Gary North,
Inheritance and Dominion
The Whole Burnt Offering and Disinheritance
The Israelites were told to show no mercy to the nations inside Canaan's boundaries (Deut. 7:16). These nations had practiced such great evil that they had become abominations in the sight of God. "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee" (Deut. 18:12). The language of Deuteronomy 20:10-18 indicates that every living thing inside the boundaries of Canaan was to be killed: "thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." With respect to the first city to fall, Jericho, this law applied literally (Josh. 6:15-21). But it did not apply literally to the other cities of Canaan. After the destruction of Jericho, the first city inside Canaan to be defeated, cattle became lawful spoils for the Israelites. "And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it" (Josh. 8:2). The word "breatheth" did not apply to Canaan's cattle; it applied only to the human population. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe" (Josh. 11:14).
Jericho was the representative example of God's total wrath against covenant-breakers who follow their religious presuppositions to their ultimate conclusion: death.(3) Jericho came under God's total ban: hormah.(4) This was the equivalent of a whole burnt offering: almost all of it had to be consumed by fire. In the whole burnt offering, all of the beast was consumed on the altar (Lev. 1:9, 13), except for the skin, which went to the officiating priest (Lev. 7:8). Similarly, all of Jericho was burnt except for the precious metals, which went to the tabernacle as firstfruits (Josh. 6:24).(5) Nevertheless, because God wanted His people to reap the inheritance of the Canaanites, He allowed them to confiscate the cattle and precious goods of the other conquered Canaanite cities. This illustrated another important biblical principle of inheritance: "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). Canaan's capital, except in Jericho, was part of Israel's lawful inheritance. The Canaanites had accumulated wealth; the Israelites were to inherit all of it. This comprehensive inheritance was to become a model of God's total victory at the end of history. Their failure to exterminate the Canaanites, placing some of them under tribute instead (Josh. 16:10; 17:13), eventually led to the apostasy of Israel and the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, just as Moses prophesied in this passage (vv. 17-18; cf. 7:1-5; 12:30-31).
The annihilation of every living soul in Canaan was mandatory. "And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee" (Deut. 7:16). This was a model of God's final judgment. But it was a model in the same way that Jericho was a model: a one-time event. Jericho was to be totally destroyed, including the animals; this was not true of the other cities of Canaan. Similarly, the Canaanites were to be totally annihilated; this was not true of residents of cities outside Canaan. In this sense, Jericho was to Canaan what Canaan was to cities outside the land: a down payment ("earnest") on God's final judgment -- final disinheritance -- at the end of time. This earnest payment in history on the final disinheritance is matched by the earnest payment in history on the final inheritance. This is surely the case in spiritual affairs.(6) Debates over eschatology are debates over the extent to which these earnest payments in history are also cultural and civilizational, and whether they image the final judgment, i.e., to what extent history is an earnest on eternity.(7)
James B. Jordan
Judges: God's War Against
Humanism
Hormah
17. Then Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. Now we see Judah making good her bargain with Simeon. The destruction of Canaanite Zephath was total, so that the place was called Hormah.
This is not the only “Hormah,” for we read in Numbers 21:1-3 of a place that was also “devoted to destruction,” and as a result was called Hormah.
Hormah means “placed under the ban, totally destroyed.” To be placed under the ban is to be devoted to death. Just as the Nazirite was devoted to God in life (for instance, Samson, Samuel), so the banned person or city was devoted wholly to God in death. To put under the ban means to curse and to devote to total destruction.
The preeminent example of a city devoted to total destruction is Jericho, the story of which is recorded in Joshua 6:15-19. Everything living was to be killed, all the treasures brought to the house of God, and the city was to be burned with fire. No personal booty was allowed.
More light is shed on this matter in Deuteronomy 13:12-18. The apostate city is to be banned, and “then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt sacrifice to the LORD your God; and it shall be a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt” (V. 16).
