We live in a culture that simultaneously demands God act against evil while recoiling when Scripture shows Him actually doing so. This contradiction reveals something deep about human nature—we want justice according to our terms, not God’s. The conquest of Canaan forces us to wrestle with uncomfortable truths about divine judgment and perfect justice.
The phrase “the Lord hardened their hearts” in verse 20 stops us in our tracks. But notice the context: this hardening served a purpose, “that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy, but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses.” This wasn’t arbitrary cruelty; it was the fulfillment of divine justice promised centuries earlier.
God’s hardening doesn’t create evil in neutral hearts; it works with existing rebellion. Like the sun that hardens clay but softens wax, God’s sovereign action reveals what’s already there. The Canaanites had chosen rebellion for generations. God simply used their hardened hearts to accomplish His covenant purposes.