📖 Biblical Definition
God's commands regarding the destruction of the Canaanites were acts of divine judgment, not ethnic hatred. The Canaanite nations were judged for centuries of wickedness including child sacrifice, ritual prostitution, and pervasive idolatry (Deuteronomy 9:4-5). God waited four hundred years for the iniquity of the Amorites to be complete (Genesis 15:16). The Judge of all the earth does right (Genesis 18:25). To accuse God of genocide is to sit in judgment over the Judge, applying fallen human categories to the sovereign Lord who gives and takes life as He sees fit.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Not in the 1828 dictionary. The word was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin.
expand to see more
Webster's era understood divine judgment in the Old Testament as a necessary expression of God's holiness and justice. The modern tendency to apply post-Enlightenment moral categories to God's sovereign acts would have been foreign to the biblical worldview of early America.
📖 Key Scripture
• Genesis 15:16 — "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full."
• Deuteronomy 9:4-5 — "Not for thy righteousness... but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out."
• Genesis 18:25 — "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
• Leviticus 18:24-25 — "Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Critics use this term to put God on trial and discredit biblical authority.
expand to see more
The accusation that God commanded genocide is one of the most common attacks on the authority of the Old Testament. Skeptics weaponize modern moral categories (shaped ironically by the Judeo-Christian ethic) to condemn the God who is the source of morality itself. This argument assumes that man has a higher moral standard than God — that the creature can judge the Creator. It ignores the severity of Canaanite sin, the patience God showed for centuries, and the fact that God exercises sovereign authority over life and death as the one who gives both. The real question is not "How could God do this?" but "By what authority does man question the Almighty?"
Usage
• "Calling the Canaanite conquest genocide applies a modern political term to divine judgment — it puts man in the judge's seat and God in the dock."
• "God waited four hundred years before judging the Amorites — that is not genocide, that is patient justice finally executed."