From this we learn that it was God’s fire, lit by Himself from heaven (Lev. 9:24; 2 Chron. 7:1), kept burning perpetually on the altar, which was used to ignite the city placed under the ban. (See also Gen. 22:6 and 1 Ki. 18:38.) The fact that God starts His fire shows that the sacrifice is His sacrifice, the sacrifice that He Himself provides to propitiate His own fiery wrath. Man has no hand in it, and only an ordained priest may handle it. Man is impotent in his salvation, so that man cannot even light the sacrificial fire. If he dares to do so, God destroys him (Lev. 10:1-2).
All men stand on God’s altar. Those who accept God’s Substitute, the very Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, can step off the altar and escape the fire. Jesus takes the fire for them. He be- comes the whole burnt sacrifice. Those who refuse the Substitute, however, are left on the altar, and are burnt up by the fire of God. (See Gen. 19:24; Rev. 18:8; Rev. 20:14f.; and for further study, Heb. 12:29; Ex. 3:2-5; Heb. 12:18; Num. 11:1-3; Num. 16:35; Num. 21:6; Gen. 3:25; 2 Pet. 3:9-12; Rev. 8:3-5).
Thus, the destruction of Hormah was a priestly act, issuing from the flaming swords of the cherubic (priestly) guardians of the land, a revelation of God’s direct fiery judgment against the wicked. Not every city was to be destroyed in this fashion, but certain ones were, as types of the wrath of God. This horrible judgment, introduced here at the beginning of Judges, comes again in Judges 20:40, when it is an apostate Israelite city that is burnt up as a sacrifice to God.
R. J. Rushdoony argued that Exodus 30 -- a man's payment of half a shekel upon reaching age 20 -- was a head tax. He was incorrect. The payment went to the priests, not to a civil magistrate ("captain"). The tip-off was that it was calculated as a shekel of the sanctuary, which was a separate, ecclesiastical coin. This was blood money. It was paid on a man's entry into God's holy army, which was both priestly and civil. I discuss this in Chapter 32 of Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (1990).
From "Death Penalty Debate" | Capital Punishment: "Ceremonial" or "Moral"?
{18} Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
{19} Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
{20} He that sacrificeth unto any god, save the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
Q.16: Where else does the Bible use the phrase "utterly destroyed"?
Q.17: What does this phrase mean? (Use your Strong's Concordance.)
A: Strong's #2763. The word is often translated "devoted" or "accursed" (Joshua 7). The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says that this word
means a ban for utter destruction, the compulsory dedication of something which impedes or resists God's work, which is considered to be accursed before God. The idea...appears in Num 21:2-3, where the Israelites vowed that, if God would enable them to defeat a southern Canaanite king, they would "utterly destroy" (i.e., consider as devoted and accordingly utterly destroy) his cities. This word is used regarding almost all the cities which Joshua's troops destroyed (e.g., Jericho, Josh 6:21; Ai, Josh 8:26; Makkedah, Josh 10:28; Hazor, Josh 11:11), thus indicating the rationale for their destruction. In Deut 7:2-6, the command for this manner of destruction is given, with the explanation following that, otherwise, these cities would lure the Israelites away from the LORD (cf. Deut 20:17-18). Any Israelite city that harbored idolaters was to be "utterly destroyed" (Deut 13:12-15; cf. Ex 22:19). (I:741)
We shall consider this concept again when we come to Deuteronomy 13:12-18.
We ran across a similar verse in Exodus 22:18-20, and we looked up the word "utterly destroyed" or "devoted to destruction." This concept of "devoted to destruction" sheds much light on the "holy wars" of the Old Testament. These wars would seem to be acts of national capital punishment, in which an entire nation or city was devoted to the LORD as a sacrifice. This is clearly taught in Scripture (Zephaniah 1:4-13, esp. 7-8; Jeremiah 46:10; Isaiah 34:2- 6; Ezekiel 39:18-20). Thus, we no longer have "holy wars" because they were the ritual shedding of blood on a national scale, which cleansed the land of Palestine (Deuteronomy 32: 43, NIV and LXX). Warfare was an act of ceremonial service (Numbers 4:23,30).
Q.53: Are laws concerning holy wars fulfilled or qualified in the New Testament?
