Chapter 5 Summary

Will Israel meet the covenant conditions that God imposed at Sinai? This hangs over the long narrative that runs from the conquest of Canaan to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. God remains the liege to increasingly disobedient vassals, whom he eventually abandons to their enemies. Divine self-discovery has three aspects: 1) Conqueror continues the "liberator" identity. God promised in Ex. 23:27 that he would send his terror before Israel in Canaan and in the Book of Joshua keeps his word. God did not seem to foresee that his promise of superhuman fertility to Abraham would require him to become a warrior, but having bloodied himself in Egypt, he anticipated a second war. The new enemy has done nothing like Pharaoh to deserve their fate. This time God does not care that they understand why they are being exterminated or expelled. The brutality begun...