of Egypt was a maximum of three million (probably far
less). If the Israelites were smaller than the other nations, and they
numbered say 5 million, then the total population of the seven peoples of
Canaan would have been at least 40 million. The territory of Canaan could
not have supported such numbers. Only 70 Israelites came into Egypt with
Jacob. Expansion over 430 years to several million is not realistic. This
approach helps us better understand how all the men of war marched around
Jericho (Josh. 6:3). If there were literally 600,000 men then the city
would have had to be many kilometers in circumference for them all to
march around it seven times in one day. Archaeological evidence from
Jericho simply doesn't support the idea of such a vast city. If Israel
numbered say 5 million people, and recall there was also a "mixed
multitude" with them, then if they marched 10 abreast this would require a
column stretching around 1000 kilometers. Their promises to Edom and the
Amorites to march only along a highway and not spill over it (Num. 20:17;
21:22) is unrealistic if they had such huge numbers. A figure of 600
family units leaving Egypt is more realistic; otherwise we start to wonder
how ever all the Israelites, millions of them, came to be in one place at
one time on Passover night.
For Yahweh your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land
of Egypt-
The great works of Yahweh which He showed at the time of their exodus from
Egypt (cp. the world) and baptism at the Red Sea were in essence repeated
throughout their wilderness journey (Dt. 7:19). Therefore whenever they
faced discouragement and an apparent blockage to their way, they were to
remember how God had redeemed them at their baptism, and to realize that
in fact His work was still ongoing with them (Dt. 20:1). He told them in
the desert that He was "Yahweh that bringeth you up out of the land of
Egypt" (Lev. 11:45). Therefore the overcoming of Edom, Moab and the
Canaanite tribes is described in language lifted from the Red Sea record
(e.g. Ex. 15:15-17). Throughout their history, Israel were reminded that
what God had done for them in their Red Sea deliverance He was continuing
to do, and therefore all their enemies would likewise perish if they
remained God's people (e.g. Is. 43:16).
Deuteronomy speaks time and again of how Israel's Red Sea baptism [cp.
ours] was to be the basis for their daily living; the fact they had been
redeemed from the world by 'baptism' was to inspire them in every aspect
of spiritual endeavour. Because they had been brought out of Egypt,
therefore they were to keep the Sabbath, not worship idols, be
obedient, witness to the surrounding nations, disfellowship false teachers
who would take them back to Egypt, and especially, it was to motivate them
to the faith that they could overcome all obstacles in their path to the
promised land (Dt. 20:1). For those raised Christian, this sense of
deliverance from the world and entering the body of Christ through baptism
must be hard. But it is nonetheless true for you as it is for the hardest
living worldling.
Deu 20:2 When you draw near to the battle, the priest shall approach and
speak to the people-
He foresaw how they would see horses and chariots and get frightened; such
was Moses’ sensitivity to his people. There is a parallel between the
people drawing near to battle, and the priest drawing near to the people.
As their fears approached, so the comfort of God was to approach them.
Deu 20:3 and tell them, Hear, Israel, you draw near this day to battle
against your enemies; don’t let your heart faint; don’t be afraid or
tremble, neither be scared of them-
The Lord applies these words to us (Jn. 14:1,2).
Fear is always the antithesis of faith. God is
often called an "awesome God" (Dt. 7:21 etc.). The Hebrew word for
"awesome" is that for 'fear' (s.w. Gen. 3:10; 15:1; 18;15 etc.). The idea
is that God's people are to be in such fear / awe of Him that they fear /
are in awe of nothing else. Hence Dt. 7:21 says that Israel should "not be
scared of" their enemies, because their God is "awesome", He is the one to
be feared.
Deu 20:4 for Yahweh your God goes with you to fight for you against your
enemies, to save you-
Like Paul in his time of dying, Moses in Deuteronomy saw the importance of
obedience, the harder side of God; yet he also saw in real depth the
surpassing love of God, and the grace that was to come, beyond Law. This
appreciation reflected Moses' mature grasp of the Name / characteristics
of God. He uses the name "Yahweh" in Deuteronomy over 530 times, often
with some possessive adjective, e.g. "Yahweh thy God" [AV- i.e. you
singular], or "Yahweh our God". He saw the personal relationship between a
man and his God. Jacob reached a like realization at his peak.
