but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you;
To destroy the seven nations of Canaan when making war on them
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כִּי הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִימֵם הַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי הַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוְּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להרוג שבעה עממין שישבו בארץ כנען ולאבדם, שהם שורש ע"ז ויסודם הראשון. והוא אמרו יתעלה החרם תחרימם. ובאר לנו בהרבה כתובים שסבת זה כדי שלא נלמוד מכפירתם. והנה באו כתובים רבים לרמוז על זה רוצה לומר על הריגתם לחזק בזה, ומלחמתם מלחמת מצוה. ואולי יחשוב חושב שזאת מצוה שאינה נוהגת לדורות, אחר ששבעה עממין כבר אבדו. וזה אמנם יחשוב אותו מי שלא הבין ענין מנהג נוהג לדורות ואינו נוהג לדורות, כי הצווי שנשלם בהגיע תכליתו מבלתי שיהיה זה תלוי בזמן ידוע לא יאמר בו אינו נוהג לדורות, אבל הוא נוהג בכל דור שימצא בו אפשרות הדבר ההוא. התחשוב כשיאבד השם יתעלה זרע עמלק ויכריתהו עד אחריתו כמו שיהיה במהרה בימינו, כמו שהבטיח אותנו באמרו כי מחה אמחה את זכר עמלק, אינו לדורות, זה לא יאמר, אבל נוהג בכל דור ודור כל זמן שנמצא מזרע עמלק מצוה להכריתו. וכן להרוג שבעה עממין ולאבדם צווי נצטוינו בו והוא מלחמת מצוה ואנחנו מצווים לחטט אחריהם ולרדפם בכל דור ודור עד שיכלו ולא ישאר מהן איש, וכן עשינו עד אשר תמו ונכרתו בימי דוד ונתפזרו הנשארים ונתערבו באומות עד שלא נשאר בהם שרש, ולא בעבור שנכרתו תהיה המצוה שנצטוינו להרגם בלתי נוהגת לדורות ואפילו אחר כלותם ואבדם, מפני שאלה המצות אינן נקשרות בזמן ולא במקום מיוחד כמו המצות המיוחדות במדבר אבל הם נקשרות בו כל זמן שימצא שיהיה אפשר בו הצווי ההוא. ובכלל הנה ראוי לך להבין ולדעת ההבדל אשר בין המצות והדבר ההוא שנצטוינו עליו, כי פעמים הרבה תהיה המצוה נוהגת לדורות אבל יהיה הדבר שנצטוינו עליו כבר נעדר באחד מהמקומות מהדורות, ולא בהעדר הדבר שנצטוינו עליו תשוב המצוה בלתי נוהגת לדורות, אבל תהיה בלתי נוהגת לדורות כשיהיה הענין בהפך, והוא שיהיה דבר נמצא בענין אחד מן הענינים, והוא חייב לעשות המעשה אחד או משפט אחד בזמן מן הזמנים והוא היום בלתי נוהג אע"פ שהדבר ההוא נמצא באותו ענין, כמו לוי שהיה פסול במדבר והוא כשר אצלנו היום, וכמו שהתבאר במקומו. והבן זה השרש ושים אותו בלבבך. (שופטים ושוטרים הלכות מלכים פרק ה'):
And that is that He commanded us to kill the seven nations that dwelled in the Land of Canaan and to destroy them, since they are the root of idolatry and its first base. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "you must surely annihilate them" (Deuteronomy 20:17). And He explained to us in many verses that the reason for this is so that we do not learn from their heresy. And many verses come to hint about this - meaning their killing - to strengthen it; and the war against them is a commanded war. And perhaps one might think that this commandment is not practiced for [all] the generations, since the seven nations have already ceased to exist. However it is [only] one who does not understand the topic of a practice that is practiced for the generations or that is not practiced for the generations who will think this. For it is not said about a command that is finished by the arrival of its purpose - without it being dependent upon a specific time - that it is not practiced for the generations. Rather it is practiced in each and every generation that the thing is found to be possible. Would you think that when God, may He be exalted, destroys the seed of Amalek and cuts it off with finality - as it will soon be, as He promised us by His saying, "I will surely blot out the memory of Amalek" - it is not for the generations? This would never be said! Rather it is practiced in each and every generation: Any time that the seed of Amalek is found, it is commandment to cut it off. And so too is killing the seven nations and destroying them a statement that was commanded; and it is a commanded war. And we are commanded to search for them in each and every generation until they are finished and not a single man of them remains. And so did we do in the days of David. [Then their] remnants scattered and mixed in with the [other] nations, until no root of them remained. But it is not because they have been cut off that this commandment that we have been commanded [should be considered] a commandment that is not practiced for the generations - and even after they have been finished and they have been destroyed. For these commandments are not connected to a specific time or place, like the commandments that were specific to the desert. Rather they are connected to to all times that it is found that this command is possible. And more generally, it is surely appropriate for you to understand and know the difference between commandments and that thing about which we were commanded. For, many times, the commandment will be practiced for the generations, but the thing about which we were commanded has already disappeared from certain times and places. But it does not turn into a commandment that is not practiced for the generations with the disappearance of the thing about which we were commanded. Rather it is [considered] not practiced for the generations when the matter is the opposite. And that is when certain content is in existence, but one is [only] obligated to do an action or a law at a certain time. But today it is not practiced, even though the thing is found with that matter. For example, a Levite who was disqualified in the desert is suitable today with us, as is explained in its place (Chullin 24a). And understand this principle and place it upon your heart. (See Parashat Shoftim; Mishneh Torah, Kings and Wars 5.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Binding in the land of Israel
