When preaching through Joshua 5-6 and the taking of the land - I made the following points concerning the "Holy War":

1. God is patient. God told Abraham in Genesis 15:16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. What we see here happening to the city of Jericho - is that God has been patient with its people. And in his patience these people became worse and worse in their sin, their evil, their depravity. Their evil has reached full measure. Like a cup filled to overflowing. Take the time, if you must, track down some books on these people and their practices - it will make your skin crawl. Theirs is a debased and evil society. Their losing the land is judgement upon sin. Its not something God loves to do or longs to do, he was patient with them. But he is prepared to do it.
2. It is easy to mistake patience for weakness or apathy. We can have our heads full of childish images of God in our heads. God as Santa in the sky (who'll give us good things no matter how bad we've been). Or God as a dottering old man, who can be easily duped and forget easily. No. God is none of those things. He is awesome - in the true sense of the word. He is fearsome. God is those things because he is good. Wholly and utterly good. And in being good - he cannot abide or stand in the presence of that which is evil. And because you and I - and all people - are evil (sinful) - for us to encounter God, well 'It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God'. There is no partisanship, No favouritism in this. God is fair. And this is the God depicted in both Old and New Testaments.
3. Judgement is coming on all people - as it did for Jericho. The Day of the Lord - is when all will stand before the judgement seat of God. On that day there will be judgement and mercy. Judgement as for Jericho. Mercy and salvation as there was for Rahab.
4. In regards to us - our response our distaste to these events - is a reflection of our place in human history. That is - at just about any other time or place in history - the destruction of your enemy in battle, the taking of what they have but that you want, by military force - well that's life. That my friends is evolutionary theory in practice. We though, stand in the tradition, the history, of some 2000 years of gospel preaching - and so our morality, our ethics - when it comes to warfare - have been shaped by the gospel. For in the gospel - in the death and resurrection of Jesus - things have changed - and radically so. In the Old Testament - even for the Jews - if you want rest, you must have peace. And to get peace you must defeat your enemies. And to defeat them they must die. And if you don't kill them all - their children or their grandchildren will come after you and have their revenge upon you - and if they don't get all of your kids - well then they seek revenge. It the logic, the circle, of a blood-feud - with no possible end in sight. In Jesus - we have a new ethic, a new approach, a new way to break this vicious cycle. Instead of killing his enemies - Jesus dies for them. Instead of giving us what we evil sinful creatures deserve - death and judgement. Jesus dies for us - so that we might not have to die. He offers mercy not justice. And in his death he defeats our enemies - sin, Satan and death - so we might no longer be slaves to them. But set free. Slaves to God. Jesus changes everything. And so for us - those who know Jesus and his work - we don't defeat our enemies by slaying them. We love our enemies. We love them. And in loving them we hope and live and speak in such a way - that they might come to know Jesus as we do. So that through love - they move from being an enemy to being a brother or sister in Christ. In whom there are no barriers - neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave nor free - but all one in Christ Jesus.

There is more to be said - some of which is linked to in my other post called "Is God a Monster" - but hopefully this is good food for thought.

photo by:gluemoon