Lets chat about probably the most bloody verses in the bible ok? Thanks to BMc and Grant Lemasquand for the help here. Deuteronomy 7: 1-3 I’m going to type it out so you get the grasp. “People of Israel, the Lord your God will help you take the land of the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. These seven nations have more people and are stronger than Israel, but when you attack them, the Lord will force the out of the land. Then you must destroy them without mercy. Don’t make any peace or treaties with them and don’t let your sons and daughters marry any of them.”
Let that soak in. So this is God promoted and helping with the genocide of 7 groups including the Canaanites.
Lets fast forward around 1500 years to the very Jewish writer Matthew. Chapter 15: 21-28. This is the 2nd of 2 times that Jesus changes his mind. (1st time was when his momma convinced him to turn some water into wine for some Gentiles) actually double ((Jesus changes his mind, that’s cool, it’s makes him a little more human and relatable))
I’m now going put these verses in my own words. So Jesus is cruising around town and runs into a Canaanite woman (the use of the word Canaanite here is intentional and specific). The lady sees Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter. Jesus responds, “lady listen, it’s a no go, I’m not here for you. I got enough problems with crazy Herod, these Pharisees and they just killed my BFF John, straight up beheading too”. So the lady calls Jesus out for kind of being an asshole and reminds him about bringing a blessing to all the nations’ thing. Things seem a little testy and the ball is Jesus’s court. She just brought up some old school Jewish history and you know that Jesus knows the story. Jesus has a choice here. He knows the history of the Canaanites and he knows who he knows he’s God. What does he do?
He heals the lady’s daughter. He knows the past and chooses a different way. He could have continued on his way, forever cursing the Canaanites but no he heals her and sends his blessing with them. He restores the kingdom of God in them. Not only does he do help them, he next goes on what I will call a healing spree of Gentiles. Then he decides to feed another crowd. Guess how many baskets of bread are left over? 7, that’s right for the 7 nations that were destroyed.
What a beautiful changing of the tide, to turn the violence and devastation of the past into a sign full of hope and healing for the future. The metaphor here is phenomenal. Previously Jesus fed 5,000 Jews leaving 12 baskets of bread left representing the 12 tribes of Israel. In these verses Jesus extends his offer. He feeds thousands of gentiles with 7 baskets of bread left over representing the 7 Gentile nations previously wiped out. It’s such a beautiful image to stop the chain of swords and fear to promoting loaves of bread and love. That’s something I want to get behind.
Sidebar: I don’t know if you noticed but there is a sweet contradiction in the Deuteronomy passage. It says “you must destroy them with no mercy, make no treaty,” basically commit genocide. The fallowing verse and verses are instruction to not intermarry. If everyone is to be killed, why is there fallow up about intermarriage. Another reason not to read the bible too literally.
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