Do Not Make a Treaty with the Seven Canaanite Nations

The Covenant That Must Not Be Made

Deuteronomy 7:1–2 establishes a stark sequence: God brings Israel into the land, delivers the seven nations into their hand — then: “you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them.” The word “lo tikhrot lahem brit” — do not cut a covenant with them — uses the standard idiom for treaty-making (karat brit: to cut a covenant, after the ceremony of cutting animals in two). A treaty is a mutual bond of obligation. The prohibition exists not merely because the nations are to be expelled but because a treaty would transform their relationship from one of confrontation to one of protective obligation.

The risk was concrete. Deuteronomy 7:3–4 explains the treaty prohibition's ultimate logic: “you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons — for they will turn away your son from following me.” The treaty is the mechanism through which intermarriage becomes normalized, and intermarriage is the mechanism through which religious conversion occurs at the household level. Solomon’s seven hundred wives — many from pagan nations whose covenant obligations Israel had accepted — led to exactly this outcome (1 Kings 11:4: “his wives turned away his heart after other gods”).

Joshua and the Gibeonite Deception — Treaty Obligation Weaponized

Joshua 9:3–15: the Gibeonites heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, made themselves look like travelers from a distant land, and approached Israel saying “come now, make a covenant with us.” Joshua’s men “did not ask counsel of the LORD” (Josh 9:14) and made the covenant. Three days later they discovered the Gibeonites were neighbours. The covenant could not be broken — “we have sworn to them by the LORD God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them” (Josh 9:19). The prohibition of Deuteronomy 7:2 was designed precisely to prevent this outcome: an enemy becoming permanently protected by the leverage of treaty.

The Gibeonite case reveals the mechanism the Torah feared. Once a covenant is made, covenant loyalty (hesed v'emet) — one of the most binding obligations in Hebrew law — attaches. Even a fraudulently obtained covenant carried moral weight. 2 Samuel 21:1–2 records that decades later, when Saul killed Gibeonites in violation of this covenant, God sent a three-year famine on Israel as judgment. The Gibeonite covenant, made in violation of the prohibition, nonetheless created obligations whose violation drew divine punishment.

The Principle: Formal Relationships Shape Religious Identity

The prohibition addresses a deeper principle than military strategy: formal covenant relationships reshape the parties' identities. Covenants in the ancient Near East created obligations of mutual assistance, shared sacrificial meals, and intertwined religious loyalties. A covenant with the Canaanite nations was not a neutral political arrangement; it was an agreement to sustain a relationship with communities whose religious practices the Torah characterizes as the opposite of Israel's calling. Deuteronomy 20:16–18 extends this reasoning: the nations are to be destroyed so that “they teach you not to do after all their abominations.” The treaty prohibition is the legal instantiation of this principle: no formal relationship that preserves what must be removed.