Maranatha Media
When will men learn that God is God, not man, and that He does not change? EVERY calamity, EVERY death, is a witness to the POWER OF EVIL and to the truth of the living God. The Word of God is life, and it will abide forever. Through all eternity it will stand fast. How can man, knowing what God is and what He has done, choose Satan's way instead of God's way? There is only one path to Paradise restored,—the path of obedience. -
Signs of the Times, January 25, 1910, par. 18
Author Adrian Ebens
Published Jul 07, 2026
Pages 24
Downloads 84
Total Downloads 84

In Deuteronomy 7:2 we read

Deu 7:2  and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.

The command to utterly destroy in Hebrew is the verb charam or the noun cherem. In this discussion we explore whether this is a direct divine command or an accommodation to human perceptions of justice because of texts like this:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. "But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, To walk in their own counsels. Psalms 81:10-12

In taking all that inspiration tells us we see that the cherem is part of human justice that God is required to accommodate to in order to remain in covenant relationship with men. This principle extends all the way to the cross which becomes a mirror of human morality as expressed by Caiaphas that it was better for one man to die than the whole nation perish.