Deu 20:5 The officers must speak to the people saying, Any man who has
built a new house and has not dedicated it, let him go and return to his
house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it-
Dt. 20:5-7 commanded that in time of battle, those who had just recently
married, bought a new house or planted a new vineyard- should not go to
the battle. But these are the very kind of reasons which the Lord Jesus
alludes to in Lk. 14 as the reasons given by some for not going and
working for Him. This connection not only shows that He is in a sense far
more demanding than the Old Covenant was. But what the Old Covenant
considered a legitimate excuse for not going to battle- He does not. And
even appears to condemn those who take such ways out. Truly He is a
demanding Lord. All must be for Him, and any earlier ways of legitimizing
or making respectable anything less than total commitment to Him must be
rejected. In this He was indeed the demanding Lord- although He had and
has every right to be.
Deu 20:6 Any man who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten its fruit,
let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another
man eat its fruit-
The Lord likened His preachers to men reaping a harvest. He
speaks of how they fulfilled the proverb that one sows and another reaps
(Jn. 4:37,38). Yet this ‘proverb’ has no direct Biblical source. What we do
find in the Old Testament is the repeated idea that if someone sows but
another reaps, this is a sign that they are suffering God’s judgment for
their sins (Dt. 20:6; 28:30; Job 31:8; Mic. 6:15). But the Lord turns around
the ‘proverb’ concerning Israel’s condemnation; He makes it apply to the way
that the preacher / reaper who doesn’t sow is the one who harvests others in
converting them to Him. Surely His implication was that His preacher-reapers
were those who had known condemnation for their sins, but on that basis were
His humbled harvesters in the mission field.
Deu 20:7 Any man who has pledged to be married to a wife and has not taken
her, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and
another man take her-
Often the parables of the Lord Jesus warn that those who think He will
understand their weakness, those who are too familiar with His softer
side. The parable of the great supper records men explaining to Christ why
they can't immediately respond to Him, although they want to when
it's more convenient: "I have bought a piece of ground, and must needs
go and see it... I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come"
(Lk. 14:18-20). The implication is that they assumed that the servant
calling them to the wedding (i.e. Christ) would understand that their
excuses were quite reasonable; the man who pleaded marriage as his excuse
would have been alluding to the Law's provision to have time off from the
Lord's duties on account of marriage (Dt. 20:7; 24:5). All these reasons
were assumed to be quite reasonable, and the men sound as if they were
confident that of course Christ would understand. But His demands
are in fact higher than those made under the old covenant.
Deu 20:8 The officers shall speak further to the people and say, Any man
who is fearful and fainthearted, let him go and return to his house, lest
his brother’s heart melt as his heart-
Mental attitudes spread so easily. Time and again, Moses speaks of the state of their heart. He warns
them against allowing a bad state of heart to develop, he speaks often of
how apostasy starts in the heart. Moses makes a total of 49 references to
the heart / mind of Israel in Deuteronomy, compared to only 13 in the
whole of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. This indicates the paramount
importance which our Lord attaches to the state of our mind. This was
perhaps his greatest wish as He faced death; that we should develop a
spiritual mind and thereby manifest the Father and come to salvation.
Moses likewise saw the state of our mind as the key to spiritual success.
But do we share this perspective? Do we guard our minds against the media
and influence of a mind-corrupting world? It's been observed that the
phrase "The God of [somebody]", or similar, occurs 614 times in the Old
Testament, of which 306 are in Deuteronomy. Our very personal relationship
with God was therefore something else which Moses came to grasp in his
spiritual maturity. Statistical analysis of the word "love" in the
Pentateuch likewise reveals that "love" was a great theme of Moses at the
end of his life (Moses uses it 16 times in Deuteronomy, and only four
times in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers).
Deu 20:9 When the officers have made an end of speaking to the people,
they shall appoint captains of armies at the head of the people-
The implication from :2,3 could be that this was to be done last
minute, as the troops approached the enemy, when those who were fearful
had returned home. The captains were therefore not to be a standing
office, as in most armies, but were appointed at the last minute for each
specific battle. In all Israel's Biblical victories, the military
strategies were always in absolute defiance of secular military wisdom.
For the victory was to be solely credited to God.
Deu 20:10 When you draw near to a city to fight against it, proclaim peace
to it-
Is. 9:6 states that the Lord Jesus personally is "called" or
"proclaimed" as peace. This is the same Hebrew word as in Dt. 20:10-
Israel were to "proclaim peace" to cities they attacked, demanding either
their submission or destruction. And yet
we are the ones who "proclaim [the] peace" of Christ to men (Is.
