We move on to the instructions for battle (v1). They were told not to fear their enemies even though they were in a minority. The important thing was that The LORD their God was with them. He gave them reason to trust Him – He had brought them up out of the land of Egypt.
The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:31 ‘if God is for us, who can be against us.’
Even though their battle was physical, God instructed them that when they were about to go out to battle, the priest should speak to the people, words of encouragement (v2-4). How important it is that, before we do anything, we should remember and pray. The priest was to tell them not to fear, for The LORD went before them and fought for them.
It is abundantly true that God went before and fought for us in this country, over many battles in history e.g. during the Spanish Armada, God simply changed the direction of the wind and used the elements to give us an unexpected victory. Sadly, we have forgotten and turned away from Almighty God. Little wonder we are in a mess. How we need to turn back to God and follow His commands. Not only does this apply to our national life, but also to our personal and individual lives.
God had just told them not to fear if their enemies were greater than themselves, now, He tells them how to reduce their own army. Seems strange! You will see how God told Gideon (Judges 7) to reduce his army from 32,000 to 300 and still defeat the Midianites 135,000.
God instructed the officers to speak to the people (5-9) – those who had built a new house and not dedicated it, those who had planted a vineyard and not eaten of its grapes, those who were engaged to be married and not yet married, those who were afraid. All these should return home and complete what they had not done. When the officers had finished their ‘team building’ speech, they were to appoint captains to lead the peoples’ armies. All this was to ensure that the remaining army was totally committed to the job, their mind was concentrated on the work in hand, and, most important of all, that God was fighting their battles, irrespective of numbers.
God, then instructs them on how to go about war against the cities which were far away from them (v15). These rules did not apply to the conquering of Canaan, described as the cities near to them, as they were told to destroy them. This was their inheritance, and nothing should be left of them (v16-18). This was God’s judgment upon the nations because they were so vile, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, were to be destroyed completely in case the Israelites learned their Godless ways.
First of all, to the cities far away, they were to make an offer of peace (v10,11). If they agreed your terms of peace there would be no need to fight, and they would be liable to pay tribute to you. In a way, they would have won the battle without a fight. However, if they refused to make peace, they were to first besiege the city which would cut off their supplies and movement and they would eventually surrender (v12-15). They were to kill all the males in the city, but the women, children and livestock and spoils were to be taken as plunder.
When they besieged a city, and it lasted a long time, they were not permitted to cut down trees which were food bearing. They could eat of them and use them as food. They would obviously need to survive, and they could use them for food. I guess these would be mainly fruit trees. However, those trees which were not food bearing could be cut down and used in the siege (v 19,20).
It sounds a bit like what we hear today about cutting trees down. I am not an expert in ecology, but God, the Creator of everything, knows best.
