=The right and wrong of conquest.=--One may ask, what right had the
Hebrews to attack and kill these people and seize their homes? Ideal
Christian standards develop slowly. In these days of which we speak
such standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations were at
the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the
morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after
all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves
masters of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here and
there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the country, they
gradually made friends with their Canaanite neighbors whom they had
not been able to conquer at the beginning. In time their children
intermarried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there
came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, or the Children
of Israel.


STUDY TOPICS

1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 11. 13-14, 20, 21;
Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6.

2. Draw a map showing in a general way the movements of the Hebrews
described in this chapter.

3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," "Kadesh,"
"Jericho."

4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treatment of the American
Indians by white settlers.