52:7). Insofar as we represent Him in our witness, our hearers are faced
with a radical choice- to submit to Him or eternally perish. It's easy to
forget that this is how God sees it, as we witness to people. We're so used
to the rejection of our message that we perhaps fail to see the eternal
importance of the choice we lay before people; and this should impart a
verve and urgency of appeal to our preaching, rather than an indifferent
inviting of people to meetings, discussion, etc.
But the Israelites did this to the few remaining Benjamites after
they had massacred most of them (Jud 21:13 s.w.). This was typical of how
Israel at this time were taking fragments of God's law and applying them,
but absolutely out of context. Whilst they disregarded the majority of the
Law, both in letter and spirit. And we see this in the wider Christian
movement. Bits and pieces of Divine principle are used in a misplaced way,
when the majority of God's revelation and will is ignored.
Deu 20:11 If it makes you an answer of peace and opens to you, then all
the people who are found therein shall become tributary to you and shall
serve you-
Although :15 implies this legislation was only relevant to nations
"far" from Israel, I discuss on Josh. 7 how that even Jericho was given
the opportunity to repent and enter covenant peace with Yahweh. The
conquest of Canaan was therefore only so bloody because they had refused
these offers of peace. The agreement with the Gibeonites in Josh. 9 could
then be read as acceptable within the spirit of this teaching here.
Deu 20:12 If it will make no peace with you but wishes to make war against
you, then you shall besiege it-
Again we must observe that the conquest of Canaan was so bloody
because the Canaanites therefore wished to make way with Israel; although
this legislation applies to nations "far" from Israel (:15).
Deu 20:13 When Yahweh your God delivers it into your hand, you must strike
every male of it with the edge of the sword-
"When..." suggests that victory was absolutely assured.
Despite being fully aware of how weak Israel were, Moses often speaks
of the "blessing" which God would give them for obedience; he even speaks
of the future blessing of obedience in the prophetic perfect, so confident
was he that they would receive it: "Every man shall give as he is able
(once he is settled in the land), according to the blessing of the Lord
thy God which He has given you" (Dt. 16:17). Moses speaks with
confidence of how God would grant them the blessing of the land and
victory over their enemies, even though these things were conditional upon
their obedience (Dt. 19:1; 20:13), and even though Moses clearly knew that
most of them would disobey. The conclusion from this is that Moses thought
so much of that minority who would obey his covenant, who would grasp the
spirit of his life and the speech he was now making. And our Lord
likewise- in His feelings for us.
Deu 20:14 but the women and the little ones, the livestock and all that is
in the city, all its spoil, you shall take for a prey to yourself, and you
shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which Yahweh your God has given you-
The softness of Moses, the earnestness of his desire for their
obedience, his eagerness to work with them in their humanity, is shown by
the concessions to human weakness which he makes in Deuteronomy (with
God's confirmation, of course). When they attacked a foreign city, OK,
Moses says, you can take the women for yourselves- even though this is
contrary to the spirit of earlier commands (Dt. 20:14; 21:11). Likewise
with the provisions for having a human king (Dt. 17:17) and divorce
(24:1-4). He knew the hardness of Israel's hearts, their likelihood to
give way to temptation, and so he made concessions contrary to the
principles behind other parts of the Law (Mt. 19:8). And Dt. 16:2 seems to
imply that now, the Passover sacrifice didn’t necessarily have to be a
lamb, and it could be boiled not just roasted (:7).
God told Israel to totally destroy the spoil from the cities they
attacked. But when they failed to do this with Jericho, God told them that
with Ai, the next city on the agenda, they were allowed to keep the spoil
(Josh. 8:2); even though Dt. 20:14-16 said that this was how they should
treat their distant enemies, but not cities like Ai which were
part of their inheritance. This was an undoubted concession to human
weakness. The same concession to human weakness applied to other cities
apart from Ai; it became a general policy that "all the spoil of these
cities... the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves"; and yet
following straight on from this we are told that Joshua "left nothing
undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses" (Josh. 11:14,15). God
accepted those concessions to human weakness, this living on a lower
level, as total obedience. The grace of all this is marvellous.
