Deuteronomy 20

Deuteronomy 20:1

To Battel] The Law of warre, Deut. XX. 1, 10,—18. and Ch. VII. 2, 3, 16, 23, 24. and Exod. XXXIV. 11,—16. injoyned by God to the Israelites, was various, according to the severall Cities and Nations against whom, whether neere, or very farre off, Deut. XX. 15, 16, 17. and according to the several Causes and Occasions, whereupon they were to wage it: And is best expounded by their Practices in Scripture recorded.

Against the Amalakites, see the injunction, Exod. XVII. 14, 16. Deut. XXV. 17, 18, 19. Against the Midianites, see that, Num. XXXI. Where they slew all the males they could, even to the malechildren; and every woman that had known man, and took the spoil, and all their cattel, flocks, and goods, as a prey to themselves.

Against the Amorites, Sihon, and Og, (included in the seven Nations, or in the same condition with them) See Num. XXI. and Deut. II. 34, 35. and Ch. III. 6, 7. where they slew the men, women and children. But all the Cattel, and spoile, they took for a prey to themselves.

Against Jericho, see Josh. VI. 17,—26. where the City, the first that withstood them in the Land of Canaan, was singularly accursed, and all therein, ver. 17, 18, 24, 26. 1 King. XVI. 34. And accordingly they slew man and woman, young and old, and Oxe, and Sheep, and Asse: Onely the silver and the gold, and the vessels of brasse and iron, they put into the Treasury of the House of the Lord, as God commanded; keeping nothing to themselves: And as Achan, with his, and all he had, perished; They being first stoned, and then burnt for the transgression: So Rahab, her parents, brethren, and all that she had, were saved, upon the special cause and occasion of her Faith in hiding the Spies.

Against Ai, See Josh. VIII. 2, 26, 27. where they slew all, as at Jericho: onely the spoile, and cattel thereof, they took as a prey to themselves.

Against the five Kings of the Amorites: And against seven; See Josh. X. 10, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40. where they slew all the souls that breathed; as they did at Jericho: But for the spoile, and cattel, they did as at Ai and took them as a prey to themselves.

Against all those Kings at the waters of Merom, and presently after, they did the like, Josh. XI. 11, 12, 13, 14.

The Gibeonites, upon a crafty contrivance, got to be spared, and obtained a league to live. And though al the congregation murmured against the Princes for it, yet because of the oath, Joshuah and the Princes onely adjudged them to bondage, to be hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the House of God for ever, Josh. IX. 13,—27. And Saul afterwards in a wrong zeale, slaying many of them, was punished for it, in his sonnes, 2 Sam. XXI. 1,—9.

Many other of the seven Nations were not conquered, Or so conquered, as brought onely under Tribute, See Deut. VII. 22. Josh. XIII. 1,—6. and XIII. 3. and XV. 63. and XVI. 10. and XVII. 12, 13. Judg. I. 1, 19, 21, 27,—36. For which yet the Israelites were reproved, Judg. II. 1, 2, 3. And doomed so, as we read, Judg. II. 21, 22, 23. according to that Prediction, Num. XXXIII. 55. and Threatening, Josh. XXIII. 13. And of the Race of the seven Nations, see that in the dayes of Solomon, 1 King. IX. 20, 21.

And if that Law of warre, Deut. XX. 10,—15. should be extended to the seven Nations also; yet they deprived themselves of the benefit of it, in not yeelding to conditions of peace; or staying to be besieged; But ingaging first, and beginning the warre upon the Israelites; as appears mainly in Josh. Ch. X. and XI.