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Not binding
- Conservative Rejected
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite Not binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 17:6 expanded it homiletically
- y. Shevi'it 6:1 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic aggadic (Joshua's offer of terms)
Josephus
- Ant. 4.191-193 rationalized it Josephus's paraphrase of Deuteronomic law concerning the destruction of Canaanite cult and peoples, framed in moralized terms
- Ant. 5.42-44 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrase Retelling of the Jericho ban and Rahab narrative rather than the seven-nations command generally
The New Testament
- Acts 13:19 The catalog describes this reception as: affirmed (salvation historical) Paul's Pisidian Antioch speech recounts God destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan to give Israel its inheritance, treating the conquest as past salvation-historical fact
- Hebrews 11:30-31 reinterpreted it Jericho's fall and Rahab's deliverance read through the lens of faith rather than herem obligation
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homilies on Joshua 8.1 read it allegorically
- Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 6 (on Joshua) rationalized it
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- west semitic inscriptions herem (ḥ-r-m): King Mesha devotes the captured Israelite population of Nebo to the Moabite god Ashtar-Chemosh, demonstrating that total-war dedication of conquered peoples to a deity was a shared Levantine religious institution, not uniquely Israelite (9th c. BCE) Relationship to the parallel: shared theme lines 14-18 (ḥrm verb at line 17) KAI 181
- neo assyrian vassal treaties treaty-curse formulae call for total annihilation and extirpation of treaty-breakers and their populations, sharing with the herem command the conceptual framework of divinely mandated total destruction of a designated enemy Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Curse section (SAA 2 no. 6, §§56-106) Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAA 2, 1988)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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Article 3
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
UDHR Article 3 affirms the universal right to life, liberty, and security of person; the commandment prescribes the total annihilation of all inhabitants of the seven Canaanite nations, including non-combatants and children, as a positive religious obligation — a direct contradiction of the unconditional right to life.
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Article 6
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 protects the inherent right to life and prohibits arbitrary deprivation of life; the commanded total destruction of the Canaanite nations (*herem*) — encompassing entire civilian populations on grounds of ethnic and religious identity — constitutes precisely the arbitrary mass killing the Covenant was designed to prohibit.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The explicit rationale for the *herem* command (Deut 20:18) is the prevention of Canaanite religious influence; the commandment thus mandates the annihilation of a population specifically because of its religious practices, which is incompatible with the post-Enlightenment principle that religious identity is not a permissible basis for lethal state violence.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The systematic and intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, or religious group as such is defined as genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention and criminalized in all modern legal systems; the Deuteronomic *herem* command meets the definitional criteria of the act it is compared with.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the seven Canaanite nations ceased to be identifiable after Sennacherib's population transfers (Mishnah Yadayim 4:4), rendering the commandment permanently inapplicable; the de jure obligation remains in the canonical text, but no halakhic authority maintains it as an actionable duty.