Deu 20:15 Thus you must do to all the cities which are very far off from
you, which are not of the cities of nearby nations-
Nations "far off" surely still referred to nations within the land
promised to Abraham. God had spoken of the time when He would "enlarge"
the land up to that limit (Ex. 34:24; Dt. 12:20; 19:8). He presumably
envisaged a 'stage two' of the conquest of that territory, but stage two
was to be more lenient. The assumption was that all idolatry would be
stamped out from Canaan, and Israel would be totally faithful to Yahweh.
But this didn't happen, and so the planned "stage two" never happened. We
see how God sets up potentials in great detail, but they may never happen
because they depend upon human freewill. The fact that in one sense He
knows the future... reflects His utter integrity in His dealings. He sets
up potentials in great detail, even if He foresees that they will not be
realized. The detailed descriptions of the temple to be built by the
exiles in Ez. 40-48 is another example; this never happened as planned and
as detailed, and never will do- for Israel would not. And the same is true
in countless human lives.
Deu 20:16 But of the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God gives
you for an inheritance, you must save alive nothing that breathes-
See on :15. The destruction of all the breathes suggests a new
creation. As the flood destroyed all that breathed within the eretz
promised to Abraham, so Israel were to do in Canaan.
Deu 20:17 you must utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the
Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God
has commanded you-
Rahab was aware of what Israel had done to their enemies on their way
to Jericho- and she appears to allude to Moses' commands to destroy
utterly and not make covenant with the peoples of the land (Dt. 2:32-37;
7:1-5; 20:16-18). When she says that she was aware that God had "given you
the land" (Josh. 2:9), she uses the same two Hebrew words used repeatedly
in Deuteronomy regarding God's promise to give Israel the land of the
Canaanites. "Your terror is fallen upon us" is likewise an allusion to Ex.
15:16; 23:27 [the same Hebrew word for "terror" is used by Rahab]. Rahab
speaks of how her people are "fainting" in fear- quoting Ex. 15:15 about
how the inhabitants of Canaan would "faint" (AV "melt away") because of
Israel. Knowing all this, she has the ambition to request the impossible-
that she would be the exception, that with her a covenant would be made.
When she says that "we have heard" about the Exodus (Josh. 2:10), she may
be referring to the prophecy of Ex. 15:14: "The people shall hear and be
afraid". In this case, her emphasis would have been upon the word "have"-
'yes, we have heard indeed, as Moses sung, and yes, we are afraid'.
Seeking God's face is actually to strive for the unachievable in this
life; but it's what we are to do. Spiritual ambition of the type Rahab had
lifts us far above the mire of mediocrity which there is in all human life
under the sun.
Deu 20:18 so that they do not teach you to do after all their
abominations, which they have done to their gods; so would you sin against
Yahweh your God-
The total destruction of the Canaanites was because they would
present a temptation to the Israelites which God foreknew they would not
be able to handle. We see His sensitivity to the spiritual limits of
everyone, and that is so to this day, leading up to the wonderful promise
of 1 Cor. 10:13 that we will never be tested beyond our capability. This
is a comfort when passing through apparently overwhelming tests and
temptations. As discussed on :15, God envisaged a 'stage two' of the
conquest of the territory promised to Abraham, but stage two was to be
more lenient, allowing the conquered people to live. The assumption was
that all idolatry would be stamped out from Canaan, and Israel would be
totally faithful to Yahweh before they embarked upon this second stage.
And therefore absolutely all remnants of Canaanites and their culture must
be destroyed.
Deu 20:19 When you besiege a city a long time in making war against it to
take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them,
for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down. Is the tree of
the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?-
The Law of Moses sought to inculcate a culture of care and
sensitivity to others, and this spirit was fulfilled ultimately in the
life and death of the Lord. The continued stress on not cooking a kid in
its mothers milk was surely to teach sensitivity to the feelings of the
mother goat- to encourage the Israelite to feel for others, even if they
are animals, and seek to enter something of their feelings. And the
sensitivity and thoughtfulness of God extends even to His plant creation;
a tree was to be considered for who and what it was, and not treated as an
enemy. And how much more
sensitive is the Father to humankind!
Deu 20:20 Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you shall
destroy; cut them down. And you shall build bulwarks against the city that
makes war with you until it falls-
The implication may be that the bulwarks should be built from non
fruit bearing trees, presumably those more evidently under the curse of
Eden than others. Whatever the precise intention, clearly the soldiers
were to be restrained from creating wanton havoc. There was to be a
restraint of blood lust and a desire to destroy which can become obsessive
in wartime. For the whole military operation, as any human enterprise, was
to be of God and not man.
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