Summary
The Question Regarding Cherem
Hebrew is a language of treasures. Shalom greets a person with a wish for peace and well-being; chesed names the unshakable, bedrock love of God. But there is another Hebrew word that has troubled readers for centuries: cherem — "appointed for utter destruction." It appears in Deuteronomy 20:16-18, where, as Israel prepares to enter the land, the Lord commands, "you must not let anything that breathes remain alive… the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded."
The question is unavoidable: how does a God who is love (1 John 4:16) — and whose Son commands us to love our enemies Luke 6:35-36 — issue such a command? The second-century teacher Marcion answered by jettisoning the Old Testament and parts of the New. The Church rightly rejected him as a heretic. The Christian does not get to cut out what is hard. Scripture must be received whole, and cherem must be understood within the unfolding covenant of God “The Question Regarding ‘Cherem’ ” 4-28-24.
The first answer is given in the very next verse of the text: "so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God" Deuteronomy 20:18. The nations of Canaan were steeped in abominations Leviticus 18:24-30, and God knew that contact would mean syncretism — the blending of true worship with pagan practice — which would destroy His covenant people. Remember the covenant of Genesis 12:1-3: land, offspring, and blessing. From this people the Messiah would come. Were Israel absorbed into the idolatry of the land, the line of promise — and so the salvation of the world — would be lost. Cherem, then, is God protecting His covenant people so that the Blessing might come for all nations Exodus 23:31-33.
The second answer is hidden in a verse easily overlooked. Centuries earlier, God told Abraham that his descendants would return to the land "in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" Genesis 15:16. Notice the Amorites — the very people named in Deuteronomy 20. God waited four hundred years. He gave time for repentance. The judgment of cherem was not a hasty reaction or a divine temper tantrum; God is immutable. It was the expression that the time of His patience had finally come to an end, and what met that patience was only deeper iniquity.
These two reasons, taken together, illumine our own moment. Peter writes that the Lord is not slow concerning His promise of return, "but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" 2 Peter 3:9. Christ's first coming was to save; His second is to judge. Between those two comings, we live in the time of God's patience. Deuteronomy reminds us that this patience does have an end. If the mercy of God is spurned, only His justice remains.
Yet for those in Christ there is no terror in that day. Jesus has gone to the cross and borne every sin; the tomb is empty and the sacrifice accepted. In Holy Baptism God names us His own and gives us the victory of the cross — Luther called it "the last judgment in miniature." Through Word and Sacrament He sustains the faith He has given. So the Christian does not cower before the question of cherem or the day of judgment, but prays "Come, Lord Jesus, come" — and in the meantime goes and tells.
Video citations
- “The Question Regarding ‘Cherem’ ” 4-28-24 — Would you open your Bibles please with me for our study today to the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, the 20th chapter. If you are using a Pue edition of Holy Scripture, you are going to…