First, the action of the sword in the hands of Christians is the Power of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), which is the Word of Christ (II Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 19:15). But this was known in the Old Testament, where the word for "the edge of the sword" is also the word for "commandment" as well as for "mouth" (I Samuel 12:14; cp. Isaiah 11:4; Hosea 6:5).
Q. 54: Should we infer that Christians no longer devote the nations to the shedding of blood, but do pierce their hearts and lives with the Mouth of the Sword of the Lord (Hebrews 4:12; Isaiah 49:2)?
Second, we are to be the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). Christians have often ignored or misunderstood the words of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount when He tells us that the ceremonial laws of national sacrifice are to be fulfilled in His saints. By applying the Sword of the Lord, we obey the Levitical commands concerning ritual sacrifice, which were designed in part to teach the effect God's Word would have when faithfully declared. Leviticus 2:13 commanded that all offerings should be salted with salt (Ezekiel 43:24). The offerings were nevertheless consumed by the fire. If the offerings were without sin they would not have been consumed (Malachi 3:1-6). In the New Covenant, the holy ones are baptized with fire (Matthew 3:11) and are not consumed. It is the Word of God that preserves them against fire (II Peter 3:7). In the same way, we are to keep the mouth of our sword salty (Colossians 4:6). Those in whom the salt abides shall be preserved against the fire; those who remain unsalted shall be consumed by the fire (Mark 9:43-48).
Q. 55: How important is it, therefore, for Christians always to be bringing the Word of God to bear on those we touch, that they might be preserved against the great sacrificial fire (Mark 9:49-50)?
The response to a false prophet is parallel to the response to a seducing city or nation: the entire city is put to death; even the cattle are sacrificed (vv. 15-16). Nothing that is "cursed" or "devoted" to be "utterly destroyed" (same word in each case) is to have a part in the Israelite camp (v. 17).
I know of no theologian who believes that the United States, or any nation - regardless of how Christian it should happen to become - is allowed or commanded to execute an entire nation, even if it were proven that every single member of the nation of "New San Francisco," as an example, were a confessed homosexual, adulterer, or murderer, or if the entire banana republic of "El Panador" were wholly given over to witchcraft and the occultic religion of envy (although a covenantal representation would arguably be sufficient).
"Theonomists" make a point of distinguishing between the abiding moral principles of the Law and the cultural details of the setting in which the Law is given in the various "case law" applications. We don't have guests on our roofs so the command to put a rail around our roof (Dt. 22:8) is binding in principle ("You must provide for the safety of your guests"), but not literally, i.e., as to cultural detail ("You must install rails - even on an A-frame!"). Using this analysis, one could conclude that the commands to devote to destruction the city which apostatizes and leads men away from God had cultural details (e.g., "the Canaanites are doing this") which we no longer obey, but the principle of executing an entire nation is still binding, if we follow the rest of God's Law as it applies to the present situation (e.g.,
"the New San Franciscans are doing this").
Q. 56: Why do some argue that the commands to execute entire nations are not abiding case law principles clothed in the details of the cultural cases at hand?
Those who have followed the Protestant Reformers have always left untouched the sovereignty of the secular princes. We don't declare holy war on occultic, socialistic, or demonic nations because the reigning doctrine of Sovereignty is political (polis-centered) and statist, not Family-centered and Biblical; Secular Humanists (and Christians educated in Roman Law traditions) want to recognize and give due political deference to the "legitimacy" of all nations,[22] from Khadafy and Saddam Hussein to emerging third-world dictatorships rooted in terrorism -- simply because they are secular, non-church, polis-centered institutions. "Birds of a feather etc."
Q. 57: Why is it this command of national sacrificial execution is disregarded, but the same type of command pertaining to individuals is upheld and advocated?
Q. 58: Was Israel any more sinless than a "Christian nation" in the New Covenant age?
Q. 59: Is God's Word in our day any less clear and sure than in the Old Covenant (cf. 2 Peter 1:19)?
A New Testament Theocracy, or Christocracy, would in fact mean complete de-polis-ization; Christ, not man, is King; God, not the State, is Divine. Every believer has access to God's revelation which is complete, clear, and unmediated as in the Old Testament.