Was the Command to “Utterly Destroy” an Occasional Command?
Not only is the command given to Israel, but it occurs in the narrative as an occasional command. This is perhaps clearest in Deuteronomy 20:10-18, which is worth quoting at length:
“When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. “If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. “If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. “When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it [‘et kol zekurah lepiy hareb]. “As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. ‘This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. “However [raq], in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. ‘Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. “Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
The New International Version (NIV) translates “put to the sword [zekurah, from the Hebrew verb nakah]” (v. 13) as a command (the imperative of the imperfect verb). However, Old Testament scholar Joe Sprinkle [book] argues that identical or similar parallels to this verse should be understood as a permissive use of this (imperfect) verb. That is, the verse permits the killing of the men. Thus verses 12-13 would be rendered this way: “Now if it [the city] is unwilling to make peace with you, but instead makes war with you, then you are permitted to besiege it. Now when YHWH your God gives it into your hand, then you may kill any of its men with the edge of the sword.”
Immediately following these verses, a particle (raq)—which the NIV translates “As for”—comes at the beginning of verse 14: “As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city . . .” This particle, Sprinkle notes, typically qualifies or restricts a previous statement. The previous clause in verse 13 indicates what can be done to the “men/males,” and the following raq clause qualifies and clarifies that such a rule does not apply to women, children, and spoil. Verses 13-14 therefore express the principle of noncombatant immunity. If a city refuses terms of peace, one can permissibly kill the men. For those who will be engaging in the combat, however, this permission does not extend to women, children, and spoil; one is prohibited from killing them.
Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014), 58-59.