Joel M Bradshaw

 16But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, 18that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God.–Deuteronomy 20

Today’s title is odd looking. I remember encountering this word in Biblical Hebrew class years ago. The professor was explaining the significance of the word. I had read the book of Esther. I understood what a harem was that ancient king’s had. But this was a different word. It’s the hard H of Hannukah. Like if you said the word the proper way, you would clear your throat just a little as you made the H sound. You sometimes see Hannukah written as Channukah for the same reason. It’s why I threw a “c” in the title.

But the hardest part about the (c)harem isn’t the pronunciation, but the concept. This was utter destruction. Nothing left alive. It’s what got King Saul into trouble. Check out this interchange in 1 Samuel 15 between Samuel and Saul…

13When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.” 14But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” 15Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

Saul claimed to have put them to the (c)harem, but he really didn’t. God saw this as disobedience and evil. And the way Saul would respond to all this would only serve as a great contrast to David, a man after God’s heart.

But the (c)harem seems a messy subject. Why did God do this? It doesn’t fit the narrative of the God of love that we construct. Or others say that’s more the New Testament God. The Old Testament one does things like this, right? The same God of the 10 Egyptian Plagues would order this kind of thing, right? Well, no. They are the same God.

In our text today, God did give them a reason. If you leave them alive, they will ensnare you with their teachings and lead you astray to their gods. The worship of Ba’al and other Canaanite deities often involved both meat and sex. Those things were enticing for a reason. The (c)harem seems harsh, but God was using it for a greater purpose. These peoples weren’t just going to let Israel conquer them. If you have a problem with the means of the conquering, you probably have a problem with Israel being there in the first place. And that is a deeper and different issue to take up with God.

I mean see this as the early years of ‘marriage’ between God and Israel. Imagine if you married someone and found a list of former girlfriends or boyfriends. Maybe you were on their phone and found contact information of previous dating relationships. You would ask them to delete it! I can’t imagine that conversation being an easy one, but definitely a necessary one. And if your spouse refused to delete these contacts it would be a very telling moment for you. Same with their interactions with people on social media that you have similar issue with. You are their spouse! You both made a covenant commitment before God. The God who demanded an exclusive relationship with Israel led them this way for a reason.

But the (c)harem applies to your life as a Christian. Let me just close with this passage and picture applying the (c)harem not to your enemies but to the former you before your covenant relationship with Jesus. Colossians 3 (with emphasis)…

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

I read and apply the (c)harem with this in mind. I depend upon the victorious death and resurrection of Jesus. He truly conquered the power of sin and the grave! God provided Israel’s victory, too. But he still expected them to obey. Same story here with you and me. We all have Colossians 3 work to do.–JMB